Situated on a south facing 50-acre peninsula with 1/2 mile of white sand beaches, La Giralda is perfect for families, couples, weddings, honeymoons, reunions, diving, fishing, adventure or simple peace & quiet. Made for memories, La Giralda guests enjoy fresh gourmet island inspired meals, a unique and completely unspoiled location with graceful service and pure tranquility in luxury accommodation. Our private, secure peninsula is surrounded by clear turquoise waters, white sand beaches, a picture perfect calm water bay with two resident dolphins and framed by rising hills with a lush tropical rainforest. We feature all the benefits of an upscale island boutique hotel: impeccable personal service, a gourmet restaurant located in the elegant Casa Grande, a cocktail bar with living room, the Golden Parrot beach bar, a colorful botanical garden, private fishing jetty, beach beds and private hammock gardens. See you soon!
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Giata.
If you're looking to be off the beaten path, this is a great place for you. Guanaja is a very remote island. There are no roads. Just boats. La Giralda is a quirky, yet beautiful place to stay with a lot of old world charm. The bungalows are nice and very big. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. They're high above the water and feel like trees houses in the rain forest.
If you're expecting a Four Seasons with all the bells and whistles, you're not going to get that here. But, what you do get is an authentic rustic and charming Honduran experience. There were only about 10 other guests at the hotel when I was there (including my two friends). There were 6 employees. So, you can imagine it's quiet and peaceful.
The Staff here is incredibly friendly and warm. It felt like we were visiting old friends. Oral, the restaurant manager/bartender and waiter is a wonderfully friendly man. He's also your guide on excursions. The Chef here is excellent. Everything we ate was delicious. Carlos, the manager is also quite friendly and helpful. We had a great time getting to know them over the week.
Things to know.
1. There's no menu or prices at the hotel restaurant or bar. You eat what is served for the day. Typically for breakfast we had eggs, bacon and pancakes. Lunch was delicious locally caught fish. And, dinner was also fish, shrimp or lobster, typically with soup and rice. And, we had a variety of delicious desserts.
2. You can pay in local currency or US dollars in Honduras.
3. Since there's no menu with food or drink prices, you can negotiate a flat fee for all your food and alcohol.
4. Sand flies: Try to find an organic/natural bug spray with Coconut Oil. I learned this trick in Costa Rica. The Sand flies don't like coconut oil. Standard bug spray does not work as well. There are a lot of sand flies, so you really need to be prepared. Baby Oil works well too. Either way, just cover up and be prepared. And, bring an anti-itch cream because the bites itch. A lot.
5. Go to "Graham's place" for the day or several. It's a 5 minute boat ride. The hotel will charge you an excursion fee, so just call Graham's place directly and have them come pick you up. Their fee is much less than the hotel excursion. Once you're there it's a beautiful Caribbean island with a fun bar/restaurant and white sand, blue water and great wifi!
6. Mi Casa Too - It's on the porch of a guy's house. It's a really fun local experience. Go for lunch or dinner. lunch is great because you can enjoy the gorgeous view from high in the hills. Dinner is really fun too. They play music and the food is delicious. It's a very short boat ride from the hotel. The hotel will take you there for free.
7. There are no shops or grocery stores on the main Island near the hotel. If you need supplies (food, bug spray, sun screen) you need to bring with you or go to "The Key" which is Guanaja's main town which is on the water off the main coast. The hotel goes there daily to get food, so you can tag along with whomever's taking the trip. The town is interesting to see because it's a floating town out in the water, but it's incredibly small, so you really only need an hour to shop and walk around. There is one bank there. A night club a few grocery stores, etc. It's interesting to see for an hour, but you don't need to spend time there. I recommend getting some snacks, wine and alcohol to bring back to your bungalow.
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Date of stay: January 2015
Rooms
Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Travelled with friends
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I've been to most of the islands of the Caribbean, and many other islands besides: Maldives, Indonesia, South Pacific, Greece, Hawaii, etc. I've stayed at boutique hotels, Aman and Aman-esque hotels, and rented my share of villas, including several in Mustique.
This place beats them all.
This isn't particularly surprising, as this hotel is the pet, personal project of Lane Pettigrew, of Mustique and high-end Caribbean resort fame. Words fail -- and the pictures here don't come close to doing the place justice.
