La Merced Royal

Theft alert. On August 15, 2017 my wife and I vacationed down in Cartagena Columbia at this hotel For our honeymoon.$2000 in cash (our honeymoon money). Was stolen from the room vault. We brought the matter up with the general manager and even with corporate, however they treated my wife and I as if we were some kind of fraudulent con artist trying to blackmail them. We were never treated as victims of a robbery on their premises. Nobody offered any resolutions four the crime, not even offered a single breakfast on the house for our inconvenience. I would never recommend this hotel to anyone. There are many other better hotels for you to stay and visit this beautiful city, and a lot safer places for your belongings as well.

I stayed at La Merced Royal with a group of four. We had a double room with two beds and two single rooms. The double room was large and comfortable. The single rooms were on the small side. The rooms look out over the interior courtyard, sometimes separated by an open passageway. The hotel is in a beautifully reworked historic building in an excellent location next to the wall and across the street from a historic theater. From the hotel we could walk to any of the walled city attractions in minutes. I liked the modern design of the new interior construction and the pool area--while the pool was small, it was perfect for a dip after long days of sightseeing and had an attractive waterfall feature. We also enjoyed the sunset from the rooftop terrace, which also featured a jacuzzi, although we didn't use it. As the breakfast wasn't included, we didn't have it, but we did order morning coffee several times and it was delivered to our rooms promptly and without charge. The service was generally good although the front desk people didn't always have the best information; it really depended on the staff member. They were all very friendly, though. One of the staff arranged a private van to take us to Santa Marta, which was helpful, though the van service was just OK and on the expensive side, certainly could have been better.

This is a cool little boutique hotel. The location is perfect for touring the city center. If you get one of the two top-floor rooms, your door opens to the sun deck and jacuzzi, and you have a nice view of the ocean during the day. There is no elevator, so anyone with issues climbing stairs should do the opposite and request the first floor. The staff here are all very nice and overall I did have a great stay. I would have given this hotel 5 stars, but did have to deal with a few quirky things like getting charged again even though I had pre-paid, and having to get a new access card every evening. I figured out why I needed a new card every day, as on my last day, I happened to be in my room when the housekeeper asked me to leave my door open because she said every day her key wouldn’t work (so I assume they had to reset it for her, therefore deactivating my access).