Amarla Boutique Hotel Cartagena

Great location, nice hotel but very poor restaurant service.

Location - Pool

Average and overpriced

Great location and rooftop terrace view

Lack of maintenance.

The design of the place.

Great boutique hotel and very nice staff - room was very comfortable and AC worked perfectly in a much needed weather; breakfast was good

Staff worked hard but high prices without 5 star

Beautiful historic building with pretty rooftop pool although no view from sitting. Attractive courtyard built around two trees.

Beautifully disappointing

Amarla is a truly stunning hotel that unfortunately has a pretty severe identity problem. Upon entering, your breath is taken away by the beautiful art and amazing scale of the place. It feels like you've been transported to a wonderfully extravagant secret where the rooftop, the lobby, and the rooms seem painstakingly curated. However, upon closer examination, the hotel is not as wonderful as it seems. My husband and I chose to spend our honeymoon here, thinking the stay would be magical, but it was far from that. The hotel staff were very kind (Dorian was very nice), but there seems to be consistently poor communication between them. From our smaller-than-expected room with no view besides the inner wall of the hotel, we had a bathroom that, besides having very odd water pressure in a shower that did not drain, also had a window that did not seal whatsoever. This was uncomfortable because A) it did nothing to keep the Cartagena humidity and mosquitoes OUTSIDE and B) you could vividly hear all of the conversations in the dining space below, as well as the frequent disagreements between the hotel staff. During the first breakfast of our honeymoon, we waited for over an hour before my husband went to inquire about the food's status, and only then did lukewarm food appear. Mind you, the mosquitoes had a full meal of all of the hotel guests during breakfast, as we were all itching uncontrollably in the open-air space (if you are coming, bring lots of bug spray). During our first swim at the rooftop swimming pool, we noticed that although we were blown away by the view, the pool lacked some maintenance, and there was no hotel staff monitoring for available towels (there were none) or anything else. My husband went downstairs to ask for two cocktails, and upon asking twice whether he should wait to bring them up himself, he was persuaded that they would be brought up. And the cocktails were indeed brought up... 45 minutes later. And again on our last day, when we wanted to enjoy some room service, the food was brought up 40 minutes later (which is fine), but without any of the coffee I had ordered. I messaged the front desk, and they read my message but did not respond. My husband went down to inquire, and the staff at the front desk apparently went to yell at the kitchen staff before someone brought up two coffees 15 minutes later. All that to say, Amarla is a beautiful hotel, but it is a hotel that really needs to work on its guest relations and communication. Besides all of the inconveniences, we were not expecting the red carpet upon arriving, but I genuinely would've appreciated the smallest single gesture or thoughtful detail to make our honeymoon experience at such a beautiful boutique hotel any better than just 'average.'