A/C barely worked, Room dirty, no room service, no internet, bad smell. Must I go on I'm trying to forget!!!! Stayed one night and left. Charged us $125.00!!!

First, its one of the cheaper hotels that is in the proximity of the shore. It did have musty rooms and seemed to have an inordinate amount of screaming kids. However, if you do the sensible thing and check out the room before you rent it, you stand a better than average chance of having a good nights sleep. Check the bathroom and make sure the water works...turn on the air conditioning and make sure it blows cold air...turn on the bedside lamp and make sure it has a lightbulb.

With a fixed amount of airline flights to the island there will always be rooms. If you are going for a 4-5 star experience, read the reviews and book your stay in advance. If you are on a budget, go without a reservation. When you arrive at Baltra, hire a cab to take you into town ($6) and have him take you to some of the budget hotels you have found in Tripadvisor ($10 and hour). Take a look at some of the rooms in each hotel until you get a feel for the locations, prices charges, quality of the hotel, etc. Then make your decision and enjoy your stay.

Myself, my husband, and two friends stayed at this hotel for one night in October 2009.

When we arrived at the hotel initially, we had no reservation and were able to secure the rate of USD $85 including taxes and breakfast. The room we booked was a quadruple one with four single beds, and we signed in the names of four people.

A couple of hours later, we were informed this was a ¨mistake¨ and that we never said the room was for four people. Of course this was a lie, since the names of four different people were recorded. What had really happened is that one staff member had quoted us a small discount on the Ecuadorian local rate for the quad room (normally $98 per night). Foreigners like us are supposed to pay about 50% more than this again.

Rather than admit the mistake and try and come to some other arrangement, the manager refused to speak to us and kept sending out an employee with his messages to us. The message was, get out of the hotel if you aren´t willing to pay the extra.

Since we weren´t willing to pay the extra, we stayed for one night only and had to book the remainder of the accommodation we needed elsewhere in Puerto Ayora. This meant packing all our things again and moving which was pretty inconvenient.

A second complaint is that the swimming pool and billiards table area seems to be the personal recreation area for the hotel management and their friends. The group loudly partied until 6am, and one of our friends, who was going diving the next day, barely got any sleep the entire night.

The rooms at full rate are also pretty shocking value in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with the rooms themselves but we found an almost identical room at Hotel Salinas for USD $16.50 per person including tax (no breakfast or swimming pool but also no noise!)

All in all I would definitely suggest going elsewhere in Puerto Ayora. If you are thinking of spending pretty big money brand new Hotel Sol y Mar looks absolutely spectacular (the pulled down the old hotel of the same name and built a new one).

We booked a trip to Ecuador and the Galapgos Islands through a travel agency. The hotel in Quito was fabulous, The Mercure. When we arrived in The Galapgos we were assigned a room on the third floor. There are no elevators, and no one at the hotel would help my husband and me with our luggage (note...we are in our late 50's)
When we got to the room the TV and the air conditioner did not work. We went back to the front desk, reported these problems, and also asked for 2 extra pillows. Five hours later, nothing was done. We again complained and were given remotes for the TV and a/c, so that problem was solved. The pillows never arrived until we made a scene the next day.We wanted to lock our valuables up for our day trips. We were given a manila envelope and then our items were put in the hotel safe. Note: no individual safe deposit boxes in rooms or in the lobby. When we wanted to retrieve our items we were told to come back hours later because only the owner had the key, and his schedule was "erratic". Every morning the staff would remove the tiny sliver of soap in the room and fail to replace it, so every day we would have to beg for more soap (and often, towels).There is no telephone or alarm clock in the room. Since our tours left very early, we had no way of feeling assured that we would wake up in time! We asked the receptionist to have someone knock on our door in the morning. Only one of the three mornings that we were there did someone do so. Breakfast is included in this hotel. The eggs are served ice cold, the waiting time is ridiculous, and the staff is rude. One morning my sons and I were served breakfast, but my husband was not. He waited 25 minutes, repeatedly requesting his meal, because our tour was about to leave. I finally had to snatch a plate of eggs out of the hands of a waitress just to get him fed. This was not a language barrier situation either. Both of my 19 year old twin sons (who were traveling with us) speak Spanish. Upon departure from the hotel there is no assistance with luggage either. This was a very unpleasant experience and I warn other travelers to AVOID this hotel at all costs!