Pools: Loved the quiet pool area. Also loved that all of the chairs were not "reserved" with towels. Nothing annoys me more than people reserving chairs and then not using them. Pool water was warm enough yet still refreshing. We also moved chairs to a shady spot on the grass under the palm trees without any issues from staff.

Beach: Yellow and black sand beach which makes it hot to walk on. A sand bar made some fun waves to play in. Wished they had boogie boards that we could use.

Rooms: Were fine. They are continuously fixing things up, and while we were there they were replacing air conditioning units in some of the rooms. The rooms had TV's, but the cable wasn't always clear. But then, how much TV watching will you be doing.

Food: Was much better than Cuba and Dominican Republic. Had pretty good variety. Always had pasta and fries for the picky. Had a lot of fish. Desserts were really good. The worst night was Friday when they had a BBQ and nothing was appealing. Tried the Oriental a la carte. It was okay. Didn't try the Sushi restaurant.

Activities: Not much going on here. My husband was bored silly. The rest of us spent a lot of time reading. The sand was too hot to play Beach Volleyball except for one cloudy day. Closest golf was next door at the Royal Decameron at a cost of $125 plus the cost of a taxi ride.

Staff: Are not really service oriented. Only once did we have a waiter refilling the wine glasses without having to ask.

Guests: Many Canadians (English and French) as well many from Panama and other Spanish speaking countries.
Language: The staff spoke mostly Spanish. Which is okay, but we would have expected the activities people to speak English. Which brings me to:
Shows: Primarily spoken in Spanish. Did not stay for most shows as we couldn't understand what was being said and we were too worn out by the sun.
Resort Location: It's a 2 hour bus ride from the Panama City Airport. This is one big issue for many of these resorts. I understand they will be opening another airport much closer to the resort which will help immensely.

Excursions: Sorry ... didn't do any.

Weather: The dry season goes from about mid-Dec to mid-April. If you want guaranteed hot dry weather, then Panama is perfect during Jan - Mar.

What we would do differently. We met someone at the resort that split their week in half. One half on the beach at the Playa Blanca and the other half at the Gamboa Rain Forest Resort. This resort puts you closer to the canal, airport and the rain forest to avoid excessive travelling time.

The cleanliness of the rooms is terrible and the air conditioning needed to be changed, dirty and old. The room smelled musty and the bathroom had mold. The lift also had a bad smell.The staff of the hotel are very friendly and the food is good. The hotel owner needs to pay more attention to the maintenance of the hotel. Please improve the rooms and cleanliness.

In my room typing this right now,, finished dinner, I chose BBQ although there are multiple choices at different restaurants around the grounds, not bad at all for buffet style dining... took in some of the showtime dancers after a walk on the beautiful beach with a full moon and a thousand stars. Truly beautiful night, light breeze and truly tropical night. Awesome show, the dancers were fantastic. Even made friends with a dog that followed me for a mile on the beach.
I have a room facing the ocean 717 which I would recommend, great location. Family friendly resort with very friendly staff, everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. Awesome location for relaxation after a week dodging traffic and construction noise all over Panama City. I would definitely recommend this place for couples and families.

Me, my wife and our little princess of 2 year old spend the last week in the Playa Blanca Hotel & Resort. Being in the tourism industry since 6 years in Dominican Republic, it was for us a good experience.

First, Panama is a nice country. The local people are nice and the country his not to much developpe regarding the truism industry, so the experience is better and more natural. You get treated well and not only like a ¨touriste¨.

The ride from the airport to the Hotel is a pretty long ride. For us, it took 2 hours, especially because you have to cross the Panama city to reach Playa Blanca. There is a lot of traffic in the city now because there are building a new metro. It's the price to pay now to be able to enjoy it better later... For 2014, they should open the new airport close to the resort, so it will take only 10 minute when it will be ready.

Even if it's a long ride, I was using this time to discover the contry. Passing true the city is interesting. Me and my wife speak fluently French, english and spanish. So, sitting down close to the guide was good because I was able to ask all the questions in my mind for 2 hours...was a well invested time

The Hotel have apparently 8 years old, and well maintained. You can se the maturity of the hotel in the garden, thing that I prefer compare to the brand new hotel. For the price that we paid, I sincerely think that it worth it. It's not a big hotel but have an off of space ...around 250 rooms, so even if it was full, it dosen't look over crowded. You have place at the beach, at the pool, at the buffet and even the restaurant ¨a la carte¨.

There are some area of improvement...The service what not that good in those restaurant ¨a la carte¨ and we called 2 time the reception to get an extra bed for our princess...it was suppose to come but never show up until that we went there and find out that they wanted 15$ per night for that extra bed. We didn't paid it and organized ourself on an other way. Also, I paid to get the wifi connexion and let say that the was loosing the conexion to often..But apparently, on that week they had a lot of issue with internet and normally, it working properly. But like I said, those small issue are nothing and for us, there are just normal issue that you find in many hotel, in many destination.

The Beach is not the Beach of Punta Cana....but the good thing is that there are not a lot of wave...good for our little princess...

Over all, we was really happy about our vacation, well receive and we had the chance to make several tour, We event rent some taxi to make our own private tour and see the real culture. If you need more information, don't hesitate to let me know.