Dahlandia Hotel Review: Isla Múcura, Colombia

This Dahlandia Hotel Review is based on our six-night stay on Isla Múcura, a small Caribbean island in Colombia’s San Bernardo Islands. We stayed at Dahlandia during our 3 week family trip to Colombia, and after several busy days exploring cities, beaches and jungle destinations, we were more than ready for a simple island escape.

We visited Dahlandia after our time in Cartagena with kids, taking a boat from the city out to Isla Múcura. It sounded perfect for our family: a rustic seaside hotel, warm Caribbean water, hammocks, island wildlife and time for the kids to slow down and play.

Dahlandia gave us many of those moments. We fell asleep to the sound of waves, watched our kids play in the sand, explored the island and enjoyed the calm compared to the busier parts of Colombia.

But Dahlandia is not a polished family resort, and that’s important to know before booking. The rooms are simple, the amenities are limited, the food had some highs and lows, and there were a few things about our stay that families should be prepared for.

In this honest Dahlandia hotel review, I’ll share what we liked, what didn’t work as well, and who I think Dahlandia is best for, especially if you’re planning to visit Isla Múcura with kids.

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Rooms and Accommodation at Dahlandia

Dahlandia is a small beachfront hotel on Isla Múcura, part of the San Bernardo archipelago off Colombia’s Caribbean coast. During our stay, it felt like a very local Colombian getaway, with mostly Colombian travellers. It’s no Four Seasons Hotel by any stretch, but it’s a nice option if you are looking for affordable seaside Caribbean accommodations.

We were among the only native-English speakers there. During our stay, we didn’t meet any staff who spoke English, but we got by with help from other guests who could translate.

One of the main reasons we were attracted to stay at Dahlandia was the Family Huts, which are elevated huts on stilts close to the ocean. The Family Huts rooms have a beautiful line of conch shells on the stairs as you climb up.

Facilities, Wi-Fi and Power at Dahlandia

Our family hut did not have air conditioning. I thought that wouldn’t matter in an open-air seaside hut, but once we closed the door at night, it blocked the ocean breeze and the room became uncomfortably hot.

The single fan (shared over three beds) helped of course, but it had trouble keeping up on some of the hotter nights. The mattresses were made of thick foam, which trapped heat and didn’t help matters.

There is no Wi-Fi at the Dahlandia resort, but if you have an eSIM card, you can get decent, albeit slow cell service. I was able to get 2-4 bars of service on most occasions.

Most of the rooms do not have private toilets and showers. There are shared bathrooms and showers near the dining area. The showers are cold-ish and the water is a trickle, but in truth they are way better than most of the bone-chilling, freezing cold and/or scalding hot showers we encountered elsewhere in during our family vacation to Colombia.

Cute little lizards live in the thatch roofs above the rooms. This is a double-edged sword; the lizards are excellent bug killers, but you will occasionally find a tiny little lizard poop on your blankets.

We could hear really loud music coming from the village next door until well past midnight on December 24 and 25. Given this didn’t happen any other night, let’s chalk that up to it being a Christmas celebration?

There are roosters living in the village next door, so if you are a light sleeper, you’ll hear them crowing as the sun rises sometime between 4 – 5 am. Other things which woke us up were music from the resort workers’ cell phones walking to work, goats bleating, etc.

Daily Schedule at Dahlandia

Power is not available 24 hours a day at Dahlandia. The official schedule is that you will get power from 6 pm to 7 am, but on most days the power was turned on in the early afternoon. I imagine this is a function of how well the solar panels are working.

The showers are available from 4 pm.

Breakfast is served around 7:30 am, lunches at 12:30 and dinner at 7 pm.

All times are approximate and are subject to island time adjustments of +/- 1 hour. We found waiting for food to be annoying sometimes, especially at lunch when we’d leave the beach to be at our 12:30 lunch, only to have to wait until 1:15…

Food and Full-Board Meals at Dahlandia

We purchased the full-board package at Dahlandia, meaning breakfast, lunch and dinner were included. Overall, the quality of the food was quite good, it was tasty and fresh.

Our only real complaint (and it’s a big complaint) was the very small portion sizes. We are not large people and the small meal portions left us hungry after most meals. We’re fortunate we had small kids who didn’t finish their meals, so we filled our tummies by eating their leftovers.

Chances are you’ll need to buy snacks between meals to top up. It’s a shame the portions were so small because the food itself was actually quite good (with the possible exception of the meal on our last night. See below for details).

The open air dining area is in a beautiful location, very close to the water. The resort was full to capacity when we stayed and the restaurant was crowded. We elected to dine at our private table underneath our Family Hut to free up room for other guests in the small dining area.

