Tag: Hyatt Regency Cartagena

Review of The Hyatt Regency, Cartagena

I’d say this is probably the second best hotel I have ever stayed at.

There aren’t too many opportunities for me to stay at high-end hotels since I pride myself on trying to find cheap deals, but sometimes you have to splurge right? We got our flight to Cartagena for so cheap that it made sense to spend a little more on our accommodations.

I knew I wanted to stay at this hotel as soon as I had seen the pictures of their incredible infinity pool overlooking Bocagrande. In fact, I’m pretty sure this hotel had five different pools and I was really pleased at the sexiest infinity pool having a NO CHILDREN policy. They had their own pool so the rest of us had peace and quiet to drink our liquor and take all the selfies for IG we wanted. Big win.

There isn’t too much depth and detail to go into with this review because unlike the other two ‘very nice’ hotels I have stayed at – we didn’t spend much time at the Hyatt. We had a lot of plans and activities to do so the hotel was truly only used for sleeping, swimming and the spa. (If you want to read about how the spa was, click here)

First of all, this hotel is massive. I can’t recall the exact number but I know we were on the 18th floor, the check-in desk was on the 12th, the spa on the 14th and there was floors going way up into the 30’s. This was the first time I walked into a hotel and the front desk wasn’t on the first floor, it was all the way on the 12th. Luckily the check-in process was very quick and painless as we had arrived at 11pm on a Friday night and just wanted to get to sleep as soon as possible.

The room was a good size and looked modern. Because I am lazy, I didn’t like the closets being all the way by the entrance to the room so naturally, the chairs and table by our beds ended up being where we stored our clothes. (don’t judge) The bathroom was cool because everything was motion-activated so if you went to the bathroom at 3am you didn’t even have to search for buttons, the lights would just turn on. Also, there was a lot of toiletries in the shower, the bath tub and by the sink. My travel mate said that the cream was very good and we made sure it accompanied us back to Canada as a result.

I should note, the best part of the room was the view! We were fortunate to get a room that overlooked the beach and we could also look below to see the infinity pool. This came in handy because we could time when to go to swimming due to the large groups of people wanting to occupy the area.

There are probably a million other things going on at this hotel that we maybe didn’t see or just didn’t have time to get to, but, I would definitely stay here again. For three nights we paid $280.00 Canadian per person and it was well worth it. The attentive staff, beautiful room, amazing infinity pool and location all combined into a very pleasant stay for a long weekend.

Happy travels!

  • Mirna

Review of Aqoral Spa, Cartagena

I’m really not a person who is big on spas. I don’t particularly like massages because they hurt and I’m here for a good time, not a painful time. However, there are two things I do absolutely love at a spa – head massages and body scrubs. Since I opted not to do any massages for this visit, the body scrub was my #1 choice.

Preparation to visit this spa started WAAAY ahead because I didn’t know how busy this place would be. Also, one of the main reasons I am writing this blog is because there’s literally NO information about this spa on the internet. Any reviews regarding it are just a part of peoples visits to the Hyatt Regency Cartagena so it’s mostly ‘good spa!’ or ‘my wife went and really liked it’ – that just isn’t good enough for me. I want to know more details about places so I figured I would write out my experience at Aqoral so that other people wouldn’t have to deep dive into Tripadvisor reviews that give you no information about it.

First let’s start with, no, there is no information about this spa. When you do go to the aforementioned website there is only this:

That is literally it for the information you have on the spa. If you click on the picture, it takes you right back to the front page of the Hyatt’s website. You get nowhere. What I did was message the hotel directly through the website I booked it on. From this, I received an e-mail with a PDF attached that showed all of the services available at the spa. (listed in COP currency, also note this was as of October 1st, 2018 – just in case anything changes.)

I opted to go for a (mid) smoothing scrub and 30min of the hydrotherapy and my travel partner chose the signature treatment called ‘Canarelief’. Hot tubs aren’t really my thing, but it was the pictures of the views from that damn hot tub that had me hooked on wanting to come here so badly.

Finally, on October 6th at 2pm I got my comfiest clothes on and made my way over to Aqoral Spa. Once you arrive you get to wait in this nice and relaxing lobby area and the staff will have you sign a waiver with your room # etc. on it.

Because I chose to have the hydrotherapy included, I was able to have this HUGE spa room to myself. It had its own shower, bathrobes, slippers, huge vanity, the massage table itself, the hot tub and even two chairs to lounge in one of the corners. Along with that, the incredible view overlooking Bocagrande and the pools below. Wow.

When you walk in the blinds are closed and it is nice and dark in the room, aside from a couple of candles. For the scrub I was given a disposable set of panties and a bra to put on. The scrub lasted thirty minutes and I truly could have laid there for a whole hour. I perhaps should have gone for the ‘deep’ option instead of the mid, I was worried I’d be sunburned by the time I got to the spa (I wasn’t) and the deep would have scrubbed it just a little deeper. Still great.

After the scrub I went and took a shower to get all the remnants of it off of me and during that time the lady doing my service prepared the hot tub and opened up the blinds so that I could have that kick-ass view.

For the first 20-minutes of the hydrotherapy I just took everything in. I was loving the view and my body felt so relaxed and nice in the hot tub after a long day of travel the day before and the scrub I had just gotten. For the final 10-minutes I set up my tripod and used my bluetooth shutter to take some fancy pants pictures. I did my best impression of a real travel blogger.

The total spent (with tip and taxes) was $140.00 Canadian. Although that isn’t as good as the prices in Bali for living luxuriously in a spa, I think it was still worth it. My friend also did enjoy her signature treatment, for anyone who wants to be rubbed down with cannabis oil.

Happy relaxing!

  • Mirna