Who doesn’t dream of staying in an overwater bungalow in an idyllic tropical location? In a lot of the world, the price of this dream is prohibitive, however within the Caribbean area of Bocas del Toro in Panama, staying at Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge, your dream can affordably come true.
Bocas del Toro is the highest island vacation spot alongside Panama’s Caribbean coast. Guests are drawn to Bocas del Toro by its vibrant turquoise waters, stunning surroundings and laid again lifestyle. A keep on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge is a perfect technique to take pleasure in the perfect of Bocas del Toro.
The next is an trustworthy Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge evaluation primarily based on our two night time stick with children in February.
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Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge Description
The Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge is small resort of overwater bungalows on the Caribbean Sea in Panama. There are 9 overwater bungalows on the resort, consisting of a main bedroom, three Luna cabins and 5 Punta Caracol suites.
The buildings throughout the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge are painted in stunning tropical colours that are an ideal complement to the tropical Caribbean environment. The turquoise-green buildings virtually disappear into the water when the solar is shining and the water shade is at its most vibrant.
Along with our two night time keep on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge, we additionally spent 4 extra nights in Bocas City. See what we obtained as much as throughout our household journey to Bocas del Toro.
Punta Caracol Location
The Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge is situated on the primary island within the Bocas del Toro archipelago, midway between Bocas City and the well-known Starfish Seashore.
The overwater bungalows are situated simply offshore of a mangrove forest on the primary island of Bocas del Toro. In the event you’d prefer to see the mangroves up shut, there’s a walkway from the overwater bungalows to the mangroves on the island.
Punta Caracol Suites
We stayed in a Punta Caracol suite for 2 nights with our two children. There are two flooring on this overwater lodging.
The primary flooring of a Punta Caracol suite consists of the primary dwelling space, with two single beds which may also be used to sit down on. There’s loads of cabinets and hangers to retailer your stuff. There’s a big rest room and bathe. The one beds every have mosquito netting and there’s a ceiling fan overhead.
The higher flooring of a Punta Caracol suite has a big queen sized mattress, with mosquito netting and a ceiling fan. A canvas curtain will be opened to let in additional of the contemporary sea air. That is particularly good at night time to listen to the lapping waves and really feel the ocean breeze as you go to sleep. With a lot refreshing sea air coming in, we didn’t even miss having air-con in any respect.
Though every mattress had mosquito netting, we didn’t see a single mosquito throughout our February keep on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge.
The primary stage of the suite has an overwater deck and a personal dock out the again. The Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge supplies a hammock if you happen to’d like to hold it in your deck – which after all it is best to! The deck additionally has two padded solar beds, good for settling in and studying a great ebook to the stress-free tropical sounds throughout.
The small personal dock is hooked up to the deck. It’s simply large enough for 4 folks to sit down on and dangle their ft within the Caribbean Sea and watch the fish under. There’s a picket staircase main into the clear, heat Caribbean water under.
The rooms on the Punta Caracol resort are powered by solar energy. It’s sufficient to maintain your followers going all night time, however if you wish to cost your units, you’ll want to take action on the reception desk.
Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge Actions
There are three essential actions to take pleasure in on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge: snorkeling, kayaking and stress-free.
Snorkeling
I’ve all the time cherished snorkeling in tropical waters – the sight of colourful tropical fish swimming round coral in crystal-clear waters is all the time an enormous thrill. The snorkeling round Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge is surprisingly good.
The Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge supplies free snorkel gear to its company all through their keep. They’d appropriately sized snorkel gear for everybody in our household, even the youngsters. In addition they offered pool noodles for the youngsters to assist them float within the water, however in actuality the water is so salty, you’d have an actual onerous time sinking, even if you happen to wished to.
The snorkeling on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge is greatest across the bungalows and restaurant space. A wholesome quantity of coral has began to develop on the assist pillars and on the bottom close by. The coral, in flip, attracts an abundance of ocean life.
Throughout our many snorkeling outings on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge, we had been fortunate sufficient to see numerous stunning fish. Highlights embody:
An enormous college of tiny inexperienced fish. There will need to have been 1,000,000 fish on this college. It was a thrill to slowly float via them, having them encompass your complete physique.
There’s a few of the greatest sea urchins I’ve ever seen scattered across the ocean flooring. The large ones have to be as much as 18 inches lengthy!
We additionally noticed quite a lot of stingrays swimming alongside the ocean flooring.
The realm below the restaurant has probably the most dense focus of tropical fish, together with parrot fishes (certainly one of my favorite tropical fish). Simply be very cautious to not brush up in opposition to the coral as you swim previous the pillars.
There’s numerous purple sea cucumbers and colourful starfish on the ocean flooring close to the kayak space.
On our ultimate snorkeling outing of our keep, we did see one tiny jellyfish and a lion fish beneath the restaurant.
As you’ll be able to see, there are a number of probably hazardous sea creatures within the space. The creatures that dwell on the underside (sea urchins and stingrays) shouldn’t be an issue until somebody places their ft down (which they shouldn’t be doing in any case).
The jellyfish and lionfish had been random encounters – we solely noticed certainly one of every in over 5 hours of snorkeling. The possibilities are slim you’ll encounter one your self, however we wished you to remember.
