Our road trip of last week included a few days in what has often been described as a World Class resort in Panama; the Royal Decameron. We have now real experience and it is indeed a wonderful place to stay for a few days to recharge and recreate.
The Decameron is located about 90 minutes west of Panama City at Farallon and is on Costa Blanca a beautiful beach.
We made reservations in Boquete with Jose Palm at Viajes David in Boquete and our off season rate per person, per night was $51.00. Email Jose if you are looking for special rates.If that sounds high the normal rates are closer to $100 per person per night. The value at $51 clear when you see what you receive.
The Decameron has three different check in area each with a multilingual staff. The market to all of Latin America, Canada, US and Europe. Upon checking in you are banded with a color coded wrist band indicating what day you are leaving.
The rooms are not bad, spacious, good showers, refrigerated and the beds are neither the best nor the worst of hotel fare.
Now comes what my Daughter Ashley would call the important part, your daily payment includes all food, drinks including intoxicants and even cigarettes as well as all non motorized beach and surf play. There is no scarcity of food or restaurants.
Here Jennifer is checking for only the crispest, lowest calorie salad offerings. The variety is excellent and includes both standard fare such as greens and Panama specialties like Mango salad.
Breakfast and lunch are served buffet style in two huge facilities the Atlantic and Pacific buffets.
In addition to salads there are multiple entrees, at lunch they seem to always have at least one fish, one chicken and on meat dish as well as a variety of vegetables. The staff is rotating trays based on time not consumption so the food is always hot and not over cooked. Buffets never produce gourmet quality but you can always find something you can eat and will never starve.
There are also fresh preparation stations with hospital clad cooks. What is available varies with the meal but breakfasts have eggs, waffles, pancakes etc; lunches pasta, grilled chicken, fish etc.
In addition to the buffets there are snack bars open when the buffets are closed between meals until midnight and many restaurants to choose from for dinner.
Ashley, the Decameron was built with you in mind. No cooking, no cleaning, lot’s of quality food from dawn to midnight. Oh one more thing Deserts, they all looked much better than they tasted but that’s a good thing at beach resort.
