Pranamar Villas & Yoga Retreat

This review is only for the yoga classes offered at this resort since I was staying elsewhere. I loved the class itself but there is no COVID-protocol whatsoever. When we were already over 30 people and the class should’ve already started, new groups of 3-5 people were still being welcomed (with the yoga teacher joking that “we’re not even 50 people yet and she’s seen this place accommodate 75 people before”). She kept asking us to move together closer and closer to squeeze in at least 15-20 more people until our mats were touching each other, which I think is absolutely irresponsible. During a pandemic with continuous variants, a pricey yoga class ($20) in a first class resort should follow at least some symbolic guidelines. While the pavilion where classes are taught is more or less “open air”, it does has a roof and thin wooden curtains and I admittedly feel terrible for having stayed and exposed myself to such an unnecessary risk of contracting COVID.

To put it in a nutshell: Outstanding hotel in a beautiful surrounding but not the best value for money in my opinion. The staff and the pool were amazing. Breakfast was good, the service was exceptional, but you got an extra menu with standard options (toast and eggs etc.), not the fancy one where you could chose more interesting options (you had to pay extra for that). A little bit disappointing regarding the 320$ per night. Everybody was very helpful and super friendly, the surrounding was very picturesque. The beach was beautiful and easily accessible. As I mentioned above, the breakfast options were quite standard. The pool is brilliant, but there are only 3-4 sun loungers, which was never a problem but could be regarding the number of rooms. Also, you couldn't adjust them to lie on your belly. The sockets in the bedroom are behind the bed which is inconvenient if you have to use an adapter as well because that wouldn't fit at all. I usually charge my phone during night but have it on my nightstand because of the alarm in the morning. was also really disappointed, when I was told that, although Pranamar is labelled as a yoga retreat, the yoga lessons are not included if you book via booking.com. The lessons are outstanding, but if you pay 320$ a night, they should be included no matter where you book. I do understand that they have more profit if people book directly on their website, but if they don't want people to use booking.com, they should remove their hotel from booking.com. But the incident that bothered me most was that when we had to change locations we asked them to call a taxi for us. I've been staying in Santa Teresa for 2 weeks and went by taxi a couple of times. You pay like 10-15$ for a 20 minute car ride. Our new hotel was literally 5 minutes from Paranamar and I expected to pay maybe 5-10$ for the taxi (we were not told how much it would cost in advance). So when we arrived at our new hotel, the taxi driver charged 25$ and said he couldn't do anything about it since he was told to charge that much. I don't know if Pranamar only knows the most expensive taxi companies in whole Santa Teresa or if they get to keep the the majority of the money for providing the taxi companies with clients? It did feel like a giant rip off. Even the concierge of the new hotel talked to the taxi driver and in the end we "only" had to pay 20$ for a 5 minute taxi ride. Most expensive taxi ride I've ever had in my life!