This a villa "hotel" -- a small group of extremely beautifully designed (with personality) villas (some one bedroom villas), centered around a magnificent great house. The food is excellent, the service impeccable (but not cloying or snooty) and the surroundings breathtaking. As it is the brain child of Mr. Pettigrew, expect some unexpected touches. Like a, shall we say, eclectic free-range menagerie and a beach bar that's -- well, I'm not going to ruin the surprise for you.
Guanaja is verdant and utterly unspoiled. There is a single, short road that bisects the island. All transportation, really, is by boat. The diving is great, plenty of healthy corals and some pelagics. As some of the coral heads are shallow, it is also good for snorkeling. The hotel will arrange for diving (and there is plenty suitable for experts, technical diving). Snorkeling should be fantastic right off one of the resorts many powdery white sand beaches (after 3-4 hours of diving my interest in snorkeling was non-existent, but I could see the coral heads from my veranda).
Did I mention the wine cellar?
Spending a week at La Giralda was like spending a week at Gatsby's house, without the necessity of dressing for dinner.
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Date of stay: January 2014
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
Room Tip:There isn't a bad room. Some villas have more bedrooms than others, so I suppose it depends...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
My wife and I honeymooned at La Giralda in May-June 2014, and we cannot speak highly enough of the facilities and staff. We both agree this also would be the perfect location for a small destination wedding. Guanaja itself is beautiful, and La Giralda is really the best of all worlds. The houses are truly that - houses, not just hotel rooms. And most are literally beachfront, with nothing between you and an absolutely gorgeous ocean view. We had pretty much unfettered access to everything, too, because we were literally the only guests for most of the time we were there.
The food is also delicious, and if you want (or don't want) anything at all, they're more than happy to help you out. Ivan is the man. And the views from the veranda where you eat are just spectacular.
A few specific suggestions: - Go snorkeling at Michael's Rock. It's the best we found, and we saw a turtle and small barracudas, in addition to the usual colorful fish and crabs. - Ask to go waterskiing. It's awesome, and it's not every day you (or at least we) get to waterski in the ocean. - Go fishing. La Giralda set us up for bone-fishing with a local named Cassidy, who was great. Bone-fishing is basically fishing for bonefish (and others) in really shallow water, and Guanaja has some of the best bone-fishing in the world. If we went back, we'd also go deep-sea fishing. La Giralda will cook up whatever you catch for dinner!
A few things to be aware of: - Take some kind of shoes/sandals you can wear in the water. There are tiny little corals hiding in the seagrass that are not nice to step on. - May/June (at least the time we were there) is extremely windy on the La Giralda side of the island. As in, EXTREMELY windy. Easily the strongest sustained winds I've ever experienced. For the most part, that's not a huge deal, and frankly, it helps keep things cool and less buggy. But it does pretty much take kayaking and volleyball and such off the table. - Take plenty of sunscreen and bugspray with DEET, and use both liberally. Just when you think you're safe, you'll get burned and/or bitten by tiny sandflies. Neither is particularly pleasant.
