InterContinental PLAYA BONITA RESORT & SPA

beach is dirty and rocky, not even able to get in water. location is remote, unable to do access other activities easily. one restaurant was open for dinner. other restaurants were overpriced for barely decent food. found bugs in our bed sheets. wifi did not work except in business office. staff not helpful/friendly when switching hotels. transferred to intercontinental in panama city after one night. do not waste your money

Our experience was good. Location was good, cab rides to the city are not too expensive, pool was nice, buffet could have been better.

The room room described on the reservation would have been very noisy. It was the closest to the lobby and adjacent elevator. The front desk staff needs to be more efficient and professional in the checking in and out of the guests. Since this is a Panamanian franchise for Intercontinental Hotels, doubt that this would happen. Maybe when a Westin Resort opens next door, something might happen, but it appears to be on land owned by a Panamanian investor that also works the Intercontinental Hotel. Not much choice is given on restaurants or food available - usually forced into the buffet lines

I'll start with the pros: the area was pretty, the pools were nice and the rooms were clean. The cons: unfriendly service (worst I have ever experienced), expensive and horrible food (I just ate a granola bar the last day because I couldn't stand to eat one more thing), it is in the middle of no where and hard to travel from, it was nothing special. I'm really surprised that at $215 a night in Panama that this is what you would get. Overall the stay was very disappointing.

The physical appearance of the hotel is very pleasing. However, the service leaves a lot to be desired. Except for one restaurant, one with a thatch roof by the pool, it was very difficult to get rapid satisfactory service. All I wanted was to see on one of various occasions was to have a waiter/waitress come take care of us, without being promted, when we sat at a table. It would have been nice to have the coffee available in the morning to make, and other pleasantries that were missing.

The hotel is lovely. The pools are beautiful. The beach is fine, just not blue Carribean. The location is far from the city and anything else. So, it cost about $25 by taxi to get to the city, and of course there is the return trip. The people were friendly and most reminded us to be careful since they felt many places were not safe. The Canal was wonderful. Be prepared to pay cash for everything.

The hotel/resort was empty. There are no activities other than pool. Beach nice to walk on not for swimming. I did not get the room type I reserved. I was told that because the hotel was under maintenance I had to take a room on the 3rd floor instead of a King deluxe on the 5th. This in spite of the fact that there were only 20-30 guests in the hotel that can easily accommodate 600 people. I was advised that I had to join the Ambassador's Club for $150 to get breakfast. Then was told that since only 5 guests were in the club, they would not open the Ambassador room for use of the internet. One of three restaurants was completely closed. The food served for breakfast was not well prepared. Soup/ coffee/tea cold. Eggs were over cooked, buffalo chicken wings were uncooked and had blood even though returned to the kitchen for more cooking, club sandwich had old, tasteless meat, shrimp tempura batter was undercooked/raw. There are no other eateries close to the hotel. You are stuck. One good note is the lobby bar and the four staff who really tried to salvage our stay. Otherwise, I'm heading back to the El Panama Hilton Hotel in town.

Beautiful hotel with nice pool, gym and spa. Great pool service for lunch, but would not recommend the hotel restaurant for dinner. Food was terrible and pricey, plus the decor was quite tacky compared to the hotel otherwise. Can go to PC for $20 each way and have dinner at one of the many high end restaurants. Rooms were well appointed but the bedding was made of polyester blend that was not the most comfortable. Please do not be fooled by the beach. Panama beaches are not the best by any means. The water on the Pacific side is murky and while the hotel claims it is clean, I nor anyone else that I saw swam in the ocean. The beach itself is fine, but nothing spectacular and if you walk over just a bit you will see all the garbage that you could be swimming with since there is runoff from some unknown area. Overall I would recommend the hotel.

InterContinental Playa Bonita was fantastic -from the staff's record response time to the awesome ocean views to the luxurious pools to the mangrove forest down the beach to the cleanest rooms ever. There's a lot to do -not only for a couple, but also for families. Only a few negatives to consider: your dining choices are limited and the food is not so great, and you can't swim in the ocean water because Panama City dumps raw sewage into it.

Very nice hotel.