Be Careful Of Where You Stay When You Visit Granada, Nicaragua

I recently traveled with my family to the beautiful colonial town of Granada. We got there from Guatemala by car and the whole trip was amazing. For me this was a mixture between a family adventure and a work trip. I have received many requests from my readers for some recommendations on good hotels, restaurants & tours in this country. Since I only recommend places I have visited I decided it was time to check it out!

The first thing I did was a research of hotels that looked beautiful, close to the thing I wanted to see & kid-friendly. While doing so I found the website of a hotel called Hotel Dario, I really liked the photos in their website, so I contacted them, after a few mails a date was arranged for me to visit them.

We were received by Daisy (the public relations manager). She gave us a quick tour of the place. The rooms were small & a bit pricey but the decoration was nice. It also has a great location. It is on the main street of Granada & is surrounded by tons of restaurants.

Everything was going great until I found out that the invitation they made before to have a complimentary meal was completely null and void. We were left on the dining room where the waiters didn't know who we were or why we were there.

As you can imagine these professional meetings are very important for me because that is how I build relationships with the managers of the places I visit.

After we were done eating I decided to give the waiter a very generous tip for his good service. However, instead of a thank you I received a bill of what we had just consumed. So I explained to the waiter that I had been invited and that we should talk to Daisy about that. My first thought was: That's fine, obviously there was a small communication breakdown.

When I talked to her she said that I was lying (I have all the mail we had sent to each other) and told me to talk to the general manager. For me this was not a big deal because I didn't really care about paying for what we just ate & meeting the general manager was a good thing for business.

A staff member called him and to my surprise he instantly came on me with an attitude. "What's going on here?" he spoke loudly. I told him I needed to talk to him and asked him to go to the office so we could talk. I tried to explain the situation to him & told him that I'd be happy to talk business with him. But instead of taking me to his office he decided to yell even louder: "I don't care what you talked about before, I am the only one who has any say here and I never heard of you." (He was CCed on every email)

He continued yelling and playing the role of the alpha male, to the point that a few patrons who were sitting in the lobby had to leave. He even yelled: "YOU ARE RUINING MY BLESSED SUNDAY!" so I payed for the food and we left.

We could have fixed the problem in private without the need of acting arrogant. He disrespected perspective customers that might have brought him even more clients. After traveling to many countries and staying in countless hotels I never found such horrible & unprofessional managers and staff members. So don't waste your time at this hotel there are so many other wonderful options where the staff welcomes you with open arms.