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Date of stay: May 2014
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
Room Tip:We stayed in Villa Caterina, and would definitely do so again. It's on stilts right over the...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Apologies, but this is a long review, probably the longest I have ever written and I have submitted over 240 hotel reviews. My Husband and I stayed for ten days in the three bedroomed villa, Villa del Rey, during January/February after having spent time travelling through mainland Honduras. We flew into Guanaja airport from La Ceiba and Carlos, the Manager, picked us up in the hotel boat for the short transfer. Our villa was spacious and comfortable, in an old-fashioned way, with great views. It came with a large sitting area, kitchen and two small private plunge pools, one accessed rather strangely, directly from our shower. There was also a large family pool directly attached to our villa for other guests to use as none of the other villas have access to a pool. This could have been very disturbing if the guests had been noisy and/or using the pool in the evening owing to its immediate proximity. We were also told that the pool is sometimes rented out to locals for parties. Thankfully this was not the case for us. The area round the communal pool had two sun loungers and a large bed without a mattress - not very comfortable. We were also not very impressed with the glass filled with cigarette butts left from the previous guests on the patio. Our kitchen was large but poorly equipped. No oven/stove/hob/microwave, obviously intended to prevent any cooking. There was a coffee maker but no creamer, sugar, tea or coffee. The large fridge contained a few soft drinks. The bathroom contained good towels and some average quality soap, shampoo and body lotion. The toilet had an unpleasant smell on occasions. The bedroom had good storage space but the mosquito net over the bed was unusable and we had torn sheets for a couple of days. We also had to request a blanket as the temperature at night required more than a sheet. No drinking water was available in the room. The villa did not have a tv., internet or telephone, not a problem for us, but it could be for some. The main problem with our villa was that even though we had rented the whole place the chef was living in one of the spare bedrooms. We were not made aware of this at check-in but we quickly became aware of the situation. What was worse was that he could see and hear clearly through louvred doors into our living room. I felt that this was a terrible invasion of our privacy. In fact all the villas had employees living under them, ours included . The hotel grounds were pretty with lots of flowers but more effort could have been made regarding removal of trash created by the ongoing construction of new properties. Also, a torch (flashlight) was needed in the evening as not many of the garden lights were working. The restaurant/bar area is very pleasant after you have run the gauntlet of caged animals at the entrance. There are two parrots in a very small cage, a baby monkey living in deplorable conditions and a sole budgerigar which died during our stay. The living conditions of these animals would upset any animal lover. Once inside there are some beautiful oriental style tables where you have the choice of dining alone or with others. There is a tv area but the tv did not work, much to the chagrin of some American guests who would like to have watched the Superbowl. There are four bar stools at the bar where the hotel literature said hors d'oeuvres could be enjoyed. None ever appeared when we were there. For our first four days we were the only guests. During this time every member of staff seemed to be involved with finishing one of the newly constructed villas for its new owner's imminent arrival. The beach was not raked, the pools not cleaned and the the housekeeping girls turned up at 6.30pm to clean our room. Carlos invited us to visit the new villa with a view to buying one. On inspecting the workmanship and seeing the rush job going on (painting the exterior in the rain) we declined. Food - we did not get off to a good start. Despite having informed Cecilia in the reservations department and also mentioning to Carlos on arrival that my Husband is shellfish intolerant we were presented with lobster for our first lunch. Out of courtesy and hunger (no alternative) he ate it and suffered for the rest of the day and night. I loved the lobster and considered it the best meal of my stay. The following morning Carlos offered us the opportunity of paying an all-inclusive rate. Our stay, booked through Luxury Link, already included breakfast and a complimentary bottle of wine when we purchased dinner. This was a difficult decision as there was no menu with prices and no wine list to help us evaluate if this was a good offer or not. Despite this we took up his offer after agreeing that we could have a bottle of wine in our villa for our sundowners, as we are not great cocktail lovers and there was no view from the restaurant. No wine showed up. The next day for lunch we were presented with conch soup followed by conch as a main course. Not very appetizing for somebody who is allergic to shellfish and no alternative. No wine in our villa either. On the third day of our all-inclusive package we were getting pretty annoyed. The food quality was going downhill, there was no tonic, no choice of wines with dinner, no liqueurs, the breakfast offered had no choice and even no fruit one day and we are not lovers of Aunt Jemima's pancakes and syrup. Eventually, after complaining, a bottle of warm white wine was delivered to our villa. We then had the problem of no corkscrew and no wine glasses. When we took the wine back up to the restaurant to be opened it was 'off' and so were all the others in the same batch. At this point we decided that we had had enough of the all inclusive package and would revert to paying only for what we consumed. We also considered leaving prematurely but changing our three different connecting flights would prove difficult (the internet was not working at the time) and