Hotel Solymar

We stayed 4 nights. We had a view of the Marina. On our first day while we were waiting for our room to be ready, we were entertained by diving blue footed Boobies and Pelicans.we were also greeted by iguanas passing by. The manager and his team were very informative. He made sure they had gluten-free options for the GF members of our group. The rooms were clean and comfortable. THE sealion shenanigans was fun to watch I would highly recommend Solymar for your next trip to Santa Cruz Galapagos

We booked this extremely last minute when we were already on the island and needed a hotel for the night. For the value I’d say it was pretty overpriced—while the rooms are quite clean, they are very dated (bathrooms and such) BUT I was told this is the last hotel that is exclusively run by Galapagonian owners (I think third generation if I remember correctly), so for that I would book again. It is also extremely well located steps away from all the shops and restaurants. However the #1 reason to book this hotel is for WENDY THE RESIDENT SEA LION!!! If you have kids, I feel they would get a kick out of waking up and seeing Wendy right outside their window. She lives there and freely hops from the lawn chairs in to the pool and then in to the sea. This hotel is the most oceanfront hotel I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot growing up in Hawaii! It’s a gem. We didn’t appreciate that the included breakfast ended at 8am (!?), so we skipped that, but if you are getting up early for an excursion it will work perfectly. One night was enough but we are sure glad we stayed here!! Gracias SolyMar!

Apart from the nice bar area this hotel has nothing going for it whatsoever. Rooms very outdated. Shower is a trickle, bathroom fittings covered in limescale. No hairdryer in one of the rooms we had. After fighting to open the patio doors we were unable to close them again and had to get maintenance in. No decent view from the floor we were on. The second room we had was on the opposite side of the street and had no external view but overlooked the staircase which meant it was really noisy when people entered or left the building. Again very outdated but at least the shower was slightly more powerful and there was a hairdryer. Would I return- NO

You can't really get more central than this hotel. It is right on the main strip so you have restaurants and shops right on your doorstep. The ATM is also nearby as are a couple of mini markets. You can walk to the boat pier and the Darwin Research centre and there is a small Handicraft Market with booths almost across the road. It can get noisy with music that you can hear from your room so something to be mindful of. It is also so close to the fish market you can see it from your room window. I was able to keep an eye out and then head out when the activity started. I just had breakfast here and it was all ok and service was fast. I was in the building opposite the main lobby. This side no longer has a manned reception desk with the area now housing tea and coffee making facilities with a kettle you can use if (like me) you bring your own soup powders and pot noodles! i also liked that every floor had huge water cooler tanks where you could refill your bottles. The undoubted highlight though was seeing some wildlife at the hotel itself. The sea lion had snared one of the sun loungers for the afternoon and also a blue footed booby turned up on the outside wall at the dining tables. Lovely!

This is the review that reveals the true ugly side of this hotel, a bit long but worth the trouble it might save you. The Isla Sol tower across the street where we stayed might as well be a different hotel. It does not meet the expectations painted by the hotel ratings with musty smelling rooms, moldy showers and broken doors (which I will touch on later.) The problems really started on our 2nd day. To preface this, my mom and I are foreigners, with her speaking not a word of Spanish and me being and inexperienced teen, we’re easy pickings for exploitative business practices. We were told we had to move out of our room and into a smaller, darker room by tomorrow for an unspecified repair. It was only later that day in the evening that we were ever informed that the pipes were old and the water pressure may cause it to explode. Should this be the case, then we were put at risk for an entire day without knowing how to avoid the danger. However, it was a poorly disguised way to vacate our room (which had space enough for one more bed), in order to move in a family of four paying more per night (even though we had already booked the room for 2 more nights). This was the reason we were told they needed the room in the evening as well. Here the poor service comes in. When I asked the front desk, Francisco, about evidence as to the “bad thing about our room”, he initially avoided my questions all together even though I was standing right in front of him. Then, he said it was internal piping and that we could not see it. This conflicts with his earlier story of how staff had gone into our room to confirm the condition of the pipes. It was only after I questioned how the hotel could see signs of a “problem” yet couldn’t show it that he begrudgingly took me to the water tanks below our room. These showed a below average pressure of 30 psi, which the weak flow from the shower head confirms. Francisco also did not follow up my request to speak with the maintanence personnel hired or the request for any sort of proof of payment for the repair. Not only was Fransisco unhelpful, but that coy corporate smile and honeyed tone with which he delivered every lie unsettles you. My mom had not wanted to move because the musty dark new room worsened her nausea and headaches, but fearing any real danger, we eventually moved after persistent requests and incentives. The dislodged door handle on the new room 2202 was a sign of things to come. We had only ever had to open the door from the outside, shoving our luggage in before dawn then hurrying for our tour group through the still open door. However, while the handle worked from the outside, it was nonfunctional from the inside, causing any guests to be locked inside should it close. This we discovered our first night sleeping there. Adding to that, the shower gel and shampoo dispensers also don’t work and the sink is filthy upon closer inspection. When these issues were brought up with the manager assistant, she was w

We had a really comfortable room with a balcony overlooking the pool and the sea. Andrea on the front desk was welcoming and helpful, arranging a transfer to Isabela island and a taxi to the canal when we left for the airport. Breakfast was plentiful and included eggs. The food in the restaurant was very good too. Breakfast was served from 6.30 and take away boxes were available when we had an early start. The pool area was shared with a bunch of iguanas and the sea lion noted by other reviewers. One reservation: on several occasions we struggled to get hot water in the shower and had to get the front desk to restart the water heater.