Casacol Apartment Hotel Review: A Modern Medellin Stay (Loma Verde)

Finding trustworthy accommodations in Medellin can be challenging. After all, the city is big, there are lots of neighborhoods and lots of types of accommodations.

In our latest trip to Medellin, we stayed with Casacol, the biggest rental property management company in the city. We were lucky to land a two-bedroom stay at the Loma Verde Aparthotel, one of Casacol’s best amenity buildings in El Poblado.

In this review, find out how our stay was, as we’ll comment on safety, services, the apartment-hotel experience and also, staying at a Casacol apartment in Medellin with a baby.

Read on, to see if a Casacol apartment-hotel stay is right for you, when you travel to (or move to) Medellin.

We would like to thank Casacol for gifting us a four-night stay at the Loma Verde Apartment Hotel in El Poblado, Medellin.

What is Casacol?

Casacol is Medellin’s largest real estate company for serviced and luxury apartment properties. As you might notice from the name of the company, it is Casa (House) + Col (Colombia)!

Just by perusing the Casacol website, you’ll see an array of accommodation options, from “factory loft” studio apartments in Laureles to the amenity buildings in El Poblado. There are traditional boutique hotels under the Casacol umbrella, too.

Casacol makes finding where to stay in Medellin quite easy. You can make a short-, mid- or long-term reservation on their website, or on Airbnb or Booking.com. All Casacol buildings have a community manager who is fluent in English and helps you with any questions before you arrive.

The Casacol apartment-hotels, or “aparthotels” are great places to stay if you’re looking for more than a hotel when you come to Medellin. A lot of the buildings have pools and gyms, and focus on things like having space to work remotely in your room.

The decor in the apartments is modern and chic, and in our experience, the bed was super comfortable for falling asleep in, after a day of walking Medellin’s MANY hills.

Lastly, safety and security were prioritized. Keep reading to have a full view into how the Loma Verde experience went for us.

What are Casacol “Aparthotels?”

Casacol’s accommodation offering for travelers, expats and digital nomads is “Aparthotels,” or, “Condo Hotels.” What this means is that these boutique apartment buildings are apartments, for an experience of living in Medellin in a comfortable condo, with the added bonus of hotel amenities and services.

The Casacol real estate properties are meant to be short-, mid- and long-term rentals. This means that you can book for just one night, or, a month or more.

Casacol has properties in two areas of Medellin: Laureles and El Poblado. These are the two popular and safe areas for travelers, nomads, expats and families.

In our experience, our Casacol apartment felt like both a condo rental, and a hotel. We cooked in the kitchen just like we would have, at home, and watched Netflix on the couch at night after our daughter went to bed (just like at home). There was daily housekeeping of making the beds and taking out the trash, which made it feel like a hotel stay.

Summary of the Loma Verde Apartments

Here’s a summary of what it was like to stay at the Loma Verde Apartments by Casacol.

Safety features

The most stand-out safety highlights at Loma Verde were the 24-hour desk staff present in the lobby, AND a 24-hour security guard present.

All apartment front doors have electronic keycards as well as second locks for security. If you have more questions about staying safe in Medellin, visit my article on the topic of Is Medellin Safe?

Location of Loma Verde

The Loma Verde building is located in a quiet street in El Poblado, the main neighborhood for expats, travelers and internationals, in Medellin. This is where we spent one month with Remote Year, and we found out years later that it was actually a Casacol apartment!

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El Poblado is our favorite neighborhood in Medellin, so we were glad to go back. In the downtown area, there are restaurants of every cuisine, new chic hotels, a large number of cool coffee shops and boutique shopping!

Loma Verde is located away from the hustle and bustle of El Poblado’s main streets. It is about 10-15 minutes’ walking to most places we frequented, like Pergamino Cafe and other best cafes in Medellin like Balance Coffee and Clemente Cafe.

Aspects of the apartment

Here is a bit about our Loma Verde apartment. We had the two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment.

Bedrooms

Our two-bedroom two-bath apartment had an industrial-chic vibe and had some great features that made our stay comfortable.

The primary bedroom had an en suite bathroom with a great shower. There was a very comfortable king-sized bed, a TV and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out at the city and rooftop pool.

The second bedroom is where our daughter slept in a crib. It had a queen-sized bed, corner windows and ample closet space.

Kitchen

For traveling with a baby, a kitchen is a must-have for us. It’s part of why we were interested in staying with Casacol from the beginning — to have the comforts of home while traveling with our toddler.

The kitchen had all the working necessities for us to prepare our daughter’s food, as well as dinner and breakfast for ourselves. Dan cooked with pots and pans on the two-burner stove, and we made great use of the fridge.