We discovered the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge was the right spot for our children to be taught snorkeling. We have now taken them on snorkeling excursions up to now, however the pressures of maintaining with the group all the time appeared to wreck the outing.
At this relaxed overwater resort in Panama our children might simply go out and in of the water at their leisure. This allowed them to snorkel in chew sized outings, which vastly elevated their enjoyment of the exercise.
By the point we left the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge, our children cherished snorkeling. They lastly obtained to see what the large deal about snorkeling is. The Punta Caracol overwater resort is the right place for somebody simply studying to snorkel.
Kayaking
The Punta Caracol overwater resort additionally provides free kayak leases. The kayaks are small, single individual kayaks. Our children realized to kayak throughout our current keep on the 500 Rai Floating Resort in Thailand, so that they had been in a position to deal with their very own kayaks no drawback.
We explored the areas across the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge resort on our kayaks. We particularly preferred the areas close to the mangroves alongside the shoreline of the island. From our kayaks we might see bigger ocean life corresponding to starfish and stingrays within the clear, shallow water.
Stress-free
An individual can’t assist however yawning once they arrive on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge. Not as a result of it’s boring, however it simply oozes rest.
Along with the hammocks and chairs on the deck of every overwater bungalow, there’s additionally solar chairs and tables to sit down at within the restaurant. Convey alongside a great ebook and sit again and revel in some downtime.
Even watching the ocean life within the water is enjoyable whilst you sit and chill. All all through the day, faculties of larger fish hunt the tiny fish within the huge college. That is all the time thrilling because the smaller fish leap out of the water a whole lot at a time, adopted via the air by the larger fish. We by no means obtained uninterested in this spectacle.
We additionally had an exhilarating wildlife sighting from our deck when a pod of 4 dolphins swam previous. Sadly, a close-by tour boat noticed them and began harassing them – circling them time and again.
We perceive such a conduct is unfortunately widespread in Bocas del Toro. If you end up in a tour the place your operator harasses the dolphins, educate them that is unacceptable by NOT tipping them and giving them a nasty evaluation: that is the one technique to educate the that harassing wildlife is just not acceptable conduct.
Punta Caracol Eating
Any time you’ll a distant resort, you’re taking a giant danger with the meals, particularly in case you are touring with children. If you find yourself depending on a resort for all three meals a day, you had higher hope the meals is nice.
Fortunately, we thought the meals on the Punta Caracol restaurant was actually good. Our son is a really choosy eater, so we had been glad to search out they’d a good number of kid-friendly dishes for our children to select from.
Our breakfast was included as a part of our Punta Caracol suite reservation. We got an inventory of 10 menu objects to select from, with the flexibility to order as lots of them as we’d like.
We loved quite a lot of their breakfast dishes, together with pancakes, French toast, yogurt, fruit salad, fruit juice and low.
The lunch and dinner menus are the identical on the Punta Caracol overwater resort. There’s a extremely good number of dishes to select from together with a number of Mexican dishes, pasta dishes, American favorites and seafood dishes.
Throughout our keep on the Punta Caracol resort, we loved lots of the scrumptious menu objects for lunch together with beef burritos, hen tacos, cheese quesadillas and hamburgers.
For our dinners, we loved beef and veggie skewers, spaghetti carbonara, linguini with jam and mushrooms, hen fingers, shrimp in curry sauce, 4 cheese penne and cheese quesadillas.
The meals on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge was slightly on the costly facet, however not outrageously so. Take into account they should transport all their provides in by boat, so meals will naturally be pricier than in Bocas City.
Issues to Convey to the Punta Caracol Overwater Resort
We have now an important packing checklist for household tropical holidays which is able to work completely on your journey to Bocas del Toro. Specifically, we’d like to focus on two objects that are particular to staying on the Punta Caracol resort:
Water footwear: In the event you plan on spending any time within the Caribbean Sea, it’s greatest to have water footwear for cover. There are huge sea urchins in addition to an abundance of stingrays within the water. It’s greatest to not get up within the water right here, but when you must, you’ll be glad to have water footwear on.
A great ebook: An overwater resort just like the Punta Caracol simply begs for some downtime. Studying a great ebook is an ideal technique to calm down on the deck of your bungalow. An audiobook is a fair higher concept, because it frees up your eyes to observe the motion within the water or soak within the tropical magnificence, whereas listening to a great story.
Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge Overview Abstract
In abstract, our household had a tremendous time on the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge. Given this was some of the affordably priced overwater bungalows I’ve seen, I used to be very impressed with the resort.
The suites had been spacious and comfy, the meals was good and the Caribbean Sea surroundings is breathtaking. We might suggest the Punta Caracol resort to any household in search of a soothing journey alongside Panama’s Caribbean coast.
Resort Advice
Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge
We suggest staying on the Punta Caracol resort for an thrilling, but stress-free household journey in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
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Dan Brewer is an intrepid household journey blogger with a ardour for exploring the world’s most fascinating locations. With 58 international locations below his belt and a way of wanderlust that is aware of no bounds, he has made it his life’s mission to share his journey experiences and insights with fellow households who like to journey.
When Dan is not touring together with his spouse and children, he is both out having fun with the Canadian Rockies he calls dwelling or engaged on certainly one of his three journey websites (Household Can Journey, Journey Banff Canada and Final Sports activities Street Journey).