A Complete Guide to the Dann Carlton Hotel (Cali, Colombia)

Yesterday, Diana and I visited the Dann Carlton Hotel to taste the food that will be served at our reception, finalize the layout for the ballroom, and to check out accommodations in each of the various room styles. This was our first time seeing the hotel in person--prior to this, we'd only seen photos and web pages. All in all, we were quite impressed--and we think that you will be, too.

Lobby and Front Desk


The lobby area for the Dann Carlton is small, clean, and decorated for Christmas. When we came in, there were plenty of staff handy--three behind the check in counter, a few security guards, and the wait staff at the small cafe in the lobby. We forgot to check if they spoke good English, but they should.

Any of you who are still a bit nervous about the safety of Cali should be happy to note the uniformed officer standing outside the building with the bellhops at all times. Both the police officer and the in-house security are quite vigilant: they didn't even let us take photos without advance permission.

Rooms

We visited a single with a queen bed, a single with a king bed, and a room with two beds they call twin beds, but Americans would probably consider full beds. All of them were quite comfortable, clean, et cetera.


Here's the room with a single queen bed. The same room from the opposite corner:


The rooms with the single king bed are essentially identical, but with a bigger bed and therefore less free space. They still have the sofa.

The rooms with two beds are fairly similar as well: comfortable, clean, and relatively minimalistic.


Amenities

The Dann Carlton seemed to be pretty well set up in terms of amenities. There is a nice outdoor pool, located right next to a restaurant. There's a gym just off the lobby. There seems to be ubiquitous WiFi throughout the hotel (don't know if it is free or not). There's a money exchange at the front desk, although the rate is not very good, so we don't recommend you change your money there if you can avoid it. Finally, any of you who are nervous about the food (which you shouldn't be--the food here is delicious) may be glad to see that there is a Tony Roma's restaurant in the building, just in case you need a fix of gringo food.

Nearby

As most of you already know, Cali is in the middle of a giant festival--La Feria--that runs from Christmas Day through New Year's Eve. It includes decorations, parades, bullfights, and massive, world-famous salsa concerts. A big part of la Feria is a huge path that winds through the city, full of decorations, lights, music, vendors, and people. That path starts just a block or two away from the front door of the Dann. There are also several good restaurants and stores nearby, should you need anything. The closest CVS-type pharmacy (or drogueria) is about one block away.

Prices

After some confusion with the various different names for bed types, et cetera, we have final prices for the rooms at last. After a fair amount of haggling, we've worked it out so that all of the rooms will cost the same thing: ~$125 per night. The only rooms available are the ones shown / described above: rooms with a single bed (which can fit one person or a couple) and rooms with two full beds (which can fit two people). There are no rooms for 3 or more.

The hotel already has your names and your room types (based on the information you provided us on our survey, et cetera), so all you'll need to do is show up at the front desk with your passport and credit card.

Schedule Note

The meeting time for the festivities on Dec 28th--the first planned part of our wedding celebration--is 10am in the lobby of the Dann Carlton.

You should all receive an email from us soon (as soon as possible) with specific information about your transportation from the airport to the hotel--we've got everyone covered, we're just matching up names to timeslots et cetera to give you the most accurate and detailed information possible.

We can't wait to see you all! ¡Feliz Navidad, y hasta pronto!