A huge bonus was the dishwasher (I couldn’t believe it!), where we washed our daily plates and utensils after our daughter went to bed.

There was also a “welcome package” of bottled water, Colombian chocolate and a few coupons for a selection of restaurants and entertainment locales in the city.

Living room

The living room had floor-to-ceiling windows that you see here, along with a couch, coffee table and TV. For dining, there were two chairs at the kitchen peninsula.

As our daughter goes to bed around 6:45pm, the living room and kitchen were where we spent a lot of time during our stay in the evenings!

Other room features

The last thing in the apartment that caught me by surprise was the in-unit washer-dryer, that we actually used for some baby clothes! I hadn’t expected the apartment to have a washer, and it was a big bonus.

Building amenities

Loma Verde was great for us as accommodation in Medellin because it was a lot like our apartment at home in the US, actually!

The ground floor has a lobby and a small gym, and it seemed popular with guests. My favorite amenity was the rooftop pool, where we enjoyed afternoons dipping in the water and looking at the city views. What a cool place to hang out. Additionally, there is a sauna and steam room.

Family-friendly features

As we travel with our toddler nowadays, there are some child-related things we need at every accommodation. Casacol was great at making this work for us.

We chose the two-bedroom apartment so that our daughter could have her own room and go to bed before we did. This wouldn’t have been possible at a regular hotel, and it’s part of why staying at a hotel with a baby is so challenging.

Casacol was able to provide a travel crib, a high chair and a baby bathtub. This made sleeping, meal time and bath time very comfortable for us, and we didn’t have to do anything ridiculous like rinsing her off in the shower or bathing her in the sink!

Something I had packed on my packing list for an international trip with a toddler had been toddler silverware like a little fork and spoon, but Casacol even provided these for us when we arrived.

The last memorable family-friendly gesture was that one of the Loma Verde front desk staff came up to our unit after we checked in, and brought a little baby blanket.

Throughout our stay at Loma Verde, we saw 3 other families within the first two days, with children ranging from about 2 to about 5 years old.

Staff at Loma Verde

The front desk staff is available on Whatsapp, which is very useful and helpful. The afternoon we arrived, the staff working at the desk helped us find a doctor on call for a house visit for our daughter, who was a little sick.

Another day (and when our daughter was better), we texted the front desk to ask about dishwasher detergent. A different staff person also arrived within a few minutes to help us find the dishwasher detergent and help us work the dryer (which was in Spanish).

Lastly, the staff was very kind in helping us arrange an early-morning 5am airport transfer to the Medellin Airport. We got a car ride with a driver named Alejandro who was fluent in English, and it was an excellent experience overall.

Critique of Loma Verde

Our stay at Loma Verde was very nice and comfortable, especially with the great king-sized bed, separate rooms, usable kitchen and good location.

If we had to critique anything, it would be the quality of cabinets and couch, which seemed like they weren’t ready to withstand wear and tear from guests. The couch in the living room was not the most comfortable for sitting on, and had some missing tacks that we didn’t want our toddler to touch.

Is staying with Casacol worth it?

I think a stay with Casacol is worth it, whether you’re a digital nomad traveling on your own while working remotely, or a family with kids traveling in Medellin.

For us, there are a lot of benefits in staying in an apartment versus a traditional hotel. Most of this is because we like to “feel local” when we travel, and staying in an apartment building with the comforts of home, as well as the frills of a hotel stay, works best for us.

And now that we travel as a family, we need our daughter to have her own space, we prefer having a second bathroom and we absolutely need a kitchen to prepare her food and cook for ourselves after she’s sleeping.

For most travelers coming from North America, staying at a Casacol boutique apartment hotel will be a nice value. In fact, you can’t get this kind of value if you’re not traveling in Colombia! The prices are very fair, ranging from US$80 to US$150 per night, depending on the building, its location, the number of bedrooms and the room’s view.

How to book a Loma Verde Apartment

A great way to book a Loma Verde Apartment is online at this link for the Loma Verde Aparthotel. To get excited, you can watch this video about the Casacol Loma Verde building.

How to book a stay in Medellin with Casacol

Casacol has a great number of apartment-style hotel stays in Medellin, for both short- and long-term accommodations.

If you’re looking for a short stay, I’d recommend another property, the Soul Lifestyle Hotel. For both short- and long-term accommodations, I suggest checking out the Provenza Apartments.

To see a complete list of all the Casacol properties, head to the Casacol website and use the filtering option to search by location, amenities and keywords.

To stay in tune with the company’s developments and new properties, you can follow its Instagram.