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This post is about our experience on a four-day trip with On Vacation to the Amazonas department, which is in the Amazon region of Colombia.
Our Amazonas Tour with On Vacation
I normally avoid all-inclusive tours like the plague, but the price with On Vacation was just too good to beat. We were offered a discounted package deal for a group of four during peak season. Round-trip airfare to Leticia from Cali, all meals, transportation, hotels, and all but two tours were included. Normally, airfare to Leticia can be quite expensive, and this tour cost just COP$300,000 more than airfare along at the time of booking. The trip promised a lot of good things but there were hiccups at the beginning and at the end.
Below I’ll write solely about our experience with On Vacation. I’ll cover their tour management, flights, and hotels only, and not the excursions themselves.
Start of the Amazonas Tour with On Vacation
On the first day, we were told to get to the airport in Cali no later than 8pm for check-in. We assumed the flight was at 10pm. We arrived around 6:30pm and checked in only to find out the flight wasn’t leaving until midnight. After waiting and waiting, we finally departed Cali and landed in hot and sweaty Leticia around 2am.
We exited the airport and were greeted by the On Vacation representative. He went over a few details and had everyone board a bus to a hotel in Leticia. We stayed at Hotel Fernando Real, but only for about three hours. The rooms were simple and not the cleanest, and the bathroom was filled with roaches and mosquitoes, but we were so exhausted we sucked it up and tried to sleep.
Hotel Amazon
At 6am after just a few hours of sleep, we met the representative in the hotel lobby, left our luggage, and walked to a canal where we boarded a boat for the all-inclusive resort owned by On Vacation. The boat ride took about an hour.
We arrived at the resort, Hotel Amazon, at around 8am and were ushered to a buffet breakfast. Everyone was ready for a nap after the long night and journey, but unfortunately for us, we had to wait until 11am for a mandatory orientation meeting outlining the schedule. Our room wasn’t ready until nearly 12:30pm. That’s the end of the first problem. I ended up sleeping most of the rest of the afternoon and felt like the first day was a total waste.
Hotel Amenities
The hotel is beautiful. It’s built completely of wood on stilts. The bathrooms are modern and the beds are extremely comfortable and had mosquito netting. There’s a fan in every room and an air conditioning unit that’s available from 6pm to 2am daily. WiFi costs extra but it was pretty much useless during our stay as we could rarely get a connection.
Buffet meals were served at 7am, 1pm, and 6pm. Food is usually very good. Entertainment is provided after dinner but was mediocre at best. We saw a terrible lounge singer one night and Brazilian dancers the next night. The dancers would dance for one song, spend 10 minutes taking photos with guests, and the next 15 minutes changing costumes.
There’s a pool, spa, and nature walk. A convenience store sits across from reception. Things like toiletries, snacks, drinks, sunscreen, and insect repellant were available, but it’s best to take necessities with you. The store sold just about everything at a premium.
A bar is available daily with unlimited alcoholic drinks. Sadly, the bartenders didn’t do a very good job. We ordered caipirinhas on five separate occasions and received a different colored and flavored drink each time.
Overall, staff seemed to do a very good job. The only issue for a foreigner is that most speak zero English.
Excursions in Amazonas with On Vacation
When we booked the “all-inclusive” tour, we understood the excursions would be included. Unfortunately, it was never explained to us and/or we didn’t read the fine print.
At the orientation, the rep explained that only the excursion to the Yagua community on the third day was included, as well as a stop across the river at Puerto Alegría, Peru, on the last day. The excursion to Puerto Nariño and the Ticuna community on the second day wasn’t included and seemed overpriced. Neither was the shopping trip to Tabatinga, Brazil, which was much more reasonable. This caused a lot of surprise and confusion with other travelers as well.
Obviously, better communication BEFORE booking the tour would have helped. It would have been nice to know what we had to pay for well ahead of time to prepare, especially since we could only pay for the excursions in cash (at least at the time of our trip).
End of the Tour
Let’s fast forward to the end of the tour. After spending 2 ½ days taking excursions and enjoying ourselves, we had two options. First was to return to Leticia after lunch for a shopping trip to neighboring Tabatinga, with a boat leaving at 2pm. The other was to stay at the resort without a room twiddling our thumbs until 5pm, when we could board another boat back to Leticia. We chose the tour.
The tour finished up in the late afternoon and we returned to the infamous Hotel Fernando Real. Earlier in the day, an On Vacation representative promised us a room to rest until the 10:30pm pickup to go to the airport. The joke was on us. When we asked for our key, the owner was quite rude and barked that there were no rooms available. Many people tried to take a nap on the floor of the hotel lobby while others coughed up a full night’s stay to get a room for a couple hours of rest. The lobby bathroom was in an abysmal condition, full of cockroaches and mosquitos. Everyone was beyond angry at the situation and started taking it out on the representative.
Finally, the time came to transfer to the airport, only to arrive to be told to sit and wait. Again, we had no idea what time our flight would be until we were finally allowed to check in nearly two hours later! The flight wouldn’t be until 2:30am. Another four hours wasted in the airport on zero sleep. We landed in Cali around 4:30am and the trip was finally over.
Our Thoughts on the Amazonas Tour with On Vacation
This tour began and ended terribly but the rest of it was well done. We enjoyed the excursions, the hotel was nice, and the food was decent. Unfortunately, the situations at the beginning and end helped me understand why the price was so low. I don’t appreciate wasting several hours of my time in airports or roach hotels, and that overshadowed the entire trip. Would I travel with On Vacation again? Hell no!
