playa grande

Just a five minute boat ride from Taganga, this beach is better than the public beach located there, although not by much. It is dirty and crowded and unless you want to rent a chair there is not a lot of space to sit or relax. There's lots of restaurant shacks and people selling candy/ice cream, but we didn't try any. An employee from one of the restaurants spent 30 minutes screaming at the boyfriend of her daughter and the children of another employee wouldn't leave us alone and kept asking for money, to use our towels and the raft we brought, etc. Not a relaxing beach experience. Then when we were ready to take the boat back, our boat driver was nowhere to be found at the time he told us to meet him but showed up 15 minutes later. Tayrona National park is more expensive to get to, but budget to spend a few days there and enjoy the perfect beaches they have and maybe skip this one.

I asked at the hotel reception for a recommendation, and their gave us here. They said it was beautiful, clean tranquil.... It was bl@@dy hateful, and I could barely raise a smile for about the first 3 hours after arriving. My parents were visiting us, and we were led to believe it was a pristine perfect Caribbean beach. I wanted to them to have as near a perfect experience as possible. It was dirty, littered, crowded, the locals ewe rude, to the point where one man threw my fathers belongings off his deck chair when he went off to get a beer, as he had "strayed" into his deck chair patch for a bit of shade. Needless to say he was more than a little surprised when I let loose on him in perfect Spanish. We took some carefully edited photos without the kids hounding us, the locals being grumpy around us, the vendors hassling us and the constant supply of speed boats with rubber rings, sausages, armchairs and anything else they can tow and charge you money for. We left after we had lunch. The whole experience want helped by ( and I know this is silly but nonetheless !) being charged 3 times what some Colombian folk next to us ewe charged for their ice cream. Which we ended up giving to the children of the business holders on the beach as they literally leant on us to watch us eat them.

Water is really clear! Not much space to sit unless you hire a deck chair, only 3000 cop for the day though.

We thought this "white sandy beach" would be heaven. However we the boat dropped us off its quite clear this is no normal idealic carribean beach! Is dirty , really busy , shack like restaurants serving all the same food. Would not go out of your way to visit ....

Compared to Tayrona Park, Playa Grande is not nice and in January, the high winds make sitting on the beach unbearable. Skip it!

Taganga is e small town just minutes away from Santa Martha. The little village is very clean very friendly people and has a nice scenery. Small fishing boats take you to the next bay for a small fee where you can relax or eat at the numerous restaurants. Very nice place to spend some time. We were very surprised to find such a nice little town there. Santa Marta is just close by and also very nice city. Clean, nice boulevard lots of shops and restaurants. The town gave me the impression to be in Barcelona, Spain. Taganga and the surrounding area is a must see when you visit Colombia

Small Beach reachable in 15 minutes walk from tagaganga. There are a lot of Restaurants just at the beachside. But it's almost as dirty as the Beach at taganga because the tourists are not able to throw their rubbish into the rubbish bins...

The beach is in a beautiful bay near Tatanga but it was crowded when we visited. We enjoyed hanging out with the Colombian familes and found a nice place in the shade to sit. The beach and water are dirty which detracted from its natural beauty. We had snorkel equipment but due to boat traffic we did not venture out far enough to see anything. We enjoyed the paro fish lunch. Frest whole grilled paro for two with trimmings for $30,000 pesos. Be sure to select your fish before ordering.

A pretty crowded but dirty beach, music, food and drinks are all over, the city must do something to upgrade this place to attract more tourists!

We went there twice during our stay in Taganga. It's nice, not hard to get there, and worth it the trip, especially during the week as it's less populated. It's more expensive to eat, and they want to charge you a ridiculous amount to rent snorkel gear so bring your own. I recommend going to the far end of the beach from where you come in as the prices are better and there are fewer people trying to get you to buy stuff and just in general. Great snorkeling around the bend.

It's not the best beach in the world but it's what you make of it. Went with my gfs and had a blast. It's definitely not clean but you get waited on all day, the water is balmy, you can have beers, cocktails and massages all day. I would avoid the toilets at all cost. Seriously gross but that wasn't a deal breaker. If you're short on time in Taganga, go here instead of Taganga beach. It's only a 5min boat ride and cost 6000 colombian pesos return.

Dirty, dirty, dirty. Garbage and stray dogs everywhere. Go right past this "beach" on your way to the wonderful Tayrona Park

Launch is only 7,000, 6 if you talk them down, I prefer the hike over. Lunch is more expensive but everything has to be brought over by launch. Lots of restaurants so it's a roll of the dice unless you know someone. The water's much cleaner then Taganga but don't go on the weekends, you might get run over by a launch.

Better beach than Taganga and we enjoyed the boat ride over however the enjoyment stopped there. The beach is crowded and the sand is stones. We ate in a beach bar that had more flies than I've ever seen and I've eaten in a lot of dodgy places. My husband ordered lobster which was such a waste as the cook clearly never cooked one ever, the seafood rice put me off fish completely for a few days. The toilets - worst in Colombia. Flashbacks to the grossness!

It´s a nicer beach than Taganga but it’s really crowded and the food isn´t great. The round trip from Taganga is about 3 USD - 4 USD which seems cheap but when you get there everything costs; 3 USD for the chair, 3 USD for the snorkel mask, 15 USD for lunch, 5 USD for a ceviche.