Colombia: Cartagena & Medellín Vacations

Arriving by boat straight to the hotel was a great experience

The only thing I would change is for travelers who can get the climb up Guatape relatively quickly, is to leave the area soon after so you can spend more time in the beautiful little town that follows it.

Wow...what an amazing experience. Our tour guide was soooo knowledgeable about all kinds of things and was patient and thorough. He provided us with information on the flora, fauna, history...really enjoyable and informative. I would definitely recommend him.

Sofia our tour guide in Cartagena was good, but we found her to less informed/knowledgeable than the other tour guides we experienced on this trip. She provided basic information but we found that she did not freely share information unless asked. Additionally, given how hot it was that day, we asked her to provide some breaks during the 3 hour tour, and instead of taking us to air conditioned locations, we simply stopped at various places along the street in the stifling heat so we really could not cool off. The home she took us to for the "ice cream" stop was quite dirty and the washrooms not acceptable. Overall we did not find this tour worthwhile.

Mayelline, our Bogota Tour Guide was awesome! She was very knowledgeable and made the tour very interesting and informative for us. We highly recommend her.

The tour coordination was not well planned as we were picked up from the airport by a driver who could not speak english at all and even though we explained that we were hungry, he communicated that there would be food on the farm. We asked it we could stop along the way to pick some snacks up and he did not. We were told that they would be selling typical Colombian snacks (home-made empanadas) and refreshments at the farm, but they were not. We did not eat anything the whole day, and the tour was so so. The facilities were being repaired, it was quite minimalistic, the hats and ponchos were re-used without cleaning....just overall lacked quality and substance. Another more established farm should be considered for future.

Although this was supposed to be the highlight at the beginning of our tour, we felt that the description of the activity and what was actually delivered did not match at all. The quality of the venue, the food and overall experience was less than acceptable. The food was more cafeteria quality (than top chef), and no wine/alcoholic beverages were offered. We would have preferred to skip it and do something on our own.

There was a lot of city road work going on while we were there, but Hotel Capellan served as an oasis from that, cool, comfortable, right in the heart of the city.

A piece of paradise right outside Tayrona National Park. A pleasure to visit in its own right.

Beautiful hotel in the heart of a beautiful city - clean and attentive!

Loved getting to see the farm and the view was spectacular. A true gem.