Visited Panama Dec 6 to 13 2010, stayed 2 nights at Gamboa followed by 5 nights at Breezes Panama.

We were in Panama during some of the heaviest rains that they have on record and in fact the Canal was actually closed due to all the water in the system.

On Dec 8 we moved from Gamboa to the Breezes, since we were doing the our stays at Gamboa first and Breezes second, Sunwing did not cover our transfer between hotels. That was actually fine with us as we booked a tour of the canal, Amador Causeway and the Old City with Ashley at PanamaRoadrunner. All of this cheaper then I was quoted for a cab to do a direct transfer.

Despite the weather we really enjoyed our time with Ashley... he made sure that we were well entertained......traffic was very light as it was Panama's Mothers Day so we made very good time once we headed out to Breezes.

Check in
Check-in went quite smooth however when we went to the room the key would not work in either our room or the one for another couple across the hall who were checking in at the same time. The young men bringing up our luggage went and got the maid to open the room so my wife could get in well I went to the front desk to get a new key.

We had a room facing the beach with a full balcony and outside sitting area... very nice.

Pool/beach
The resort has several layers of cascading pools ending with the bottom one with swim up bar which is part of a bar/snack bar. The food at the snack bar was rather limited... drinks however were not.

Beach is not soft white sand as found in the Caribbean but the beach is wide and long with ample chairs and sunshades for the people who were there but that might not always be the case.

The young man doing bar service on the beach was very pleasant and attentive. One day a lady sitting just down the beach from us cut her finger while doing some carving... the waiter noticed... came right over to her to make sure she was all right the immediately called for first aid... which promptly arrived on a quad runner.

Food
We were quite pleased with the food at the Buffet as well as at the Italian A la Cart ( did not try the others)

Entertainment
Most evenings we sat outside after supper and had a few drinks.... did not enjoy the entertainment out there most nights so we sat well back from the action. We then would head in and sat in the lobby bar listening to the Piano player Juan.

Tours
We did the hotel tour to El Valle and quite enjoyed it, but otherwise we stayed around the hotel, we did walk the beach and walk out the lane to hiway but did not venture beyond that.

Staff
The staff were great, not a lot of English spoken but they went out of there way to be helpful... I already mentioned the busboys getting the maid to open the room and the waiter and first aid on the beach... also one morning just before breakfast the screw fell out of my wife's sunglasses... I got them back together but could not tighten the screw... one of the waiters at breakfast noticed me struggling with them and came over.. looked at them and asked if he could take them to fix..... its the little things like this that make staff special.

Downside...
My only complaint would be that there was too much music happening at once... at the pool snack bar they were playing music while only a few ft away the animation staff were doing dance class with different music.... some nights the music from the band on the patio outside of the restaurant drowned out the Music in the Piano bar