La Zayapa Hotel

We stayed at Hotel Zayapa last April 2023 and were going to stay there again in February 2024. Ecuagringo, which is a outfitter for the Galapagos Islands booked our trip last year and the upcoming trip in 2/24. Then we found out that Braden Escobar that owned and ran Ecuagringo died on 11/19/2023. So jumped into action to confirm our reservations. We were able to confirm 2 other hotel reservations for this trip and those hoteliers worked with us to continue on with our trip. We confirmed with one of the people at the front desk of Hotel Zayapa that there was a reservation for us in February 2024, and it had a $465 balance that need to be paid and we were good to go. Once the owner/manager found out about this conversation we had with there employee, he told us that the reservation was trough Ecuagringo and they would need to contact the hotel to confirm the reservation.......that was fine except the owner of Ecuagringo passsed away. So we provided Hotel Zayapa information on Braden death and our credentials. Unfortunately for us Hotel Zayapa took this opportunity to deny our reservation and steal our money. The hotel is in a great location near the pier, but your taking a real risk with this Hotel, if anything changes in the slightest they will screw you over and take your money and leave you hanging.

This is a nice hotel with a great location near the water. The rooms are not fancy, but they are clean and comfortable and more than met our needs. Our room did not have a coffee maker, but there was one in the lobby, along with fresh water.

Our experience with la Zayapa was the worst. The first day we left our clothes to the hotel’s laundry service. When we got it back three of our shirt were destroyed (big blue spots all over them). When we complained to the manager he first tried to say that the clothes looked like that before we turned them in. We shut down that claim. He then said that they can't take no responsibility because the process with their laundry service is not working right now. Ok, then don’t provide a laundry service to your guests if it’s not working, was our reply. No answer. We said that misstakes happens and that’s fine but we expect that they will find a proper solution for this problem. The solution, according to the manager, was that we did not have to pay for the laundry.... We said that these shirt were brand new and when we get back home we need to buy new ones. Could they at least reimburse us for one night (the price for 1 night was almost the same amount of the destroyed shirts)? No, that was not their problem. We were really disappointed in their unwillingness to resolve a situation they caused. Moreover, we had a really hard time finishing our reservation. They kept sending us a Paypal-link that didn’t work. We told them everytime they sent the link that it was not working and asked if we could pay at the hotel instead. No answer, which led to some stress and worries regarding the status of our booking. Once we got there it worked perfectly fine to pay at the hotel… Save yourself the headache and trouble and go to another hotel.

We arrived in San Cristobal only to find out our reservation had been cancelled and they were full. This was even though our travel agent had a confirmation number and receipt for payment. He wouldn’t give his email to our agent to forward the receipt. The manager was so rude he demanded a written letter in Spanish before even discussing the issue. He would not talk to our travel agent. Fortunately, our agent secured us a very nice room in a hotel next door. The manager caused us to waste our entire afternoon trying to settle everything. I’d stay far away from this place. They are not an honest business.