there was one redeeming feature, the sun was shining. For the rest of our stay the food was uninspiring. I don't consider red Jello, on an almost daily basis, an acceptable dessert. Once, we did get lucky and got cold rice pudding instead. The beef in the beef stew was tough and the paella one of the worst dishes I have ever eaten. It might have helped if the chef had used the correct rice. Luckily, another guest brought his catch of fish back one day and his wife cooked it providing one of the best dinners we experienced during our stay. Despite the poor food, however, I don't blame the chef as he was cooking with a very limited budget and poor facilities. Even the fish he cooked had been previously frozen, shocking when there is a daily fish market in town. It appeared that the food was being bought on a daily basis in the local town as storage/freezer space was minimal. Midway during our stay the white wine ran out and even bottled water was unavailable, which forced us to travel into the small town and buy supplies which are readily available, seven days a week. The beach - is pretty and the water looked inviting until we were told not to walk on the sea grass as it hides vicious sea urchins. That made it impossible to swim as the sea grass extends along the whole shoreline and a long way out into sea. Instead we decided to take a walk along the beach, a big mistake as we were eaten alive by sand flies which itched for more than two weeks. We smothered ourselves with baby oil as advised but were continued to be bitten as far away as the pool. On our fifth day things improved when new guests arrived. The hotel was now full with all the other guests having travelled with a Groupon deal. They were a lovely crowd and they certainly helped improve our spirits. On one occasion six of us went to Graham's Place, a five minute boat ride away. Carlos offered the hotel boat for US$120 for this service so we contacted Alex at Graham's Place who did it $50. At Graham's Place we enjoyed sand fly free beaches, snorkelling, a large menu choice of fresh food including fish just caught and landed after our arrival and a great choice of drinks and a choice of wine. Most of the guests staying at La Giralda when we did went to Graham's Place on an almost daily basis. Graham buys all his stock from the mainland to ensure a constant supply. He also treats the beach for sandflies and rakes the sand to eradicate their breeding ground. Another good outing was to the Mi Casa Too restaurant which opened specially for us on a Monday evening. One highlight of our stay at La Giralda was the service we received from Orel, the barman/waiter. Orel is a local and without him our stay would have been unimaginable. He was always friendly, hard working and honest. He worked from early morning until the last guest left in the evening and smiled through adversity. Thank you Orel. Other annoyances during our stay included a power outage (not unusual on the island) but the generator could not be started as it was out of gas. Waiting for over half an hour one day for a pre-arranged lunch in the beach bar. Nobody was there to serve any food or drinks despite being told that it would be open. No mattresses on the beach beds. Trash on the beach for days. Nobody willing to find out if there was any local diving, instead we were told by Carlos to kayak out to Dunbar Rock Hotel and ask there. Thankfully, we didn't as we found out that Dunbar Rock was closed for refurbishment. Our departure was a mixed affair with generosity from the absent owner as he cancelled our bill in lieu of the problems we had experienced and our transfer to the airport. On arrival at the airport we were almost turfed out of the boat and before we had even entered the terminal building a few feet away Carlos, the manager had departed. On entering the airport we were advised that all flights to and from the island were cancelled that day due to bad weather (a regular occurrence and something to consider when visiting Guanaja). Abandoned by Carlos we had to quickly charter a boat to take us the one and a half hour exciting boat ride to Roatan. Luckily, we were able to fly from here and make our flight to New York. Guanaja is a beautiful unspoilt island with friendly people. La Girlada could be such a wonderful place but it needs a decent manager, a lot of maintenance/upgrades to the properties, some mattresses for the beach/pool beds, a bar with the ingredients to make the most basic drinks like a G&T, better food options and a strategy to eliminate the sand flies. It appears to be suffering from a cash-flow problem and this impacted on our stay greatly. I do hope that this review does not give the impression that we are high-maintenance people. In fact the opposite is true. We love everything from beach hut accommodation in India to glitzy hotels in Dubai. We have been lucky enough to holiday all over the world, including many visits to the Caribbean and Latin America spending time in all types of accommodation. We don't like butler service, thankfully that was not on offer at La Giralda despite the advertising saying otherwise but if a hotel claims to be luxurious it should be. Thank goodness we did not pay full price, if we had I would have rated the place as a 2*. My rating is based on over 35 years of travelling. I would be happy to answer any queries if you message me.
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Date of stay: January 2015
Location
Service
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
Room Tip:Villa del Rey as it is the only villa with a pool. The beach is swarming with sand flies and the...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
In February, I booked and prepaid for a DIVE trip with La Giralda in March because I saw all the great reviews for it on Trip Advisor. La Giralda misrepresented to me their ability to provide dive services. There was no dive operation either there or in partnership with anyone else on the island. They would not even agree to provide me with transportation to a dive operator on the island. Despite their deliberate misrepresentations to me, La Giralda has refused to issue a refund. Don't make the same mistake I did.
