La Zayapa Hotel

I think this hotel has horrible customer service and may be dishonest. I booked a “FAMILY” room through ******* and somehow it only listed one person. I swear I said 2 and that it somehow got changed in the system. Nonetheless, I paid cancellation fee. Anyway, the hotel had written me via WhatsAop and said that ******* had to change it to 2 people “within the reservation” .Or there would be all sorts of additional charges, increased room rate, etc.!! ******* refused to change it to two. So I decided to cancel and book elsewhere. At which point I was told that there was was some hard-to-find, tricky caveat and they were still keeping a large part of my money. In the meantime, I reached out to the hotel on WhatsApp five times over the last three days. And they are no longer responding . I guess they want to keep the money they get for cheating me. I mean, they could simply change the room reservation to two. Or honor my reservation. But it seems they are greedy and dishonest. I am deeply disappointed in the hotels treatment of me. Not to mention *******, who gave me a customer service rep named Alia who said she was my person. And hasn’t responded for two days either. I finally called someone else and got the bad news that I’m being cheated.

We stayed at Hotel Zayapa last April 2023 and were going to stay there again in February 2024. Ecuagringo, which is a outfitter for the Galapagos Islands booked our trip last year and the upcoming trip in 2/24. Then we found out that Braden Escobar that owned and ran Ecuagringo died on 11/19/2023. So jumped into action to confirm our reservations. We were able to confirm 2 other hotel reservations for this trip and those hoteliers worked with us to continue on with our trip. We confirmed with one of the people at the front desk of Hotel Zayapa that there was a reservation for us in February 2024, and it had a $465 balance that need to be paid and we were good to go. Once the owner/manager found out about this conversation we had with there employee, he told us that the reservation was trough Ecuagringo and they would need to contact the hotel to confirm the reservation.......that was fine except the owner of Ecuagringo passsed away. So we provided Hotel Zayapa information on Braden death and our credentials. Unfortunately for us Hotel Zayapa took this opportunity to deny our reservation and steal our money. The hotel is in a great location near the pier, but your taking a real risk with this Hotel, if anything changes in the slightest they will screw you over and take your money and leave you hanging.

Beware of booking this place on **********. I booked two nights and minutes later realized my mistake. It took 17 messages and $110 USD fee to cancel. They would not budge, even for a few minutes of a reservation.

Our experience with la Zayapa was the worst. The first day we left our clothes to the hotel’s laundry service. When we got it back three of our shirt were destroyed (big blue spots all over them). When we complained to the manager he first tried to say that the clothes looked like that before we turned them in. We shut down that claim. He then said that they can't take no responsibility because the process with their laundry service is not working right now. Ok, then don’t provide a laundry service to your guests if it’s not working, was our reply. No answer. We said that misstakes happens and that’s fine but we expect that they will find a proper solution for this problem. The solution, according to the manager, was that we did not have to pay for the laundry.... We said that these shirt were brand new and when we get back home we need to buy new ones. Could they at least reimburse us for one night (the price for 1 night was almost the same amount of the destroyed shirts)? No, that was not their problem. We were really disappointed in their unwillingness to resolve a situation they caused. Moreover, we had a really hard time finishing our reservation. They kept sending us a Paypal-link that didn’t work. We told them everytime they sent the link that it was not working and asked if we could pay at the hotel instead. No answer, which led to some stress and worries regarding the status of our booking. Once we got there it worked perfectly fine to pay at the hotel… Save yourself the headache and trouble and go to another hotel.

We had an unpleasant stay at this hotel. First, the hotel has excellent location within visible distance from the pier. The hotel is clean, and room was nice with good shower and breakfast. I had a great snorkeling in front of the hotel and at adjacent little beach. Unfortunately, our stay turned sour the day before check out. We booked the hotel for 3 nights through *********** for two adults, 1 child many months before our trip. The payment was not through *********** but arranged directly with the hotel which I paid promptly. A couple months before our trip, the hotel contacted me via whatsapp asking for payment which I replied that I already made the payment. No problem there. We finally arrived and checked in smoothly on our arrival date with all 3 of our passport copies were taken. We actually were happy with the room and the hotel itself. The day before our check out, we returned from the beach around 3pm. Upon entering lobby, Evelyn, whom we never met, asked for my name. There was no smile, no greetings as hello, how are you, how is your stay. She instantly asked for my name and said there was a problem because we had extra person in our room - our 8 year old son. Since our reservation was for 2 people, we owed the hotel $56/night in addition to our original booking, and we must make the payment immediately. I asked why was this not mentioned at our check in and she said the hotel missed it.I told her I'd double check the *********** reservation and went to the room to clean up. We went to dinner and got caught in rain storm. When we returned around 7pm, there was no one at reception. We went to the room and there was a note under the door saying we must pay right away. I was busy cleaning up and getting my kid ready for bed when my husband said my phone was constantly ringing. Between 6:27pm-6:50pm, there were 3 texts, 1 missed call and voicemail, from the hotel director, Erik Valverde. With the last text threatening us if we preferred to resolve the payment issue with the police. He also called my name incorrectly. The next morning, he texted again before 7am. I replied that he got my name wrong and I was shocked by how he and his staff treated the hotel guests this way. After breakfast, we negotiated our payment down to $130, paid it and checked out. This was our last and fourth hotel in Galapagos and we never had any issue with any hotel except this one. Upon checking *********** reservation, it was for 2 people. We had no problem paying what was due but we were appalled by the way the hotel handled this. It was very hostile. The entire staff was unfriendly other than Isidro. If we had known that we would have to pay additional fee for our kid, we'd have stayed somewhere else for that amount. We did not even eat breakfast the first morning due to early excursion and we received two towels daily until last day. The floor towel in bathroom was dirty by second day, but it was never replaced. None of this mattered and we must pay the add

Nice little hotel with lovely views of the sea. Breakfast is included, nothing extraordinary though. The staff is really nice, especially Isidore (I hope I spelled it right). Nice young man who speaks fluent German, good English as well. Room service is very efficient, clean room and fresh towel in no time. A good place overall.