Avalon Grand Panama, Las Cumbres

While visiting Panama, my family and I decided to reserve a room for the weekend. For some reason, the staff couldn't find our resrevation and tried to charge us more than quoted. After we settled on our quoted price, we were escorted to our room which smelled as if it were painted earlier that day. Not a big deal. We unpacked and went down stairs for dinner and that's when everything went down hill. We sat ourselves and were given menus, 30 min later we finally recieved our drinks and placed our order. Again, not too big of a deal. Then a TV camera crew walked in with a local TV personality and a handfull of kids. Needless to say the staff dropped everything they were previously doing and literally waited on the new "visitors" hand and foot. We finally recieved our meal an hour and fifteen minutes after we sat down! Needless to say wehenever the "visitors" requested something, they were served in under 5 min. We were disgusted with the resturant's service. The reception desk was not much better. We asked for directions to the pool, only to find out that it was reserved for the night. That left us absolutely nothing to do there, since the hotel is in the middle of a rain forest. We got a full refund and will never return.

A nice place if you like isolation. We stayed in the "villas" near the rain forest. This resort is about 20-25 minutes from the airport. when got to our rooms or "villas", a strong smell of moth balls really opens your eyes, they placed them in every drawer and closet(threw everyone of them away). No coffee maker in the "villas". we walked through the rain forest..didnt see any type of wildlife. heard and seen birds but nothing to write home about. as for the water park ONLY OPEN ON THE WEEKENDS!!!!(they dont mention that on their website),also to the entire PUBLIC(we arrived on a monday :( they dont provide outside shuttle service to or from the airport. restaurant was ok,they didnt have a wide varity of food on the menu. had a buffet table set up with no food becuase there wasnt enough people staying there at the resort when we were there....and we were probally the only ones there that week. there were six in our group and they would gives us only three menu's to look at. the restaurant is about 5-10 min walking dist. from the villas. i do recommend the tour of panama that is offered by an outside company which has an rep inside the main lobby. they took us to the panama canal along with a guided tour of the old and new panama city. which has alot of history. the driver was even nice enough to stop at a restaurant in the city so we can eat before we returned to the resort(not part of the tour we just asked if he wouldnt mind). this tour is offered in spanish and english. the resort staff was really nice. this hotel can be improved so greatly if they read some of their reviews from former customers. hope this helped.

I was surprised when we arrived to this hotel outside Panama City. If you rent a car the distance doesn’t matter at all. The staff was really gentle and thoughtful, the accommodations were just fine. It is certainly an eco-tourism hotel surrounded by huge and lush gardens as well as friendly wildlife (colorful birds, squirrels, raccoons, etc). I would certainly recommend staying here if you enjoy alternative traveling.