Travel Tips

Hotel Palma Real - Honduras

Hotel Palma Real, Honduras a tired old resort, desperately in need of help and new management.

But digress briefly to your arrival at La Ceiba Airport. Certainly part of your vacation is the impression you receive entering the country. As you disembark from the plane and line up for immigration; have patience. Understand there's probably only one clerk manually processing the first half a plane load. Quite a departure from the efficiency of the San Salvador airport, where you're whisked through immigration and into the buses in a matter of minutes.

Conquest Vacations list Palma Real as four star, but we'll let you draw your own conclusions from our first hand experience and observations.

The facility layout you receive as a guide is inaccurate and totally incomplete. And apparently the junior security personnel (the two bell boys weren't around) are similarly confused. They dragged our bags around behind them for about an hour looking for our room. Then decided it was just too much trouble for a tip, suddenly disappeared, leaving us to our own devices. Standard rooms promote either mountain or pool view. The mountain view is first a view of the parking lot. Rooms are about 10' x 26' frequently with 3 double beds crammed into that space for some reason or other. If you want one bed r! emoved f or a little more space, you'll be told to do it yourself. The sink taps dripped all the time because they couldn't be completely shut off. The sink drain also leaked, depositing all the dripping water on the floor. But the maid was kind enough to provide enough towels to build a dike each day. For extended periods of time, there was neither hot or cold water, frequently both. Because of inadequate water pressure the toilet takes 10 to 15 minutes to refill after each flush. And if the dripping taps all night long wasn't enough, the phone will frequently ring at night, but there's no one there. We heard many complaints about this, and general telephone operation.

We note there's only 1 fire extinguisher on the entire lower floor of main building. Though there's location for and indication of 6 more, they're just missing.

The buffet restaurant is a dingy, fly infested, thatched roof dining room. Food can only be described as reasonably palatable when it hasn't run out and not replaced. The lady preparing the feature meal must always leave guests waiting to be served, while she goes to the kitchen to replace one of the many empty food trays. The whole time during our visit we didn't see one person in the food service with a mask or rubber gloves.

Apart from this routine inconvenience, general food service is abysmal. Waitresses are understaffed and poorly trained, reaching in front of you to the next person to retrieve dirty dishes. They move aimlessly between tables, expressionless, without a word to anyone. Occasionally as you're seated you may be asked if you want anything. That's the last word exchanged. For your coffee if you want to get cream or milk occasionally you might be able to get it
but if it wasn't there you usually had to use whitener. The spread for your toast or biscuits isn't butter or margarine, but a strange tasting mixture of food coloring and lard. This "hog fat"! ; sticks to the roof of your mouth and actually detracts from the taste of bread or buns. Rather than the real thing there's imitation plastic fruit everywhere. In a country where for years the banana has been king; they're number one export now slipped to third; they'd rather use plastic imitations. Plates, cups, saucers, etc. are chipped cracked or stained. In a stack of 7 plates, 4 had chips of varying size. Apparently they'd received a new shipment of water glasses, these went straight from the carton to the table. They only removed the labels. The sticky patch from the adhesive label remained. The patch about 1 ½" square, stuck to your hands and everything else it came in contact with. If this was a Canadian food establishment, the board of health would probably close it down in a heart beat.

The beach snack bar makes good French fries and chicken wings, but they're deep fried in coconut oil. This produces a very greasy food that tastes good, but not compatible with North American digestive systems. Guests are observed wrapping fries and chicken is paper napkins to absorb the excess grease; no doubt this type of food preparation contributed to the numerous cases of dysentery. The only gastronomically bright spot you can look forward to three times each week, are the two small a-la-carte restaurants. Billed as Asian and Italian, the food is good and service excellent. Since they're adjacent and share the same kitchen, the venues don't correspond with their names.

The swimming pools are old but well maintained, though the paint is pealing on the bottoms. However, the only personal showers prior entering the pool are located at the beach. Unfortunately, one doesn't work and the drain of the other is plugged. What results is a large bird bath for the resident pigeons. We all know what happens when birds get their feet into water. That's right they "poop". So nobody uses this shower either. The end result is everyon! e came f rom the ocean and beach right into the main pools to get cleaned off. By the end of the day the pools are quite contaminated.

There are 2 bars for the entire resort. One services the smaller Palma Real Caribe section and the other located adjacent the main building. Neither are fully stocked as most Caribbean Vacationers are normally accustomed. There are no liqueurs or other fancy alcoholic beverages usually offered with Latin holiday locations. Bartenders are surly and unappreciative, seldom acknowledging a tip. It's interesting to observe when a new group of guests arrive, the tip jar is quite full for a couple of days. By the end of the week there's only a couple of dollars in the bottom. Doesn't take people long to understand they're just being taken for granted.

We've never been to a resort where bicycles are rentals. Here they charge $10 per day.

There is one bright spot about this resort. It has a very good beach, both for walking and swimming. You can walk as far as you want west toward Sambo Creek. East is off limits for hotel guests, there's Banditos around and they'll take everything you have.

The final insult that said "we really don't care about you", came the morning of departure. We were told the buffet restaurant would open early to accommodate our early transfer. True to their word they opened the restaurant early, but that's all. They didn't bring anyone in to cook breakfast. Needless to say we won't be going back again unless we notice a change of management or ownership.

Evelyn & Bill