My husband and I just returned from a week in Panama. We stayed at the Country Inn on the canal for 2 nights (wonderful!), went to David for the weekend and then back to the Country Inn for the remainder of the stay. We concluded on our first night in Panama City it was not the city for us and we would just make the best of our stay and see what the David area was like. What we didn't like was the crazy traffic, garbage, garbage & more garbage. And there really is not the level of entertainment we are accustomed to in US. What we really liked was the local people are VERY friendly. Anyone who has concerns of safety we felt safer in PC (and trust me we got lost in some not so nice neighborhoods) than we would in a lot of city's we lived in or near (Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee & Chicago). There are Police everywhere. To live the lifestyle we are use to we could not do in PC or most of Panama for less money. You would have to really live like the locals do and to be honest we aren't up for that at our age.
We stayed 2 nights in David at Hotel Ciudad de David, very nice hotel right in the middle of David. We meet many Americans here that were either doing the same discovery we were or were there coming / going to Costa Rica crossing the border for Passport reasons. We gained a wealth of information here in the two days we were here. We decided not to go to Bouqete as we had concluded Panama just really wasn't for us. We spent the day at Las Olas resort on the Pacific. Very beautiful, but again the garbage on the beaches are such a shame, we live on the Gulf Coast in Southern FL and just don't see that.
All in all I would not hesitate to go back and vacation as it really is a beautiful country, to me it was a diamond in the ruff, and the people are so very kind and helpful. And we meet some great people from the US , Canada, Costa Rica & Panama that we will stay in touch with!
If you have any questions I can answer please let me know.