Overall a very good experience.

Fantastic location to move around the city. Easy access to taxis, tours, restaurants, shopping. Hotel has it's own casino with shows and is right next door to the Veneto and Riande Continental which also have large casinos.

Food at the hotel was fantastic. Restaurant is open 24 hours and they have a great buffet. Great BBQ and huge pool with a great swim-up pool bar. Also, good spa and gym. Lots of additional services like salon, shoe-shine, curio shop, business centre, etc.

Staff is very friendly. No problems with language. All staff spoke sufficient English.

We stayed in one of the poolside villas. Rooms were clean and well lit. Some parts of hotel are starting to show signs of aging and could be upgraded. Especially considering the newer competitor hotels nearby which charge about the same rate.

Would stay there again.

Room service

This hotel is in a good location and has all the amenities of a good hotel. However, the housekeeping service and room service was lacking (on 2 occasions the requested food/service) did not appear. Money was stolen from my room and the hotel management kept promising to investigate but after a week, I have not heard anything from them. It is a well-priced hotel, worth a visit but hold on too your money and go out to eat rather than rely on room service.

Very Nice Place

A friend of mine and I just came back from the Hotel El Panama. Staff is very nice and they speak some English (however, if in Panama shouldn't a visitor know at least some Spanish? :P), good breakfast each morning with a large selection, Nice pool, fun bar in the lobby, decent gym, convenient safe in the room.

We went during Carnivale which was a blast. The hotel is in the middle of everything on Via Espana.

I have already recommended the hotel to about 4 people who are visiting here in the next few months.

Good/Bad - Spanish is necessary

I made reservations for 5 rooms through Hotels. The hotel did not recognize the confirmation numbers but I brought the paperwork and they used that. Even though the paperwork said prepaid and my credit card was billed for all 5 rooms, some members were billed again for the hotel room and some weren't. This created another mess for me to sort out. They were very slow but polite about processing people. I speak fair spanish and another member of our group speaks fluent spanish and that was of immense help for us. Most of the staff does not speak any English but you can make yourself understood. All the rooms were not the same. Everyone in our group had a huge spacious room except us. Ours was half the size. Rooms were clean. Very noisy with many parties that night. The buffet was good and breakfast was included. I would not stay here again but would stay either at the Marriott or the Crowne Plaza in Panama City. We needed wheelchair accessible room and that was available.

I would also not use Hotels again.

Tucson, Az

Will definitely come back

I stayed on the executive floor at this hotel. It had a butler, mini bar, stereo, dvd player, cd alarm clock, wireless internet and turn down service every night. They had a nice goodie basket in the bathroom with everything that you could have possibly forgotten. The people were friendly and I felt very comfortable there. They went out of their way to make my stay wonderful. For people to complain that the people spoke mostly Spanish is like someone coming to the States and complaining about people speaking English! I speak a little Spanish and my husband speaks none, but we didn't have any trouble getting what we needed. Between what I know, a dictionary and sign language, we managed just fine. We also had alot of laughs with the people we tried to communicate with! :0) The casino was nice. They had a smoking section and a non-smoking section. If you stay on the executive floor, they serve a nice continental breakfast right down the hall. They also had food and drinks in the evening. The room service menu had a great variety of choices and wasn't expensive at all. All in all, I think that the staff and the hotel were well worth the money and for what we got, 2 grand for hotel and flight went pretty far for 8 days.

Nice Hotel but

Hotel located in the financial district. Many local restaurants within a 5 minute walk.

Very little English spoken by hotel personal.

Junior Suite rooms very large, have own sitting room, and are near elevators.

Cell phones available in business office of hotel with free incoming calls and 0.35 cents/per minute for outgoing calls.

Do not book on the 8th floor because, lecture and seminar rooms were above us on the 9th floor.

Between 11:00pm and 1:00am furniture and chairs were constantly moved keeping us awake.

Excellent room

We have just returned from a week at the El Panama. The hotel is beautiful. The service is ok but many people speak only spanish.

Great Place to Stay!

My husband and I stayed at El Panama Hotel on May 2005. Great location, lots of shops within walking distance. Area was very safe and secure. Hotel was impeccably clean, all the bedsheets are changed daily. Pool area was awesome and very clean. Extremely relaxing. People were very helpful and friendly. Ladies, hair and acrylic nail are very cheap. A manicure and pedicure cost about $10.00. Blow dry was $5.00. Of course not in the hotel, but within walking distance. Get your nails and hair done there! Meals at the hotel were a bit pricey but very good. Night Club, Casino, Spa and beauty salon are inside the hotel. The only problem was the smoking inside the Casino. Great place to stay. I really recommend it.

Please visit an area called "Amador" this place is beautiful. There is plenty of music and very good food.

Nice time at the Hotel El Panama

My wife and I returned from a weeklong stay at the El Panama. We (both in our late 20's) had a very nice time. Our room (a standard) was huge and clean! No robes in the bathroom unfortunately. Great views of the city from the hotel. The pool and pool area are very nice and there is a poolside bar which we frequented. We found the staff to be both friendly and bilingual. The hotel is located in the heart of Panama City in a safe, walkable neighborhood. Our package which included breakfast (a more traditional Latin American style breakfast), was good, not great. Coffee at the hotel is delicious. When we return to Panama, we will definitely stay in the El Panama again. Why stay in a Marriott or Holiday Inn if you are traveling all that distance from the States? Live a little!

PS: Stay away from the Fiesta Casino in the hotel...unless you are a smoker. It's a nice casino, but it reeks of smoke. Better off going across the street to the Crown Casino.

Good location, not five start

We recently returned from Panama and a stay at the El Panama Hotel, which describes itself as a five star hotel. The hotel has an excellent location, and our room had nice city views. This is certainly not a five star hotel though. The rooms and lobby area were not as clean or attended to as they could have been (there were flowers that had been fresh at one time in our lobby area off the elevator that had died and were just left out - dead flowers - our entire stay). The restaurant food quality was poor, the pool area was very average at best, but the casino was fun. I probably would only return here if the rate was very low ($50 or less).