Otra Vez

Our first trip to Panama City was in 2006…we stayed for less than a week and did the traditional tourist stuff- visit the historical sites, visited the Canal, and went shopping. This trip was just a stopover for our flight to Honduras. We booked a reasonable hotel online but we weren’t really looking forward to staying there. However, the Hotel Riande aka the airport hotel was much better than we thought. From the reviews we were expecting a roach motel or worse. It was quite the opposite. It was actually much nicer than the place we stayed the first time around. The staff was friendly, the rooms were clean and it also had a great pool (which unfortunately we did not have time to use). Our room included free breakfast which was delish. Aside from eggs and French toast, we got to taste cassava fries for the first time which went really well with pancake syrup.  The best thing about the hotel is that they offer free shuttle service to the airport. A representative will meet you at the airport when you arrive (such a relief after a flight) and when you are ready to leave there is a shuttle that comes every half hour for pick up. We wouldn’t really recommend this place for the vacationer (plenty of nicer ones further out in the city) but for the business traveler or those who have an early morning flight it is ideal. With its location literally five minutes from the airport, why not?