Hotel Central Boquete Panama 🏘️'The House That Jack Built'

28
Dec 23
0

Hotel Central Boquete Panama 🏘️

Renowned for its breathtaking natural beauty, including lush coffee plantations, cloud forests, and the towering Barú Volcano, Boquete offers an idyllic escape for nature enthusiasts and adventurers alike. This popular destination boasts a diverse array of outdoor activities, from hiking scenic trails and birdwatching to adrenaline-pumping zip-lining, river-rafting and waterfall-rapelling experiences.

We were keen to explore this highland town, nestled in the verdant Chiriquí Highlands. But first, we needed to sort out our accommodation…

Highlights

Hotel Central, Boquete

“Hotel Central” is quite a misnomer for a hotel name, since the Hotel Central Boquete is anything but central. You’ll have to walk a good 15 minutes uphill from the center of Boquete town before you reach the hotel.

From the outside, with garish yellow paintwork and an odd structure, the place looks more like an office block than a hotel.

The reception is bizarrely located in an over-priced downstairs coffee shop.

The room we were given was the narrowest hotel room we have ever experienced. At less than 3 meters wide by 3 meters long, with windows along the length of one side, it was like sleeping in a cross between a railway carriage and a goldfish bowl.

Into this microspace was squeezed a tiny and uncomfortable double bed, inadequate even for a skinny couple. There was a television set with cable, but you’d need a degree in rocket science to work out how to get channels from the 2 supplied remote controls

A cramped bathroom was attached to the room.

The House that Jack Built

With the building apparently constructed largely out of wooden planks, our room shook physically whenever somebody walked around outside.

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There was a pleasant seating area in front of our Wonderwall windows, but if anybody sat outside there we felt like we were the entertainment.

The hotel manager was constantly banging on enthusiastically about his outdoor jacuzzi. Said jacuzzi was weirdly located at the end of the back garden, overlooked by all the rooms at the back of the hotel.

It’s no wonder none of the guests were using it.

The Caldera river flowing through the Boquete valley

All this for just under $70 per night, including taxes but excluding breakfast. The Hotel Central Boquete Panama was easily the most expensive and 2nd-worst accommodation of our 4-week trip through the country – including hostel-style guesthouses (check out the worst).

All in all, we weren’t very lucky with our Boquete accommodation choices: First, the Jungla Experience and then this.

It seemed an awful long time since we’d left the comfort of the Occidental hotel in Panama City. Hopefully, our next hotel in Bocas Del Toro would be an improvement.

All Hotel Options in Boquete