Tropicana Travel Agency Antigua — Attraction in Sacatepéquez

ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE with Tropicana. The hostel and staff there are great, this review is about the hike experience. I rarely do google reviews but ever felt this was worth my time.

For credibility, I’ve been travelling for 22 years. I’ve stayed in a tent in the Amazon, I’ve hiked in the USA and Peru, I’ve slept on local fishing boats while surfing in remote Indonesia (Sumatra and Banda Ache), and I’ve slept on curry-smelling floors in regional airports in Asia. So I know what a terrible travel experience is.

I hiked 26th August 2024.

I think there’s two essentials for any tour. A full belly (it’s even ok if the food is poor) and comfortable sleeping. Tropicana fell very very short on these two things, plus one star on many others.

The first breakfast and lunch were good because breakfast was served at the hostel and lunch was prepared and packed at the hostel. The only food we received immediately post-hike was a cup of Raman noodles, and then dinner was a small piece of chicken thigh and about 1/2 a cup of vegetables. Maybe for a tiny woman this is fine but for a normal human, hiking for half a day, this was not enough. The quality of dinner was also poor, but I’ll give them a pass on that because carrying supplies and cooking up there would be difficult. Maybe rice and more vegetables would easily fix this issue.

Breakfast was a small cup of warm milk with a few oats in the bottom and a small thin piece of banana bread. A simple fix to this could have easily been more oats in the milk and a thicker cut of bread.

The camp the worst sleeping conditions I’ve ever experienced. The “hut” was a small canvas box with a wooden frame, which had cracks everywhere, letting in the -2 degree cold. The “mattresses” were squashed paper thin-there’s literally no cushion, I was sleeping on the wood and my back and shoulders were wrecked for the next two days as a result. The “mattresses” are about 50cm wide, so anyone who’s not a small person is wider than the mattresses. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, but all the mattresses are stacked right next to each other. Everyone was crammed up in like sardines, shoulder to shoulder, touching strangers all night. The sleeping bag was thin, and definitely not rated for the freezing conditions. There was an additional blanket, which was also incredibly thin, which still was not enough to stay warm. The sleeping bags are standard size- I’m 6 foot and a solid build and I couldn’t fit in the sleeping bag- it genuinely wouldn’t zip up. My shoulders were out the top and my body felt like I was being mummified. The floor the bedding is on is not level which was made a terrible “sleep” even worse. I did not sleep at all due to the cold and being so uncomfortable. I spoke to 8 others and they said they slept about 2-3 hours.

The hut is tiny, and with everyone crammed in there’s only enough room for three out of the ten people to get changed/organise bags at any one time. This wouldn’t be a problem, however the guides rushed us to get ready for breakfast and to leave. There is also only one toilet for 25 people, adding to the difficulty caused by this frantic rush.

There are several other camps up there owned by different operators, which appear to have more comfortable cabins and proper mattresses.

The camp area can only be described as sad. There’s no shelter out of the wind and rain, which is very very much required. There is a few thin bamboo benches (bottom is not flat and no back rest- sitting on a rock was just as comfortable) and about 8 plastic seats which isn’t enough for the entire group. It rained on our way up so all the seating was wet, but unfortunately the guides had nothing to wipe the seats with, or maybe didn’t care. Which gets me into the guides.

They speak enough English to assist which is great, but they did not engage with the group at all. For some this maybe ok and not expected. However, I would have liked info about the volcanos, their history, major eruptions, Mayan beliefs, and info on native plants (healing properties etc)....

Edit: Original reply from company can be seen in screenshot, as it has now been changed. The significant feedback provided in this review has simply been labelled as ‘hate’ and disregarded because they have not received other complaints in the 2 days since the tour finished. Tropicana’s client base is young backpackers who mainly can’t be bothered writing detailed reviews, but just move on and tell their friends not to go. However there are now others from our hike have left reviews. The reply from the company stated they want to understand OUR hate, rather than how they can improve their service. As per the review below, there is no hatred, vitriol, or name calling, but very clear details and examples as to how the tour is severely lacking. We have absolutely no reason to just ‘be hateful’- you genuinely can’t make this stuff up. As fellow travellers, feel free to decide whether you would like to go with a company who cannot receive feedback and push the blame back on you.

We did try to post this review on Tropicana’s site directly but it was removed.

