Katie Sawyer
Google
My husband and I recently spent 3 nights in Puma Lodge, and we had high expectations based on other reviews. After departing the hotel yesterday, I feel obligated to write this for future guests, because I would not recommend this hotel until they make clear changes to their management and operations. It is an expensive getaway, and we were thoroughly disappointed with the experience overall when you take into consideration that the Noi claims to be a superior four-star hotel. During our stay, there were multiple small problems that combined left us and other guests frustrated, which I will detail below. I have stayed at many remote properties, and have never had this many comments.
It is important to highlight that the majority of the staff at the hotel are young, and are both kind and helpful, but clearly exhausted and visibly frustrated by the same issues as the guests. They seemed embarrassed by the problems, but did not seem to be in a position to offer any kind of solution, compensation, or discount for the issues. The atmosphere was tense consistently, as if they were waiting for something else to go wrong, as opposed to getting in front of a problem and finding a solution.
Access: I write this more as a warning as opposed to a criticism, but note that it is 100% necessary to arrive in a 4x4 vehicle. Supposedly, there is an option for the hotel to pick guests up where the road deteriorates, but this is not organized and “dependent on the hotel’s availability at the time of arrival.” When we called to ask about the road nobody offered this service.
Service/Staff: Despite the minimal staff working their hardest (they are operating with 50% of their normal staff due to the pandemic), the hotel is sold at full capacity, and it is impossible for 5-6 servers to provide 4-star level service. There was one person at the bar for more than 8-hour shifts, and he was constantly running up and down the stairs to look for glasses, beer and wine. On multiple occasions, there were no clean wine glasses, no cold beer, and no pisco sour. There is no drink menu, and the servers do not seem to know their pricing. One suggestion is that they could use the TV behind the bar to display the hours of operation and a small menu in addition to the rotating videos of the mountains already projected.
Heating: Every single night multiple guests had to complain that the living area was cold before the staff finally lit the fireplaces, and one night, they ran out of firewood after using it for a VIP guest’s 10-hour barbecue. They sent the staff outside at 7pm to chop wood, when perhaps a better solution would have been predicting the issue earlier in the day.
Hot Water: One afternoon we returned to our rooms and had no hot water in the bathroom. When I went to ask at reception (because the phones in the room do not appear to work – at least there was no indication of how to call reception), they told me that there was an issue with the pipes but that they were working on fixing it. They provided no alternative for us to shower, gave us no solution, and nobody had the decency to let us know when they had fixed the issue.
Food/Drink: It is understandable that the hotel is in the middle of nowhere, but they ran out of food items constantly and did nothing to compensate guests or find solutions for these issues. First, they ran out of mayonnaise, then pisco sour, and then they ran out of the least expensive wine. In a true 4-5 star property, I would expect them to offer the other bottles at a lower price given this issue, but we had to call the administrator to explain our frustration before they accepted this solution. At dinner on multiple occasions, they ran out of salads for the second dinner schedule, and on the last morning, they ran out of coffee. The staff is not empowered to solve these issues alone, and they did not offer us any discount or compensation.
