Further to this inconvenience we were roused the following morning by a 4 a.m. wakeup call. The continental breakfast provided, in the lobby ran out of Styrofoam coffee cups and sent the staff into pandemonium trying to solve this great dilemma. The coffee was old as were the fruit Danish.
At 6:30 a.m. the entire group was herded onto a series of busses and taken to the small airport to catch the plane for Contadora. Once again, one person to check through nearly eighty people. When we finally arrived on the Island we were informed that we could walk to the resort. Our clearly stated request for a ground floor room next to the couple we were traveling with, resulted in us being placed on the second floor of one building and our friends on the second floor of another building on the far side of the resort. This occurred after our original rooms were given to the Panamanians who had arrived for the weekend, they had arrived on the planes that were supposed to bring us the day before. It took three days and many complaints to get to the ground floor of the same building. Even something as simple as trying to get two extra pillows turned into an exercise in complete futility and frustration. I concluded that it would have been easier to explain quantum mechanics to a duck than to try and get the resort staff to understand requests. The best staff were the Jamaicans that had been brought in to work there.
We were surprised to find out that our group was the fifth in as many weeks to have a bad flight, delays so long that there was no way to the resort once on the ground, and a hotel stay in Panama City. The main difference with our group was that while the previous groups were put up in four and five star hotels, we were put up in a two star. You should be questioning any airline that has to be delayed for repairs five weeks in a row.
I suffer from Multiple Sclerosis and find traveling to be very difficult. I book holidays that are a maximum of seven to eight hours away by air. This eleven and a half hour ordeal left me so fatigued that it was Tuesday before I was recovered enough to begin enjoying the vacation. More than half of my precious vacation was wasted recovering from an ordeal that should never have occurred.
The only saving point on Contadora was Leo Carron the Regent representative, this man bent over backwards to try and fix the mistakes and, believe me, he was kept very busy. The toilet in the room above ours overflowed and, rather than moving us, the staff half dried the floor and left us there. The fresh water was non-existent, we had one shower in fresh water on Saturday night and the rest of the stay we were forced to put up with salt water. The food was not as advertised, at very best it could be described as two star quality, as an experienced chef I know the star ratings for food. The resort is no longer private, there is construction all around it, even an unsightly condo has been built adjacent to the resort. There were no "pockets of privacy for time alone" to be found anywhere.
The roofs of the "low-rise French colonial accommodation" were in sorry need of repair, the walls in the rooms were painted to within a foot of the ceiling, the television received no channels, the telephones did not work. If you wanted to make a phone call you had to go to the main lobby. Some rooms had no controls for the air conditioning, it was constantly on full blast! The walkways were cracked and had pieces missing. This might have been a three star plus resort in years past but it has gone down a long way.
Even people who had been there just the previous year were complaining that the food and service had really declined. Five rooms were broken into and items were stolen, fortunately none of ours. Some we spoke with had noticed that the quality of the food increased on Saturday and Sunday, as did the numbers of Panamanians.
The pool bar and walk-up bar had one person to serve both sides. On some nights it was 9 p.m. before the rooms were made up. There was very few staff in any of the dining rooms. The staff, who were there, ranged from incredibly thick to downright rude. My wheelchair was damaged in transit and was delivered, outside my room, without a word being spoken. The reception desk preferred to serve the numerous Panamanians than to have to deal with English speaking people. My wife waited in line to check out, for more than twenty minutes, and was brushed aside by the reception desk staff in order to serve the Panamanians who had just arrived on the island. As a result my wife threw the room key in the general direction of the reception desk and left for the plane.
I would not recommend this resort to anyone, nor would I ever again recommend Air Transat. We feel that our money was completely wasted, and it is our intention to never use a tour operator that flies Air Transat again.
That is a very real account of our vacation. There has been no exaggeration. We were not alone in our assessment of the resort and airline.