Le Cameleon Boutique Hotel

We stayed at Villa Frida at Le Caméléon for one night, from August 6 to 7. We had originally booked and prepaid a six-day stay, but unfortunately had to leave early due to an unexpected family emergency. Villa Frida is not located on the main hotel property, but approximately 2 km away. It is quite isolated while at the same time being situated directly next to a main road. Unfortunately, the actual condition of the villa was very different from the impression created by the photographs. Looking behind the curtains, we noticed visible damage to several window frames that appeared consistent with previous attempts to force them open. Parts of the wooden window frames were badly deteriorated, and we found very large spiders living in holes in the damaged wood. There were also visible rust marks running down from nails in the skirting boards. During our stay, the door leading to the terrace and pool was defective. The pool itself was in poor condition, with tiles coming loose and algae visible on the walls. The wooden decking around the pool was deteriorated in several places, with exposed rusty nails presenting a genuine risk of injury. What concerned us most were the numerous large gaps and openings in the structure through which insects and other animals could easily enter the villa. In a tropical environment, this made us particularly uncomfortable. There was also no usable beach access from Villa Frida during our stay. The path towards the beach was completely overgrown and, in practice, inaccessible. This was particularly disappointing given the location and the impression created by the property description and photographs. We had prepaid the entire six-day stay using Apple Pay. Given the family emergency that forced us to leave after only one night, we had hoped the hotel might offer some financial accommodation for the five unused nights. Unfortunately, the refund process became stuck because we were asked to provide the complete virtual Apple Pay card number as part of the hotel’s internal procedure. We made considerable efforts to obtain this information, but neither Apple, American Express nor our bank was able to provide us with the complete virtual card number. I want to emphasize that the ladies at reception were friendly throughout. Nevertheless, considering the condition of Villa Frida, the inaccessible beach path and the unresolved refund situation, our overall experience was very disappointing. Villa Frida certainly has potential, but during our stay its actual condition simply did not match the impression created by the photographs. I sincerely hope that this feedback results in some much-needed investment in maintenance, safety and general upkeep of the property.

During our stay, the hotel was undergoing renovations. In addition to the noise and the extremely strong smell of paint and solvents, the beachfront pool was unavailable. Furthermore, the rooms 60s and 70s are extremely humid. Their windows face the interior of the hotel, while the tall vegetation blocks out natural light and prevents adequate airflow. Our clothes smelled musty because they would not dry, even after leaving them on the terrace or indoors for several days. The humidity was so severe that condensation made the floor wet and caused the paint to peel

We had the beach front room and it was awesome. Service was great and the whole trip was wonderful.

Traveling in this part of the world, you sometimes need a vacation from your vacation, a place where everything works and you can take care of whatever lingering discomfort or business that obtains, reliably and without strife. WiFi is excellent all over the faculty, air conditioning is wonderful, beds comfortable and staff is bilingual. The location is a bit too far to walk to town, although there are a couple of great restaurants nearby. The breakfast buffet is nicely extravagant, so you could let it serve for both breakfast and lunch.

The hotel overall was nice. I initially chose this hotel because I like to support the local economy. The restaurant sits on the beach and the staff is very cordial and accommodating. The breakfast buffet is also good. I only gave the hotel 2-stars for these reasons: 1. We were put in the wrong room (one king bed) upon arrival. We arrived at 1:20am due to road closure because of storms and re-routing. It took us 5.5 hours to get there from San Jose' airport, so we were exhausted. We were moved to another room with two Queen beds which had a fresh paint smell but because we were so tired, we let it go. We initially thought the paint smell would dissipate, it never did. 2. The room had no ventilation, it was humid and floors were sticky. The air conditioning helped, but it didn't address the issues. Because of the humidity inside the room and outside, our clothes stayed damp and the bathroom was damp the entire stay. 3. There were no plugs on the table between the two beds, only on the outside of the bed. 4. We tolerated all of this, but the biggest challenge was we put in a room on the 1st level with a child above us. The child was up running off and on from 7a.m. - 10p.m. We hesitated to complain because we didn't want to be moved to the second floor due to heavy luggage. However by Day 4, we'd had enough. When we complained, their solution was to move us again to another room. I asked, are you aware we've already been moved before. The manager said this would be the best solution for everyone without even talking to the other guests. So I said, your solution is to inconvenience us again, although we're not the cause of the problem. This was unacceptable. We opted to just remain where we were since we had two more nights, but we weren't happy. 5. There was construction going on outside of the room the entire time we were there. This woke us up every morning. Unfortunately while the hotel itself is nice, I would not stay there again.