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Date of stay: March 2013Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Guanaja is a not the easiest island to get to and so we were very disappointed when the hotel that describes itself as a 'Luxury Boutique Hotel' where you can enjoy 'fresh, gourmet, island-inspired meals, impeccable graceful service and an unspoiled location and luxurious accommodations failed to live up to its advertising. The beach was littered with garbage. Sand-flies are a huge problem throughout the day and into the evening. The beach beds do not have mattresses and you have to bring towels from your villa. The sea is virtually un-swimmable as the omnipresent sea-grass is home to poisonous sea creatures. The Golden Parrot beach bar has been closed down. The main beach bar is never staffed. The Casa Grande Restaurant offers no choices, the meal is standard for everyone and the food is budget-style. The breakfasts are monotonous and poor in quality ie. canned juice, pancakes and minimal fruit. The dinner entrées and desserts even worse. Lunches are virtually the same with none of the vacation staples like club sandwiches/burgers or salads. There wasn't even ice cream, just Jello. Be prepared to eat a lot of potatoes and rice and drink water or beer. The bar serves a very limited menu of drinks - no Daiquiris, Bloody Mary's, Mimosas etc. There is no wine cellar or even any white wine to buy during our stay. The villas could all do with a complete upgrade. They are all showing their age and the repairs that have taken place have been poorly executed. Other guests told us that they were disturbed by staff living under or even in their villas. We were on top of the kitchen and restaurant. We had no view of the beach but could see the lagoon behind if you climbed up into the turret. We had a television that did not work. The bed did not have a proper mattress protector or topper. The linen needed replacing. Activities are poorly managed. There a couple of decent kayaks but there was nobody to organise the water-skiing, kite-boarding and scuba diving that they advertise. A walk to the nearby waterfall was $120pp - a rip off as it included lunch that we had already paid for in our package. The swimming pool had only two usable sunbeds, so get there early. The staff is friendly but overwhelmed and inexperienced. None seemed to have any previous experience of working in the hospitality industry. The barman is the sole exception. Beware, the booking agent, Cecilia, is not resident on Guanaja and so has no idea about the place and asks you to send cash via Western Union for the inter-island flights. This was a first for me. If you are unfortunate enough to have already booked I recommend you spend your days at Graham's Place but rely on their water taxi as La Giralda staff forgot to pick up a couple one afternoon for their return trip. I will be posting photos as soon as I can.
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Date of stay: February 2015
Value
Location
Service
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
Room Tip:If you need wifi choose Villa Almirante
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I booked this as a 25th wedding anniversary for my husband and me, but spent less than 24 hours of a prepaid 5 day stay here. For starters, we weren't given a room key and were told nobody needs a room key because it's very safe. (Hello, this is Honduras) When we asked about a key for the room safe to secure our valuables, we were told they'd have to replace the safe in our room, and we should just carry our cash on us. The management was very dismissive of our basic security request. The Villa itself was ok, certainly not clean and definitely in need of repair. The air conditioning did not work well in the bedroom and the fan didn't work at all. There was construction going on next to us and the workers were living under our villa. We were told dinner would be served at 7, for which we showed up promptly. It took over an hour to get our appetizer, and after an hour and a half gave up and asked if they could just bring it to our room when it was ready. To their credit, they did bring it at around 9:30. Around 1:30am the power on the island went out. La Giralda does not have a back up generator for the rooms, so no air conditioning. Opening the windows really isn't an option because there no screens and too many blood sucking insects. Even though we prepaid through GROUPON for a 5 day stay, we left the next morning, spending less than 24 hours at La Giralda. We called another hotel on the island, Graham's Place, who gave us a great rate and picked us up within an hour. We were welcomed so graciously by their staff and even got a KEY!!!! I would recommend staying at Graham's, they saved our anniversary trip!