We would recommend avoiding this tour. While the price and all-inclusive nature is very alluring, there are much better tours around the same price range. For context, we have completed multi-day hikes in Peru, so have a good gauge of how well a tour can be run and what you should be able to expect.

First, the gear that is included is not designed for sub 0 temperatures. The larger jackets in particular are not down jackets and do very little against the freezing temperatures of base camp. The gloves are thin as, and again, not designed for the climate.

While some of the guides were lovely, we had a couple who weren’t and one who was INCREDIBLY rude. We were going at a solid pace the whole time, but this one guide called everyone slow, hopeless, and babies to the other guides in Spanish (not thinking that many on the tour spoke Spanish), called us babies in English to our faces all day, and would give false estimates of time. For example, he said ‘we have 2 more hours to go now because you’re all so slow’ but we got there in an hour, without changing our pace. When it was time to move on from a rest break, all four of the guides would start shouting ‘Vamos’ over and over, even as people were clearly getting up and putting bags on. There was no five minute warning so people could start getting moving, it was just an instant ‘get up and move now’ It felt like boot camp and was so unnecessary.

There was also a significant lack of care to help or encourage anyone who is struggling. There was one girl who was struggling at the beginning and panicking a bit when she saw how big the climb was going to be. She was told she could either go back or get a horse at her own expense. There was no patience or tolerance, and they were incredibly brash about it, saying she’s slowing everyone down. We, as fellow hikers, helped calm her down and pep talked her and continued to give her encouragement throughout and she made it. None of us paid to be on a boot camp and are not professional hikers. If we needed to be there by a certain time, they should start earlier and allow for that. There was no understanding that the vast majority of customers aren’t ever at high altitude, so very much struggle with the reduced oxygen. The guides do this climb frequently and are used to it, but didn’t seem to understand this is not the case for customers (although using the word ‘customer’ feels wrong- we felt more like nuisances who were being paid to do the hike rather than paying customers).

The guides were so focused on pushing us along that my husband ended up with hypothermia. We could see there was rain coming over and we asked the guide if we should put wet weather gear on. He said ‘no, later’. The rain then came on very quickly and heavily, meaning we all got soaked as we were getting our wet weather gear out. When we got to the top, it was absolutely freezing, making the wet clothes way too cold and resulting in...

The day started at Tropicana hostel at around 7:30, where a friendly staff member greeted us (forgot her name, but these kind of people are rare, very friendly with awesome vibe). The breakfast was great. After that, rental things were sorted out and lunch was given to everyone (keep in mind that this needs to fit your backpack along with 2 bottles of 2Lwater.

We then took the bus to the trailhead, where again rental stuff was sorted out. At some point, for people that allready had everything needed, this was all taking a bit too long.

We started the hike at 11:00 and arrived at basecamp at 16:30. (Which infected the Fuego hike, as they only left at 17:45 and got back at 22:00pm)

The hike is not the worst we have ever done, good shoes are recommended. During the hike there are a lot of breaks, next to that, the group in front had to wait constantly at the ones at the back. Until a point that we all got very annoyed, we asked the guide multiple times to keep up a steady pace instead of going so slow, he ignored us and his phone was more interesting than our needs. Nothing from information about the volcano was shared.

There were 6 guides in total, so they should have organised themselves way better and split up the group in different paces. Honestly, this made this hike a really unjoyable experience. One of the worst we have ever done in South/Central-America.

Once at the basecamp, we had to wait another 45minutes. We were all standing around, waiting to get our cabins assigned so we could put our bags inside. Again, disorganised.

Dinner was good, the fire was nice and the marshmellows and hot chocolate was an added bonus.

We woke up at 4:00 am to do the sunrise hike, this time we had a good steady pace. At the top, we only got 20minutes to enjoy the view.

We got back at basecamp, the most simple breakfast, porridge and cake and went down. Going down went a lot faster.

Conclusion;

PRO: friendly staff at Tropicana hostel, nice breakfast, incredible views on top of the volcano.

CON: the group is too big, 47 people and only one toilet at the top, the guides are disorganised. Not enough space to sit around, people were eating dinner standing. As we left so late, we were constantly queing.

I can’t comment on the shared cabins as we had a private one, which we found perfect.

Budgetwise, this is your go-to organisation. Although, this could have been a more enjoyable hike. Go for a smaller group if you want to enjoy yourself more.

There is one thing the organisation can’t do anything about, but should be more enforced. The ‘toilets’ along the way were FILTHY! They should use the entrance fee to maintain these...