Atitlan Hotel — Hotel in Sololá

Hotel Atitlán review ||Views: Not a bad view on the property. You can’t go wrong with the garden view or lake side view from your hotel room. I recommend waking up early and checking out the sunrise at the shore line. ||Room: our first night we stayed in the lake view doble room. As a couple with an infant we needed a little more room for our pack n play. Fortunately for us the hotel had availability for us to upgrade to a lake view king suite that included a sitting area with a fireplace. Knowing how amazing the room and experience was, we would’ve booked the king suite for the entire stay.||Food: we checked in Saturday night and ordered a few mariposa salads, which were amazing! We loved the salad so much we ordered it twice during our stay. |The next morning we participated in the all you an eat breakfast buffet, which was fantastic! From tamales, omelette station, bagel bar, charcuterie, to different types of yogurt bowls, potatoes, sausage, waffles, and more, the selection was endless. The food was accompanied by an assortment of different drinks that included a green health type juice, freshly squeezed papaya juice, orange juice to bloody mary’s and mimosas. Worth every cent. Because we had an infant with us, we ate the majority of our meals at the hotel. We tried a variety of different dishes from the club sandwich with french fries for lunch (tastey homemade ketchup), dinners that included fajitas, hamburgers and nachos. PSA: out of everything we tasted, the only thing we didn’t enjoy were the atitlan nachos. Skip those, it’s just movie theater cheese over chips with some other nacho toppings. For dessert we tried the churros, probably the best dish way to end the trip.||Service: amazing service all around. From the attentiveness by the pool, the countless times we ordered room service to the amazing attention during our meals through the day, everyone was so nice and warm. ||Note worthy: there is a 12% service charge on everything that is purchased. Keep that in mind when tipping at the beginning of your stay. There is also a conservation fee that is added to your final bill. If you need a ride into town, you can order a tuk tuk from the souvenir shop. Speaking of souvenir shop, everything in the store was pretty neat for the most part, bunch of fun finds. It’s probably ~200% marked up compared to the artesinal market in town. I’d keep that in mind when looking for souvenirs in the shop. ||Gardens: you should make it a point to explore all of the different areas of the gardens. They also have different types of animals on the premise like macaws, tucans and iguanas. We found out about this right before we left but you can request a map...

Views: Not a bad view on the property. You can’t go wrong with the garden view or lake side view from your hotel room. I recommend waking up early and checking out the sunrise at the shore line.

Room: our first night we stayed in the lake view doble room. As a couple with an infant we needed a little more room for our pack n play. Fortunately for us the hotel had availability for us to upgrade to a lake view king suite that included a sitting area with a fireplace. Knowing how amazing the room and experience was, we would’ve booked the king suite for the entire stay.

Food: we checked in Saturday night and ordered a few mariposa salads, which were amazing! We loved the salad so much we ordered it twice during our stay. The next morning we participated in the all you an eat breakfast buffet, which was fantastic! From tamales, omelette station, bagel bar, charcuterie, to different types of yogurt bowls, potatoes, sausage, waffles, and more, the selection was endless. The food was accompanied by an assortment of different drinks that included a green health type juice, freshly squeezed papaya juice, orange juice to bloody mary’s and mimosas. Worth every cent. Because we had an infant with us, we ate the majority of our meals at the hotel. We tried a variety of different dishes from the club sandwich with french fries for lunch (tasty ketchup), dinners that included fajitas, hamburgers and nachos. PSA: out of everything we tasted, the only thing we didn’t enjoy were the atitlan nachos. Skip those, it’s just movie theater cheese over chips with some other nacho toppings. For dessert we tried the churros, probably the best dish way to end the trip.

Service: amazing service all around. From the attentiveness by the pool, the countless times we ordered room service to the amazing attention during our meals through the day, everyone was so nice and warm.

Note worthy: there is a 12% service charge on everything that is purchased. Keep that in mind when tipping at the beginning of your stay. There is also a conservation fee that is added to your final bill. If you need a ride into town, you can order a tuk tuk from the souvenir shop. Speaking of souvenir shop, everything in the store was pretty neat for the most part, bunch of fun finds. It’s probably ~200% marked up compared to the artesinal market in town. I’d keep that in mind when looking for souvenirs in the shop.

Gardens: you should make it a point to explore all of the different areas of the gardens. They also have different types of animals on the premise like macaws, tucans and iguanas. We found out about this right before we left but you can request a map...

I wanted to share some thoughts on the gorgeous Hotel Atitlan.

WHAT WE LOVED: The location- obviously spectacular Safety - the lawn provides ample room for our 2 year old to run around unlike other properties on the lake -The pool had a very large sun shelf which made swimming with our kid easy and fun The specialty cocktails were incredible! All the birds and landscaping was top notch The cleaning service was always attentive and worked hard to help us keep our room tidy. Their fish dish in the evening

WHAT WE DIDNT LOVE:

I needed to switch some things around on my reservation and book a private boat. etc. After booking I could not get ahold of the hotel. At all. I had to contact my friend in Antigua who works for a hotel who ended up calling them on my behalf.

-The service (with the exception of a few) seemed very tired of Gringas. I get it. But the attitude towards us seemed smug and not to mention slow. We are well traveled and speak some Spanish too. This is not our first time at the lake.

I had bought one of the nicest french bottles on the menu ($) and didn't finish it the first night, I returned with it night 2 and received so much grief. They didn't even pour me a glass.

I booked a private boat through a friend on the lake (after not being able to reach the front desk for many many months) and on the day of our boat tour the dock guard tried to charge us for hiring outside of the hotel vendors. It seemed so unfair. I needed to have a plan and book in advance because it's difficult to wing things with a 2yr old. I'm still unsure if my room was charged for this.

-No ATM on property. Again- I didn't plan for this and couldn't get the information I needed prior to arriving.

As guest, our family photographer was asked to leave. A bummer considering the top dollar we are paying to be on the premises but I guess not totally unusual in the states. But a lot of rules for being Guate.

Overall, the receptionist at the front desk was notably kind and we appreciated her remembering our son's name and saying bye to him. Although it was breath taking and beautiful. I'm not sure we would return. Instead I would maybe stay at Casa Prana, Lush, Del Mundo, Kula Maya Boutique. These hotels are probably less burnt out because they dont have tour buses coming in...