Olas Altas Inn Hotel & Spa

The receptionist was very friendly, and the hotel is right on the malecón. I recommend paying a little extra or asking for an oceanfront room, since those have balconies and the others don’t.

We booked a table on the terrace to watch the carnaval parade. The location gave us a great front-row view of the whole parade, but the service was awful and the food wasn’t very good. They were trying to serve over 500 people a sit-down dinner with an open bar. It might have gone better with another 10 staff members. They ran out of glasses and couldn’t serve drinks because they didn’t even have plastic glasses.

The rooms were very clean, housekeeping was polite, the pool is beautiful, and the hotel restaurant’s food is good. It felt very secure too. The one thing that sucks is you can’t bring in outside food, so don’t bring your own.

I’m writing this in English so Americans can beware. We stayed five days over Christmas. I was generously going to give the place four stars: the rooms were clean, housekeeping and security were nice, and the beach was easy to reach. Guests have to wear a wristband throughout their stay, and no food is allowed in the rooms. Our room was cleaned only once during all five days. We kept the Do Not Disturb sign up the rest of the time. At checkout, the receptionist said we were missing a pool towel. Getting new pool towels meant returning to the receptionist to ask, which was inconvenient. Whenever the kids swam, they got new towels, and I personally brought the used ones down. With the beach so close, damp things never dried, so I know none were missing. Still, because we were Americans, we were made to pay 400 pesos, about $22, for a “missing” pool towel. Such a cheap shot. We won’t stay here again, and we’ll tell our friends and family back in the States to avoid it if they visit.