Can you rent the whole place?
Yes. We rent out as a single private villa, and we do it often. Booked that way the reservation is called the Full House, and it means exactly that: all six bedrooms, every shared room, the pool, the rooftop, and no other guests on the property for the length of your stay.
We're on Bahía de Cholón, on Barú Island, off the coast of Cartagena. That matters more than any description of the house does. A buyout in the walled city still puts you on a street. A buyout here puts you in the mangroves with the Caribbean on one side and the Ciénaga de Cholón on the other, reachable by boat in about 30 minutes to an hour from Cartagena.
What you get in a buyout
Six bedrooms, sleeping up to fourteen. Five of them have a king bed. The sixth has a king plus two singles, which is usually where children end up. Every bedroom has its own ensuite bathroom, so nobody in your group is negotiating over a shared one.
The six rooms sit across three houses rather than down one corridor:
- Villa Pinto, the main villa: three bedrooms holding up to eight people, one on the ground floor and two master suites upstairs joined by a living room. All three open onto the pool terrace. These are the Orquídea rooms, Estrella, Cuerno and Fuego.
- Casita Veranera: the Rhizo and Avi rooms, each with a large balcony over the Ciénaga de Cholón and a shared rest area.
- Casita Laguna: its own house, with a private pool, an outdoor bathroom and a gazebo looking out over the water.
Beyond the bedrooms, the buyout includes the private pool, the rooftop terrace with sea views, the shared living room, the dining room where everyone can sit together, and the rest area. Sea access is direct from the house, and kayaks are there to use. Air conditioning and fast wifi throughout, a Nespresso machine, a safe, hair dryers, turn-down each evening, and concierge service to arrange kayaking, snorkelling or birdwatching.
Why groups take the whole house instead of splitting rooms
The honest reason is the layout. Because the six bedrooms are spread across three separate houses, a group that books the full property gets something a single large villa can't give: people can be together at dinner and genuinely apart at bedtime. Grandparents in Casita Veranera, a couple who wanted privacy in Casita Laguna, the rest of the family in Villa Pinto.
That split works when you book partially, too. If you'd like your family in one house and friends in another, the three houses are distinct buildings and we can allocate them that way. A buyout simply removes the question of who else is on the property.
Eating here
Chef Pedro Mosqueda leads our kitchen at the Ancalá Waterfront restaurant, premium BBQ on the mangroves with sea views. He took over the mantle from Chef Silvestre Saiz Cortázar, who built the kitchen, born and trained in Ibiza and raised in the kitchens of Bogotá.
If your group has dietary requirements, tell us when you reserve rather than on arrival. A lot of us have been vegetarian or vegan at some point and we keep a decent offering for non-meat eaters, and we cook for lactose and gluten intolerance regularly. Menus change, so ask us directly for what's being served during your dates.
What we don't do
We'd rather say this plainly than have you find out at the enquiry stage. We don't host events. No weddings, no parties booked as functions. A buyout here is a private house for your group, not a venue with a capacity number. Smoking isn't permitted, and we don't take pets.
Sea access is direct but unguarded, so swimming is at your own risk. The house sits in the mangroves and the quiet is real: nature is the soundtrack, and quiet hours are self-regulated. Most people book us for that. A few people are surprised by it.
Getting your group here
From Rafael Núñez International Airport in Cartagena, door to door is about an hour. The water crossing itself runs roughly 30 minutes to an hour depending on conditions, and we run our own boat. Going the other way, leave us three hours before your flight departs.
Reserve the boat when you reserve the house. Capacity is limited, and if you arrive unreserved and there's no space it's a long wait for the next crossing. We can arrange airport transfers in both directions; contact us with your flight times.
Costs to know before you enquire
Foreign residents pay no tax on hotel accommodation in Colombia. For Colombian residents, IVA is already included in the rate you see. We charge a resort fee of 20 USD per night. City hotels sit on public utilities; out here we generate and manage our own, which is what that fee covers.
Rates for the Full House depend on dates and length of stay, and we hold a separate rate for stays of four nights or more, which is the length most buyout groups end up booking. Ask us for a quote with your dates rather than working from a headline number.