We each got a glass of juice included with every meal but purified drinking water was not included in the full board package. The beach bar at Dahlandia sells small bottles of water, but if you don’t mind a 3-minute walk to the adjacent town, you can buy 3L bottles for a more reasonable price.

Very strong coffee is available to drink in tiny little coffee cups at breakfast for free.

Meals at Dahlandia Hotel

Here is what we ate during our 6-night stay at Dahlandia with kids:

Breakfast at Dahlandia

• two fried eggs on an arepa, with an unripe orange on the side.
• scrambled eggs with potato, a sweet bun with apple filling and plantains
• egg and potato omelette, with fried plantain strips and a half-peeled, very tart orange.
• scrambled egg with sausage and onion on an arepa with watermelon on the side.
• scrambled eggs with potato, a very yummy donut shaped deep fried corn dish and a small portion of papaya.
• scrambled eggs, apple bun and an orange.

Considering Colombia is a tropical country, there was shockingly little fresh fruit served. We’d occasionally get an unripe orange at breakfast or a small portion of papaya, but that’s all. No mango, no bananas, hardly any papaya. These fruits are literally everywhere you look elsewhere in Colombia.

Lunch at Dahlandia

• Fried fish (head on), white rice, fried plantains, salad
• Fried fish (head on), coconut rice, salad and two plantain cakes
• Fried fish (head on), coconut rice, salad and fried plantain slices
• Fried fish (head on), rice, beans, plantain cake, pineapple salsa (randomly, this meal was unusually large)
• Fried fish (head on), coconut rice, salad, plantain cakes with a small, but yummy coconut dessert.
• Fried fish (head on), white rice, salad, fried plantain slices, and the yummy coconut dessert again.

Dinner at Dahlandia

• Goat curry, potatoes with onions and peppers.
• Fried fish (head on), white rice, cheese and potato soup.
• (Christmas): Goat curry with yucca topped with peppers and onions (very small portion, especially considering it was our Christmas dinner).
• Fish soup and rice (the portion size of this meal was so small I was literally angry).
• Goat curry with potatoes and cheese.
• Fish soup with roasted potatoes – see story below.

Our Final Night

On our final night, eight guests at Dahlandia were sick overnight. We can’t say for sure what caused it, but the guests we spoke with believed it may have been related to the fish soup.

We did notice the fish soup tasted a little ‘fishy’, which was unusual. Up to this point, the freshness of the fish was a highlight. We were fortunate to make it through without getting sick, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this occurrence.

Dahlandia Beach

Dahlandia has a small, but nice little beach on its property. There are hammocks, deck chairs, benches, etc. to sit on, or you can just plunk down on the beach. The water is quite warm and was nice and calm the days we were there. For ambiance, a pelican is often perched on the tree overlooking the beach. 

The kids didn’t mind that the beach was a bit small. They had enough room to play and build sandcastles, so they were happy. The beautiful white coral sand was a great consistency for sandcastles. The water stays shallow for a good distance, meaning kids can play in the shallows without much issue.

For a small beach, it had a surprising amount of character and every day it was a bit different. The water temperature changed quite a bit, ranging from a bit chilly to being quite warm.

The waves and tides shifted where the soft sandy bottom was found, while the beach itself was always a bit different. Sometimes the tides would leave a bunch of shells and coral on the beach, while others it would leave perfectly clean.

There is also a small bar at the beach which sells beer, water, cocktails and snacks. Some days when business is good, they will play music all day.

Staying at Dahlandia with Kids

Family Hut

We visited Dahlandia with our two kids aged 4 and 6. We rented a Family Hut, which was an open-air, thatched-roof hut built on stilts, located right next to the ocean. A Family Hut has a double bed and two singles.

It has a single fan, which becomes usable when the power comes on in the afternoon/evening. We fell asleep to the sounds of lapping waves every night.

Tourist Beach

There’s a “tourist beach” on the opposite end of the island which you can use as well. The 10 – 15 minute walk there is a lot of fun. First you walk through the island’s little town, then through a small patch of forest/jungle and then along the coast through some beautiful mangroves.

There isn’t a lot of “beach” at the tourist beach as all the real estate is taken up by tables and chairs from all the bars selling drinks and snacks. With no sand for the kids to play on, we didn’t stay long. We turned around and went back to our better beach at Dahlandia.

Wildlife

There’s plenty of wildlife on Isla Múcura to keep the kids interested. They’ll love the large iguanas, pelicans, frigate birds, beautiful red and blue Sally Lightfoot crabs, green lizards in the trees, turkeys, chickens, and a set of dogs and a cat which belong to the property.

There’s a herd of goats which wander the Dahlandia property grazing on the grass and plants. The kids loved it when the goats walked under our Family Hut a few times a day. As for us, we didn’t like the piles of goat poop around the property, but on a very positive note, the goat curry was delicious!!

