Centro Hotel Cartagena is located in the historic center of Cartagena, 200 meters from the Santo Domingo square, customs square and the car square where the Clock Tower is located. Surrounded by a wide range of restaurants, branded stores, jewellery and handicrafts; Centro Hotel Cartagena is a 17th century house close to everything our guests need. It is located 4 blocks from the convention center and just 10 minutes from Rafael Nuñez International Airport by car. A hotel with 16 years of tradition and 16 comfortable rooms.
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Giata.
HOTEL STYLE
Historic Hotel
Quiet
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Location
Calle del Arzobispado, 34-80, Cartagena 130001 Colombia
Name/address in local language
Centro Hotel Cartagena
224 reviews
Getting there
Great for walkers
Places to stay are graded on a 0-100 scale. The higher the grade, the easier it is for travelers to find restaurants and things to do within walking distance.
If you like to shower or sleep just stay somewhere else. There is no hot water and the cafe downstairs starts playing bass heavy music at 6am loud enough to make out every word. Usually wouldn’t bother to write a review but the owner said some racist stuff about previous guest directly to me. Location is the only thing that makes it jump off the page.
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Date of stay: January 2022Trip type: Traveled solo
Room Tip:Â Great location is the only thing saving it
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.
The hotel is very centrally located in the Old Town, and the price is very reasonable, particularly considering the nice environment and more than comfortable rooms. Tips: bring your own shampoo, and if possible ask for a room away from the main street (or bring good ear plugs...).
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Date of stay: November 2012Trip type: Traveled 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.
1. Location: Center of historical district 2. Parking: on the street 3. Appearance: Good 4. Accessibility: second floor, no elevator 5. Lobby / Check in: quick, no hassles. 6. Room: 207, simple, large and functional. 7. Cleanliness: Clean 8. Condition: 3 stars, an older establishment with imperfections and pleasant character. 9. Bed: double size, soft but I slept well, on a raised concrete dais. 10. A/C: split wall unit, cold. 11. WiFi: free 12. TV / Entertainment: TV worked, cable was good. 13. Security: My room was directly next to the front desk, there was a small safe box in the room which I did not use, I suspect its operations is will the backup key as it was closed on check in, there are no sounds from the keys and the bell boy said I could ask for the key. 14. Bathroom: shower, sink, toilet, all good, an electrical show head worked well to heat the water. 15. Mini Bar / Coffee: there is a stocked mini bar but no coffee. 16. Breakfast: I did not try it. 17. Restaurants: at the ground floor entry, there is a very small restaurant which will provide breakfast and coffee. 18. Room Service: 19. Pool: none 20. Gym: none 21. Grounds: only the 2nd floor lobby. 22. Local Area Venues: Here you are steps away from it all, restaurants, museums, bars, an outstanding location. 23. Staff: Very Pleasant and Helpful. 24: Extras: taxis. Are easy to find.
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Date of stay: April 2016Trip type: Traveled 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.
The rooms in this place are small windowless cells, with noisy ventilators, loose sinks, and shower where you hope you won’t be electrocuted by the rather tired heating system. But this is all minor compared to the enormous loud disco that you can feel all night, at least in room 220. And even that could be forgiven if the staff has showed some level a understanding and where not claiming that this was the first night, or that they don’t know it because they work only during the day. The general manager is even worse, as he doesn’t respond to any message at all. Instead, they start to complain that the client was starting to get annoyed by the absolute absence of service. So, avoid this place at all cost!
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Date of stay: March 2022
Rooms
Service
Sleep Quality
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.
A friend and I stopped 2 nights at this hotel. It has a colonial architecture and it is a charming place but this it! When we arrive the guy at reception tried to make us accept a dirty room, we had to battle to change a room and the guy at reception was not happy to give us another room to such an extent that we almost decided to left. The rooms are OK but shows their ages. The next day we were back from our excursion day in Cartagena when we saw young people getting off our bedroom. We were not happy and reception said they needed to change us of room with no apologize. On our last day, the checked out was horrible. They refused our payment with credit card despite the sign VISA at reception. We were not happy because I had to take some cash outside and were running late after that. When I return from the ATM they had called the police to make sure we would pay. An horrible experience !!! Never again
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Date of stay: August 2014
Value
Rooms
Service
Trip type: Traveled 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.
My thoughts on El Centro Hotel in Cartagena, Colombia:
- No bolt or chain lock on doors, meaning room service or maintence could enter at any time, even when you don't want to be disturbed. - Extremely loud...LOTS of street noise, and lots of noise from the restaurant right below the hotel. - No alarm clocks in rooms. Hope you brought your own, or have a loud cell phone alarm. - Safe is not attached to anything, so can easily be carried away. - Staff is not very helpful...knows almost nothing about the local area, and you have to interrogate them like the FBI to get any advice on activities or sites. - Staff does not speak English, which seems problematic for a hotel with so many international visitors. Hope your Spanish is good, and you speak the Colombia Caribbean dialect! - Floors are hard tiled, and not catpeted, meaning you need to wear socks or sandals in your room. - Very hard beds...feels like there's no mattress...feels like a few blankets on top of a stone tablet. - Weak A/C barely adequate to cool the room, in the hot Cartagena weather. - Hotel staff only partially cleans rooms...left dirty blankets and towels laying in my room after they 'cleaned' it. - Relativey expensive for what you get, so it's not price-efficient. I was charged a higher price than I should have been. You could almost certanly do better for an equal or lower price.