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Date of stay: April 2015
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
My wife and I stayed here for several days while visiting family in Honduras. Positives: The location and grounds have wonderful potential. It is an amazingly beautiful private penninsula that has several villas constructed in places to maximize the surrounding beauty. The villas are gorgeous when clean. The main house, where all meals are served, is constructed of dark woods and highlighted with rustic furnishings that give a colonial Carribean feel. Each villa has a private beach with easy access. They are huge! They were at one time lovingly designed and built. They offer great views of the sea and are very comfortable. The staff are wonderfully friendly and helpful. Oral, the bartender, restaurant manager, concierge, kayak guide, and overall helper, is a gem. He really made our stay memorable. He is the one that takes care of you and your needs. Stephen, the boat driver, was also quite friendly and helpful. Manuel, the chef, is from a small town in the central hills of main land Honduras. His meals are quite tasty and always of high degrees of freshness and quality. The negatives: The management. While Carlos, the on-site manager, is very friendly and attentive, he is highly disorganized and seems to be in over his head. His staff become frustrated with him and talk behind his back. The villas are falling apart due to this lack of organization. Several of them are in a state of disrepair and are unavailable for rental. The entire property is besieged by garbage and uncleaned mess. The 'Beach Bar' was not cleaned once during our entire stay. Nor was it attended by any staff. (They are at this time, understaffed) On our first day, there were dirty dishes and cooking utensils scattered about. They were still there, untouched, on our final day. The bird cage at the top of the main stairs of the main house is rarely cleaned. Garbage, both trash and construction debris, is littered about the property. It is rarely picked up. Most was present and untouched during our entire stay. The booking process: We booked and were promised Villa Catalina (months in advance). Yet, upon our arrival were informed that it was occupied. We were assigned a villa that was still under construction. We declined. They then worked to clean another. It took them 3 hours to clean half of it so that we could move in. It took 2 days to finally get it clean. Cecilia, who lists herself online as management, has NOTHING to do with the place. She lives on Roatan and ONLY does booking. From our conversations with other guests, she often double books. Carlos had no idea we were even coming until the morning of our arrival. Confirm multiple times during the weeks prior to your arrival, and do it with the resort, not Cecilia. All in all, this place is an absolute gem. With a competent manager, it can once again be the shining light of the island. Yet right now, it is falling apart, is the butt of jokes around the island, and has seen better days. Under new management, and with more attention from ownership, I would most certainly stay here again.
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Date of stay: December 2014
Value
Rooms
Service
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
I have been putting this review off for awhile, partly because we have had a lot happen since Memorial Day weekend, and partly because I didn't know what to say. Here's a brief synopsis of our trip: - I purchased our La Giralda room on an auction site called skyauction.com last November. I confirmed and paid for the room within a few days of winning. Our room was confirmed twice with hotel before our trip in May 2016. I wanted to let the hotel know our flight info so they could make sure to pick us up from the airport, and emailed them a couple of times before our trip. I received an email back the day before we left, confirming someone would pick us up from the airport. We were picked up as promised, and taken to hotel by boat. (the only way to get there) Once we got to the island, we were escorted to the office where we were told we hadn't paid for our room, and they didn't know we were coming until my confirmation email that Monday. The Manager told us there was nothing he could do, so the "owner" came in and told us it was skyauction's fault. (He later blamed his old employee of stealing the money). I offered to talk to skyauction on the phone, but they said no. They decided to honor the payment we had made, and then escorted us to the room we had booked, which was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom oceanfront. They told us dinner would be at 7, and that was it. No key was provided, because apparently you don't "need" a key at La Giralda. (WHAT?!) The best part is, we were locked out of the second room by the 3rd night. It wasn't made up anyway, so we weren't using it, but I did find it odd. (Maybe someone else was rooming in there?) Once escorted to dinner, we were asked if we wanted to pay an "all inclusive" price of $70 USD per person. Since there weren't any prices on the menu, I asked how much dinner would be, which the "owner" replied "Ummmm around $50 USD". We decided to go with the all inclusive package, since we didn't want to get hustled the rest of the trip. The next day we went down to the beach, which was beautiful but hard to swim in due to the sea grass. Once we finally relaxed, I started to feel bug bites all over my body. These are sandflies. I had read about them, and had brought bug spray just in case, but no one had prepared us for the torture we were about to endure. We basically looked like we had the chicken box by the end of the day. The rest of our 3 days remained the same, with lots of sandflies. We were tipping chef every night, which was well deserved, and made sure to keep enough currency available to pay our all inclusive tab at the end. I was asked to head to the office the afternoon before we left. That's when I was hit with a huge