I had read all the previous reviews, so I knew in advance the location near plaza Once wasn´t the prettiest or safest, and with a great price like that, including breakfast, I was prepared for a less than perfect experience. But several things happened at the Olmo Dorado that are worth warning you about.

First of all, the good stuff. The staff is great: kind, helpful and knowledgeable. The rooms are generally clean and everything is relatively new. The social areas (dining and solarium) are relatively attractive and comfortable. Breakfast is frugal and montonous, but sufficient. And the location is really not as unsafe as most taxi drivers would like you to think (although the fact that I´m from Colombia might create a bias for that one).

Everything was going great until our third night, when we were awoken abruptly at 8am by a loud banging noise on our wall. Fearing a terrorist attack by giant woodpeckers, we called the front desk, only to discover a new elevator shaft is being built in the hotel, and while they said they´d tell the workers to stop, the noise continued... our entire stay!!! Loud banging, scraping and clanging, accompanied by foul welding smells, every day from 8am til 10am, which is when the workers take their lovely 4 hour lunch break...

One night, we entered our room and found that somebody had defecated in our bathroom, we assume the person who made our room (let´s hope no one else had access!!!). While they were nice enough to flush, they obviously did not realize the extent of their foulness... and blatant disrespect!

While the hotel advertised free WIFI in all of the hotel, it was extremely difficult to get a stable connection, until our 5th or 6th night, when we were informed that WIFI was no longer free. We had to fight with the front desk to continue getting the crappy signal for free.

Also, there is really no jacuzzi, because "the hot water is damaged, and we don´t know when it will be fixed". So don´t fall for those lovely solarium photos, the place is pretty, but practically useless.

This sums it up: by the fourth night (we had planned 9), I was ready to move to any other place, but the party I was with were too lazy to pack their stuff again...