Oh yeah...the good things about El Centro Hotel? Great location in the center of the walled city, and very nice doormen.
I definitely would not recommend El Centro Hotel.
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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.
Went with 2 families. We put two full packages of travelers checks in the hotel safe and never had a reason to use them as our cash and credit cards were sufficient. Upon return to US we discovered that checks were missing from each of the travelers checks packages and had been cashed in Cartagena the day after we left. We had liked the central location and helpful staff, but would never recommend or consider any property where the safe isn't even safe. The theft was a clever one, as no suspicions were raised until we were home. Made multiple attempts to contact owner and left our phone numbers. These ended when we were told to call him on his cell phone. Would have expected that theft from an in-room safe would have registered higher on his list of concerns and at least warranted a call to us. Hotel gets worst rating because it could have been cash, passports, cameras, computer, or more.
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Date of stay: January 2009
Value
Location
Cleanliness
Trip type: Traveled with family
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.
Cartagena is a beautiful and interesting city, and the Centro Hotel is well-positioned to explore it, and reasonably priced. That's the good news. The room we had was adequate, if not brilliant, but the shower was literally shocking. The shower head had an electrical gadget on the shower head to heat the water, but if you tried to adjust the temperature you got an electric shock - fortunately only 110 volts! A worse shock was the discovery that the in-room safe box wasn't secure. Ours wouldn't store a code, so they gave us a key to lock it with, but either there was a duplicate or some-one knew a code that would open the box. Anyway, we discovered that 100 USD and 100,000 pesos had vanished one day - we always count our cash carefully each day. Management didn't want to know, and claimed it was impossible for anyone else to open the box. We checked out next day and changed our plans to return there three days later.
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Date of stay: June 2011
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled 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.
If you stay in Cartagena, few hotels match the location of Centro Hotel. It´s at a stone throw of most of the Old cities attractions, like the Cathedral, the Clock Tower and the Plaza Santo Domingo. The rooms were a bit spartan, yet clean. There are however, a few things that we were not very happy about: 1. The guy who worked at the night shift was not particularly friendly. One night we arrived to our room and we noticed that the door key had been left hanging at the door lock (we left them at reception when we left the room). We complained to the guy, and his sole response was that it was not his responsibility but from the staff from the previous shift.
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Date of stay: April 2012
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled with friends
Room Tip:Â I did not find the street front windows that noisy, and the street view from the balcony was great.
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.
This is a bare bones hotel and I expected more for the amount I paid per night. It was clean and I didn't have any issues with bugs but I would not stay here again for the price. I'd spend a bit more for something nicer. Breakfast included a fruit plate, orange juice, scrambled (or fried) eggs, toast and coffee. It was fine but not spectacular and also isn't as much food as it sounds like. Also, the website we made our reservation through said minimum eggs and bacon but we never saw any bacon (not that we minded).
One of the big brand guide books noted that this small hotel is built around a courtyard. What it didn't mention is that in the courtyard is a casual restaurant and you can hear people talking and the clinking of the silverware into the night. Also, if you get a room that looks onto the street then you will hear street noise and also the noise of horse drawn carriages until 1am. The location is great but I think anything in the old city would be in a great location. The old city is quite small and easily walkable. Although this hotel is located in El Centro, it is about a 5 minute walk (or less) to the part of the old city known as San Diego.
Lastly, a safety measure of the hotel is that you have to ring a doorbell and someone will come down the stairs and let you into the door. This results in one being able to hear the doorbell into the night or until the final guest arrives back to the hotel. On the one hand, you feel safer but it is yet another reason to bring ear plugs.
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Date of stay: December 2011
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled 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.
Estimado Sr. Carlos,
Gracias por tener en cuenta CENTRO HOTEL!
Me permito indicar que el centro histórico y especialmente el área donde se encuentra ubicado el hotel es realmente muy seguro, con toda tranquilidad se puede caminar por las calles sin temor.
La vida nocturna es exótica y llena de alegrÃa, puede encontrarás lugares muy tranquilos donde tomarse un cóctel sobre las murallas ó una discoteca al ritmo del son cubano ó champeta.
El servicio de transporte aeropuerto hotel se encuentra incluido en la tarifa, previa información de su vuelo.
Por favor cualquier inquietud quedo muy atenta.
Cordialmente,
CAMILA ANDREA SUAREZ VELANDIA
Gerente Administrativa
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