The short version
Walk the walls at sunset, eat late, and don't fill the afternoon. Cartagena does most of this for you if you're outside at the right hour. We're on Carrera 7 in San Diego, inside the walls, so everything below starts within a few minutes of our door.
Four things we'd put on the plan, in the order we'd do them.
1. Las Murallas at sunset, which costs nothing
The old city walls are the best hour of the day here and you don't pay for them. They're a continuous stone rampart around the Old Town, wide enough to walk along, and you get up via one of the ramps and stay up there. Go about an hour before the sun drops so you catch the light going gold on the roofs instead of arriving in the dark.
Our take: walk first, sit later. The stone holds the whole day's heat, so the first twenty minutes are better spent moving. We've written the route out properly, where to get on and where to get off, in our walls-at-sunset guide.
Café del Mar sits directly on top of the walls and is the famous place to watch this happen, which is exactly its problem: it fills. If you want a table facing the water, be there around five. If you'd rather not queue for a sunset, walk past it and take the same view off the wall for free. We won't pretend the drinks are the reason to go.
2. A boat on the bay, 90 minutes, from about US$29
The sunset cruise is the one properly touristy thing we'd defend. You get the walled city from the water, which is the angle you never see on foot, and the breeze off the bay is the only reliable air conditioning in this town. The standard trip runs about 90 minutes with an open bar of rum and soft drinks, and starts around US$29 a head on the big booking sites. Longer versions that add an island stop run four to six hours and cost more.
Our take: take the short one. Ninety minutes is exactly as long as this is interesting, and it puts you back on land in time to eat at a sensible hour. Book the day before, because the good departure times go first.
3. Members Only, Friday and Saturday, 8pm to midnight
If you want one night out that isn't salsa, this is it. Members Only is our lobby bar: live jazz, DJs and burlesque, all local artists, lights low, doors 8pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday only. We built it because Cartagena is all salsa and we missed jazz, so we made a bar mostly for ourselves. It's more fun with you in it.
Our take: this is the best date night we can offer you without you leaving the building. We cap the number of tables on purpose, so book in advance rather than turning up at ten and hoping.
Before that, go up to the roof. It's open from 8am until midnight, there's a cocktail bar and two little plunge pools, and we were the first hotel in the city to open our rooftop to the public, so expect actual locals at sunset rather than a room comparing flight times. If you want the swim as well as the drink, the rooftop pool day pass is €25 for two people. If you want colonial hush and silence after dark, we're probably not your spot, and we'd rather say so now.
4. A day at Blue Apple Beach
Blue Apple Beach is our beach club, and you reach it by boat rather than by taxi, which is the whole reason it works. You leave the Old Town, you're on the water a while, and then you're somewhere with sand and no cobblestones. Book a spot on the Blue Apple boat and it takes you straight to the Blue Apple Beach dock, which is a far more comfortable ride than a local water taxi.
Our take: this is a full day, not an afternoon. Don't put anything in that evening except dinner. If it's your only beach day, do it midweek.
How we'd string it together
Two nights, if that's all you have:
- Night one: on the walls by half five, down into the Old Town by seven, dinner booked for half eight. Late dinner is normal here and the streets are better at that hour anyway.
- Day two: Blue Apple Beach by boat, back late afternoon, rooftop at seven, Members Only at nine if it's a Friday or Saturday.
The walled city crosses in roughly twenty minutes on foot, so you can be loose about nearly all of it. The one thing you can't improvise is a table. Reserve.
And one honest note on timing
September and October are our wet months. It rains hard, usually stops inside the hour, and the city is emptier and cheaper for it. That's a good trade for two people, as long as the boat day can move. December and January are dry, full and expensive, so book those a long way out.
Live Cartagena the way we do: eat late, walk everywhere, leave the afternoon empty.