Hotel Boutique Casa Mia

The staff offers excellent and warm service, being friendly, helpful, and attentive. The location is centrally situated near parks, beaches, marina, and attractions, ideal for exploring Santa Marta's main attractions.

We booked this hotel through Kayak as it was listed as having a pool. I had a quick glance and it appeared to have a small pool. What they actually have isn’t a pool by any stretch of the imagination, it’s basically a bit bath with dirty water in it, or a jacuzzi which doesn’t have bubbles. We stayed for 3 nights and on the second morning, I was on my way to the local laundrette, which offers a 3 hour service. The cleaning lady stopped me on the way out, and insisted that she did it. She charged more, but I thought it would be convenient, so I went with her. I checked whether she could do it quickly, as I needed the clothes back, and she said she would leave them in our room at 5pm. On returning back from a day of hiking at 7pm, they were not there, so I chased. The young boy on reception tried to contact her but couldn’t, and he couldn’t find the clothes, so I had to wear the wet and dirty clothes I’d been hiking in for an evening out. On the third morning, they were there and she had cleaned them, but was more interested in chasing me for payment than apologising or explaining why they were late. The same day, we also asked for fresh towels, as they hadn’t changed them since we arrived. The lad on reception said he would bring them when he’d finished his paperwork, which seemed to be updating his social media. He eventually brought some, but a few minutes later he reappeared asking for the dirty towels back, which we were about to use for the ‘pool’. The cleaning lady was on the phone to him at the same time, presumably the same one who was so elusive when it came to our washing, anxious that we didn’t steal the towels… Pictures are misleading, the breakfast looks nothing like this. There are two options, a big pancake or garlic toast with eggs. It’s fine, but very basic. We had to constantly chase for more coffee after being given half a cup. The sink in the bathroom didn’t drain at all, so it was filthy. The aircon was very weak, but eventually didn’t cool the room down. The room was quite nice but had no external windows and there was a flower pot by the bed which attracted mosquito lavre. The hotel is incredibly loud, as it’s next to all the bars and constantly beeping taxis - they can’t do much about this to be fair but it should be considered if you’re after a quiet night. On the last day after we’d checked out, we collected luggage and asked to have a quick shower by the pool, and the young lady on reception was very helpful, even offering us nice new towels rather than the ragged old ones we’d had in the room. Other than her, the rest of the staff were quite disinterested and unhelpful.

If you are after a relaxing stay this place is not for you! The rooms had a bad stench of damp and there was a lot of noise coming into the rooms from the bar that is opposite. There was also a lot of mosquitos in the room and there was no effort by the hotel to keep them out. This hotel was so bad that we stayed for an hour and left the hotel to stay at another one. The staff said they would get in touch with us the next day to sort out a refund but never did. I emailed them a couple of times with no reply and they refused the refund when *********** tried to get in touch. All in all this was the worst hotel we stayed in whilst travelling around Colombia and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone - please avoid!