I stayed at Bambito for one night along with my husband and two kids, ages 2 and 4. We were there to attend a wedding of a relative that was held at the resort. The resort from the outside is beautiful and impressive. The hotel is as pictured, buttressed by the mountains and with trout streams and ducks on a beautifully manicured front lawn. Inside is another matter. The common areas of the hotel, including our room, the restaurant, and the lobby makes this place more grim than glee. Even the outside amenities of the tennis court, playground, and indoor pool are nice at first glance, but up close reveal that those items also suffer from neglect and mismanagement. The entire hotel is in sore need of upgrading, but a good scrub and basic maintenance.
If I had to identify the one thing that I found really upsetting about this hotel are the flies. Luckily there weren't flies in our room, otherwise I would have left immediately, but there were flies everywhere else. They were in the restaurant, buzzing around the buffet and would buzz around the food on one's plate if one didn't maintain constant vigilance. The flies covered the windows looking out into the streams in front of the hotel. There were piles of dead flies in the lobby. Flies were uninvited guests to the wedding as well. There is a stable for horses situated on the way up to the pool. This may be the reason for this problem. It is possible that this was an aberration, something that happened while I was there and usually doesn't occur. Even without the flies, I doubt I would conclude that the hotel is better than I am rating it now.
The service was a little terse and even surly at times. Checking out wasn't the most pleasant experience I've had. It could be that the girl behind the counter was feeling a little defensive since my four-year old was pointing out the pile of dead flies in front of her desk. When we had breakfast there were a couple of employees openly arguing with each other about another employee.
There were some positives about the room. The shower delivered excellent water pressure and warm (even hot) water. There was a small refrigerator in the closet in the room for guests to use. Ours obviously had not been cleaned for some time. The benefit of this was that we were able to enjoy the small bottle of wine left by previous guests. There are closets and drawers that allow for some unpacking. These pluses in my view were overshadowed by the negatives of stained sheets and someone else's hair left in the bathroom, Also frustrating was the fact that there is only one electrical outlet in the room, so to charge up any of your devices, you would have to do so on the tiny sink and vanity. I couldn't use my hairdryer because it kept blowing a fuse and turning off the power in the room.
We did use the restaurant to have dinner and breakfast . Our room service dinner tasted good although it was a little tough to eat in the room since it looked and felt unkempt and unclean. The breakfast from the buffet in the restaurant tasted a little stale and the flies everywhere made this a eat and rush experience. I thought the food served at the wedding was excellent, but again the flies made it all a little less enjoyable. If you use the restaurant, avoid the booths, the seats of which are caving in. There were a lot of light bulbs out - again just basic maintenance and management, which are sorely lacking at Bambito.
This place has the potential to be a world class resort in Panama. Unfortunately, it is a good example of what happens to a beautiful place when it is neglected and mismanaged. I visited Bambito 11 years ago. It was a much nicer place then.