The Santa Maria, a Luxury Collection Hotel & Golf Resort, Panama City ★★★★★

A Nicklaus Course Where the Suburbs Should Be

Costa del Este is the newest part of Panama City, a planned district of towers east of the old centre, and the Santa Maria is the piece of it that grew a golf course. The hotel stands at the centre of eighteen Jack Nicklaus holes, which is an unusual thing to find a quarter of an hour from a capital’s financial district. It reads as an urban oasis by design: handmade pieces from Panama’s indigenous communities in the public rooms, Panamanian references in the guest rooms, and a Luxury Collection standard of service holding it together. From most terraces you look at grass.

Why It Works

Panama City usually gives you a choice between the old quarter and the towers. This is the third option, and it works because it does not pretend to be either. The golf is genuine, a championship layout rather than a nine-hole courtesy. The food is taken seriously across four kitchens, one of them a fine-dining room built on Panamanian cooking. And the Luxury Collection framing means the local detail is specific rather than generic: the artwork, the spa treatments and the materials all refer to somewhere. If you are in Panama for a week and want two nights that are not city nights, this is where they go.

Why This Location

The resort sits on Santa Maria Boulevard in Costa del Este, on the eastern side of the city towards the coast. Tocumen International is fourteen kilometres away, which in practice is the easiest airport run of any hotel here. The financial district and the shopping are a short drive west, while Casco Viejo and the canal locks are day trips rather than strolls. What you are buying is the buffer: Costa del Este is quiet in a way the rest of Panama City is not, and the course puts several hundred metres of grass between the window and the nearest road.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Resort calm, city convenience, Panamanian detail

• Rooms: 182 rooms and suites, including Executive Suites and the Master and Grand Suites at 1,344 square feet with terraces over the course

• Best For: Golfers, business travellers, anyone who wants quiet within reach of the city

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The handmade indigenous pieces used as the design language rather than as decoration

• Dining: The Grill House FSH & STK for steak and seafood, Mestizo for Panamanian fine dining, Mestizo Bar, the AQVA pool bar, and a coffee shop and deli

• Amenities: Jack Nicklaus championship course, spa, outdoor and children’s pools with complimentary cabanas and palapas, nine event venues

• Attractions: Costa del Este, the financial district, Casco Viejo, the Panama Canal locks, Tocumen International fourteen kilometres out

The Course, and Who It Is For

Eighteen holes, par 72, seven thousand one hundred and fifty-three yards from the back tees, and Jack Nicklaus’s name on the design. Four tee positions mean it is playable well below that length, which matters, because a resort course that only rewards low handicaps empties out by Tuesday. The layout is the hotel’s front garden: most of the public rooms and a large share of the bedrooms look onto it, and the pool bar sits above it. Non-golfers get the benefit anyway, in the form of the quiet and the green.

Four Kitchens and a Bar

The Grill House FSH & STK is the steakhouse, USDA Prime and seafood, and it is the room the city comes out for. Mestizo goes the other direction: fine dining built on Panamanian cuisine, with several different settings inside it, and the bar of the same name mixes with local ingredients under local artwork. AQVA works the poolside shift with the course in view. A coffee shop and deli covers the hours the others do not. Four rooms and a bar is a lot for a hotel this size to run properly.

Rooms, Suites and the Terrace Question

There are 182 rooms and suites. The Executive Suites add a separate living area, and the Master Suite and the Grand Suite run to 1,344 square feet each, with private terraces over the course. Panamanian design references run through all of them. The question worth asking at booking is which way you face: a course-facing terrace is the whole point of the building, and rooms turned the other way give you the district instead. Ask for the golf side, and ask high.