bill. Instead of charging us $70 usd a day, they charged us $75. They also charged us an 18% service tax, and 10% service charge! (They also charged us for an extra day, but once confronted, they took it off) Not ONCE, did anyone mention any of this to us. They told us that's the way it is, and they have to charge that amount because of the government. I told them they need to be upfront and honest with their guests in the future. BTW, we were the ONLY guests the hotel had the entire time we were there, and I'm not even sure if the hotel was supposed to be open? I asked to speak with the "owner" about the situation, but he was off the island an inaccessible. After handing them my credit card, where the manager took a picture of it front and back, we went back to our room where I stewed on everything that had happened. They did end up giving us a couple hundred dollars off, and we were able to pay the full amount in cash. By the way, I did call skyauction, as soon as, I got home to verify my payment had been made. The guy on the phone knew exactly who I was and had talked to the hotel several times. That's when I was informed that skyauction is a commercial trading website, where they market for the hotel and get rooms in return. This particular room was marketed in Bridal Guide magazine! There are a couple of things to note: 1. Arnold, the chef, made the best food I've had ANYWHERE in the world. He didn't speak English very well, but he tried, and we got to practice our Spanish speaking skills. Not only was he our chef for the entire trip, he was also our waiter, and cleaned up the kitchen afterwards. I would LOVE to have him here in the states! Very talented, and the only reason I'm giving this place any stars at all. 2. The view from our room was one of a kind, and probably the best view we have ever had at a hotel. 3. Try going to Grahams place. We wished we would have gone, because they supposedly treat the sand so you don't have to worry about the sandflies. 4. The snorkeling here was not good, at least from our experience with the hotel. Our trip consisted of lots of baby jellyfish. Snorkeling was one of the big reasons we chose to vacation in Honduras.
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Date of stay: May 2016
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
If you want to get away from it all then Guanaja is the place to do it and La Giralda offers the best of everything. Perfectly located – you can watch the sunrise over the ocean and set behind the hills, all from the hammock on your balcony. The whole island is unspoiled and La Giralda and its’ wonderful staff will help you make the best of it.
The team of staff, led by Carlos, made us feel at home straight away. Amazingly attentive service (admittedly in a laid back, Caribbean way), they couldn’t have done more to make us feel welcome. They organized 3 different things for our group to do on the first morning: one group went fishing, one went diving and I snorkeled and kayaked. Though we may have been spoiled as we were the only guests there for the duration of our stay, nothing was too much trouble.
The food too was excellent – even going so far as to cook the fish one of our group caught for our dinner! We enjoyed superb local seafood and fish and they catered to our preferences as much as was humanly possible.
The villas are beautiful – nestled into the hills and overlooking the water. They are bright, spacious and clean though would benefit from a bit of a refurb here and there.
All of the activities were fun, safe and totally geared around our choices. The waterfall hike is a great experience but very slippery – be warned and prepare to get wet feet. Kayaking and snorkeling was wonderful and I felt completely safe alone with my guide and our fishing team had a wonderful time with a knowledgeable and chatty fisherman.
Our return journey from Guanaja was a total shambles, though completely not the fault of the staff at La Giralda. Hopefully our experience was a rare one but I would advise being prepared for potential delays at an airport the size of a standard living room with minimal catering service and no sharing of information. However, La Giralda didn’t hesitate to take us back when we were stranded on the island an additional night – they came back for us, put us back in our villa and made us completely at home once again, despite the fact that they had given many of their staff the day off!
Lots of reviews mention the sandflies and it would be negligent of me not to mention them. Some of our group were untouched so they don’t affect everyone but two of us were eaten alive and are still itching even now, more than a week on. So do cover up, use repellant and take a bucket load of hydrocortisone cream with you!
Overall a fantastic holiday and an amazing experience with some of the most delightful and attentive staff you could wish for at a very affordable price. Highly recommended and would definitely go back.
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Date of stay: January 2015
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Travelled with friends
Room Tip:From what I could tell they are all stunning but the bigger villas boast the infinity pool and...
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Hi there,
We are not all inclusive but we our prices do include full breakfast.
Sometimes there is nightly entertainment but not always as we are a beach hotel and most people would like to relax at the end of the day.
Hi there,
Please send me an email through our website and I will help you book your flights to Guanaja, someone from the resort will pick you up and bring you to the resort once in Guanaja airport.
There are more places to choose from in the Guanaja area.
LOCATION
HondurasBay IslandsGuanaja
NUMBER OF ROOMS
14
Prices are the average nightly price provided by our partners and may not include all taxes and fees. Taxes and fees that are shown are estimates only. Please see our partners for more details.
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