Nayara Alto Atacama

Hotel is amazing despite the constant asking for tips at every single meal, what is not expected in a high end all inclusive hotel

We had a lovely experience at Nayaro Alto Atacama recently for our honeymoon. The food is great, the excursions were fun, and the staff were very kind. A particular mention must go to Pia, who was excellent every time we encountered her. The option to order from a bar menu throughout the day — outside of mealtimes — is excellent, we loved the twice-weekly bbqs, and the provision of protein bars is a lovely touch. It was nice also to have a range of pools to choose from and the alpaca corral was a nice addition to the day. In terms of excursions, we hiked, visited lagoons, saw flamingoes, rode bikes, stargazed, and visited geysers, with a great experience across all experiences. The rainbow valley hike was probably our favourite: the lunch prepared by the guide (I think, Alex) and driver was simply exquisite. A close second was our cycle to the devil’s throat — a brilliant day. Some constructive feedback is that the hotel is lacking in slickness, based on the price point. During our stay, some walkways on site were cordoned off for works that weren’t actually happening — it was as if the work had been paused or postponed, with the site left looking slightly shabby. Similarly, the process for booking the hot tub seemed slightly flawed: one day, a woman was sat having a meal during the time we’d booked the hot tub, meaning we had to fetch someone to resolve the issue. Moreover, the cleaning of the rooms seemed to frequently occur at inconvenient times, whereas at other hotels, I know that cleaning occurs precisely during mealtimes. Moreover, the size of the place means there is a carousel of staff, so it’s hard to get the sense that the staff get to know you during your stay: the experience isn’t personalised in any way. An example of this was the fact that the hotel seemed unaware that we were honeymooners, despite it being mentioned to many members of waiting staff/tour guides — there’s clearly not a mechanism for passing information across teams. It’s not a problem that we weren’t made a fuss of; it’s simply different to other hotels we’ve stayed at for our honeymoon, where the experience was very personalised. Finally, and most importantly, the hotel insists on you signing a cheque — effectively requesting a tip — after every meal, even if you’ve paid for full board. This is both time-consuming and slightly irritating, and perhaps reflects that slight lack of slickness: the hotel should probably know the guests well enough to deduce who has paid for full board and who hasn’t. It’s fair enough to ask for gratuity, but this should be done after the stay and not after every meal (especially when the service isn’t particularly personalised anyway). In fact, when we checked out, the hotel had erroneously added gratuity from a couple of meals that we hadn’t actually included. We settled the balance anyway, as it was small, but nonetheless this was a good example of somewhere to improve. If you’re going to include a cumbersome mechanism that asks for gratuity after every meal, the mechanism should at least be accurate. We would absolutely be willing to stay at a Nayaro hotel in future because our overall stay was lovely and the above feedback points didn’t detract. However, in order to compete with similar hotel chains within the same price bracket, e.g. &Beyond (whose Vira Vira hotel is in a entirely different league), the service needs to be slicker/feel more personal.

Top class hotel - carefully designed not to look out of place. Comfortable rooms - excellent shower. Eco friendly. Heated & cold swimming pools - hot tub needs to be booked - not that well maintained. Missed having a shower near the pools - had to walk to our room. Delicate dining & good wines. Best show were the guided tours & walks. Taito Geysers were extra terrestrial experience - topped by hot breakfast served at 3500 metres above MSL!! Canyon walks, salt lagoon equally impressive - sometimes made tedious by repetitive explanation of the same point - layers of rock! 2 hour ride to the Geysers was over terrible dirt & rocky tracks - hardly be called road. This information was glossed over - best not to. Excellent helpful guides. Why leave?

We stayed at Nayara Alto Atacama for 4 nights. To take advantage of the excursions on offer I would suggest 4 nights is a minimum stay. The excursions were very good and the guides were clearly very knowledgable. The restaurant staff were very attentive and service was great. One minor comment would be that we were asked to sign a bill for tips after each meal, despite being on an all-inclusive plan. We have never experienced this before and it tarnished our stay slightly. We always leave a tip at the end of our stay but to be "billed" for it each mealtime was, in our opinion unusual and not something we felt that happy with. The rooms were really clean and comfortable. Due to the low humidity each room has a humidifier, which was a welcome addition. Overall we really enjoyed our stay here and would recommend it to anyone wanting to visit the area.

Great Place if you want to enjoy a Unique experience and we were well received , well treated and the Staff is well versed in English Language tooo