Where we are, and why that's the romantic part
We're on Isla Tierra Bomba, at Bocachica, on the southern shore facing the open sea. It's 25 minutes from Cartagena on our boat. That short crossing does more for a couple's weekend than anything we could build: you leave the old city behind, you arrive somewhere with no bridge to it, and there's no phone signal on the island. You can't take a call. Most people work that out on the first afternoon and stop reaching for the pocket.
We're an 11 room hotel with a beach club attached. Small enough that we know your name by dinner, big enough that you're not eating alone with the owners.
Come midweek if you want it quiet
Midweek is the quiet version of us. We're calm during the week and livelier at weekends, and on Fridays, weekends and holidays we fill up with locals coming out from the city for the day. Neither one is wrong, it just depends what you're after. If the plan is long lunches, a book and nobody talking to you, book Monday to Thursday. If you want music and other people around, come Friday or Saturday.
One thing worth knowing for couples: Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are for the over-12s only. Children are welcome during the week.
The boat times run your first and last day
Boats leave Cartagena from the Muelle de la Bodeguita at 10am, 11:30am and 5pm. Coming back, boats leave us at 4pm and 5:30pm. Check-in is from 3pm and check-out is 11am, but as long as we don't have a private event you can use the beach club before you check in and until 5:30pm on the day you leave. So the last morning isn't really a last morning. Check out, put your bags down, keep your lounger, get the 5:30 boat.
If you're flying, door-to-door from Rafael Núñez airport to us is about an hour, and you should leave us three hours before your flight departs. We can arrange transfers both ways, just ask.
There's no road here. No bridge, no car. If a helicopter is more your speed, that's a five minute flight and our friends at Galavanta handle it.
Eating, which is the other reason to come
Our kitchen was built by Chef Silvestre Saiz Cortazar, born and trained in Ibiza and raised in the kitchens of Bogotá, and Pedro Mosqueda runs it now as Executive Chef. It's local and it's serious. We were the first beach club in Cartagena to have a wine list, and yes, we sell rosé by the magnum. Cocktails are made with fresh juices. If one of you is vegetarian, vegan, lactose or gluten intolerant, say so when you book and it's genuinely not a problem.
The beach club is open to day visitors from 11am to 6pm, and the restaurant runs through to 11pm, so dinner is the part of the day that's just the people staying over. If you'd rather not think about it at all, full board with all food and soft drinks is $90 per person per night.
About the beach, honestly
Our sand is volcanic. It isn't the white sand you'll see in photos of the Rosario Islands, it's darker, and it's natural and clean and it leads straight out onto open ocean. We'd rather tell you that now than have you arrive surprised. The sea changes with her mood: some days flat, some days with a swell.
You can't snorkel here. The house reef sits at six metres and the surface water is often choppy, so instead of selling you a bad snorkel we'll put you on a one hour dive. A house reef discovery dive is $90 and needs no experience. Two of you underwater on an anniversary morning beats two of you floating over nothing.
If you're proposing
Romance is alive and well here, we get a couple of proposals a month these days. We can help plan a beachside proposal and arrange the various romantic touches around it. Tell us early and tell us specifically, including whether you want it seen by everyone or seen by nobody. We're good at both.
Two small honesties
We're not wheelchair accessible. We're at the end of a boat ride and a 200 metre sandy track, and the place wasn't built with accessibility in mind. We're sorry about it.
And there's a $20 per night resort fee. We're not on public utilities out here, so it covers what an island has to make for itself.
Book midweek, take the 11:30 boat, don't plan the middle of the day. See you on the boat.