Originally Posted by oberwolfach

I stayed here for a few days shortly after it became available for booking. At the time there was still a lot of ongoing work (only one of the restaurants was open). The owner was around every day to supervise, and was an interesting person to talk to.

It’s somewhat of a challenge to get to. There’s an option for an expensive transfer from the Hotel La Compania location in Casco Viejo. I took the public bus, which is about 3 hours between downtown Panama City and El Valle (note: make sure to take the bus to El Valle, not the bus to Anton, which is different and will not take you to where you want to go) for $4.25 each way (the Albrook bus station in Panama City has a silly additional $0.10 surcharge to get to the bus bay).

As you might expect for a property that was still under construction, there were some teething problems: the water in my shower didn’t quite get to hot (it wasn’t cold but clearly wasn’t getting to around 38-40 Celsius) and the evening happy hour didn’t have hors d’oeuvres yet, among the issues that I noticed.

Those are all fixable. On the positives, the staff was friendly and enthusiastic (the hotel is new, and it’s probably going to be the town’s single biggest economic engine once it’s fully operational), the breakfast was very good (not yet as good as the Casco Viejo property, which had the best hotel breakfast I’ve had in the Americas), and the property is beautiful and interesting to walk around. Breakfast was a buffet on the weekend and a la carte on the weekdays; the owner told me occupancy wasn’t high enough on the weekdays at that point to support a buffet. The concierge staff was very helpful in discussing the area; I was especially interested in hiking and they suggested several trails. They also coordinated my bus back to Panama City, confirming the schedule and booking a taxi to the center of El Valle (it’s close enough to be walkable but far enough that you wouldn’t want to do it with luggage).

Elite recognition was good. I was upgraded to the junior suite as a Globalist from the base room I booked, which I believe was the only suite type open for occupancy at the time. Checking now, I see that SUAs can actually book into the king suite.

The main hike I did was the India Dormida, a popular trail that goes up about 1000 feet from the valley floor and has several points with excellent views of the valley. For most of the hikes I would recommend going in the dry season (late December to early April); since there’s a lot of ascending and descending on the rim of the crater surrounding the town, I think most trails would be uncomfortably slippery after heavy rains. Note that seemingly every trail charges an entry fee of a few dollars; I wish the town would just charge a tourist tax to fund trail maintenance instead.

Note that while the climate is less oppressive than in Panama City, it still is rather hot and humid. El Valle is only about 2200 feet above sea level, so it’s just a few degrees cooler.

Overall, it’s a property with strong fundamentals owned by someone who has already done a really great job with the Casco Viejo property. The deficiencies I saw are all easily rectifiable over time. I’d expect that by the time the next dry season comes, it’ll be awesome.