Sleeping

Our kids did not get enough sleep while at Dahlandia. Their sleep schedule back home is 7 pm – 7 am. As dinner is not served here until 7, they often were not in bed until 8 pm.

Our kids would wake at the sound of hotel workers talking and/or playing music, or roosters crowing or goats bleating. Almost every night we stayed at Dahlandia they were getting 2 hours less sleep than usual.

Bugs at Dahlandia

During our late-December stay at Dahlandia, there were hardly any biting insects at all. We each got a bite-or-two over our six day stay, but that was it.

The “Welcome Talk”

Upon arrival we were ‘encouraged’ to listen to the owner do a little talk. Most people in the audience looked thoroughly bored; it was completely in Spanish, so we were incredibly bored.

Apparently the owner is a retired biology teacher and it seemed like he was talking about the islands. He ends his talk with a pitch for the snorkelling tour.

Tours and Things to Do from Dahlandia

The staff at Hotel Dahlandia can arrange the following experiences for you. Their prices seemed slightly higher than the prices we’d seen posted at other hotels, but this could be due to the extra distance involved.

Bioluminescent Plankton Tour

There is an amazing natural phenomenon a 20-minute boat ride from Dahlandia. In the Laguna Illuminata there are phytoplankton that emit light when the water is stirred or disturbed. You take a moonlit boat ride there and you don’t see a thing in the water until you jump in.

Once you are in the water, the areas around your moving limbs light up brilliantly for a very short time. It’s an incredibly cool effect.

Our kids did really well, even though it didn’t leave until 6:30 pm and had them in the water past their bedtime. Our 4-year old son was in the water for about 10 minutes, before asking to get in the boat, while our 6-year old daughter lasted about another 5 mins.

We couldn’t get any decent pictures in the darkness, but trust me when I say this is an amazing experience.

Snorkelling Tour

The snorkeling tour from Dahlandia is a fun 3-hour morning trip. All your snorkelling gear and lifejackets are provided.

The first stop is at a shallow coral reef nowhere near land. It’s a decent sized reef, so there’s room for the many snorkelers to find their own spot. The variety and number of fish was impressive and there is some good coral to admire as well.

The second stop was at a very shallow, decimated coral reef. This reef may have been beautiful many years ago, but now it’s completely bleached, likely from being so shallow that swimmers cannot avoid touching the coral. The guides used this as a spot to show us starfish and sea urchins.

The third stop was a daytime visit to Laguna Illuminata. The water is dark and murky here, but when you jump in the water you are immediately surrounded by tons of plankton (which look like 1-2 inch wide jellyfish). Upon closer investigation, you can see the strips of light illuminate within the plankton, which is the effect we saw at night on the Plankton Tour.

The rest of the group left the boat to swim along the shore of the nearby mangroves, but we stayed to watch the plankton and some real (non-stinging) jellyfish for a while longer.

The final stop was a 20-minute stop at a party beach on a nearby island. The beach is lined with bars, tables and chairs. The beach is crowded, but still quite nice. The water was crystal clear and a beautiful turquoise.

Christmas at Dahlandia

We stayed at Dahlandia over Christmas. We had seen lots of Christmas decorations all over Colombia leading up to our stay here, but there were no Christmas decorations to be found here.

I had held out hope that they’d serve something special for Christmas dinner, but no such luck. Our Christmaas dinner at Dahlandia was just a very small portion of goat curry with yucca (which we call “yuck-a“).

Our Final Dahlandia Hotel Review Recommendation

Had we only stayed 5 nights instead of 6, we would have recommended Dahlandia to you without hesitation. It’s a quirky Colombian resort which is a little rough around the edges, but the place is fun and relaxing, and it really grows on you.

But… we did stay six nights, and we can’t ignore what happened on our final night.

Dahlandia has mixed, but generally positive reviews. I hope that our honest review of Dahlandia helps you decide if this oceanfront Isla Múcura resort is right for you. If not, keep reading for alternate Isla Múcura hotels.

Alternate Isla Múcura Hotels

Isla Múcura and the surrounding Islas de San Bernardo are a beautiful tropical paradise and should be part of your Colombian itinerary.

If Dahlandia doesn’t sound right for you, check out the other Isla Múcura hotels or these nearby Isla Tintipán hotels. With a little searching, you should be able to find a better fit for your family and travel style.

Follow Along on our Family Trip to Colombia

If you’d like to follow along on our family vacation to Columbia, we arrived on Isla Múcura after spending several days in Cartagena with kids. Cartagena is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities we have ever visited with kids.

We returned to Cartagena after our 6-night stay at Dahlandia. We enjoyed Cartagena a few more days, until our Colombia vacation came to an end. To see the rest of our trip, check our our 3-week Colombia itinerary for families.

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