Casa Prana Hotel in Atitlan — Hotel in Sololá

Lovely 3 night stay here in May 2025.

Room

We stayed in the Luxury Suite which is a fantastic room. Both the bedroom and bathroom are really spacious. The bathroom is really cool, with lots of windows to enjoy a great view of the mountains around the lake. The room has a good balcony where you can have dinner.

Food & Drink

You can expect some really decent food here. We ate all our meals here across the three days and were not disappointed. The staff will bring your meal wherever you want around the hotel. The service was really great, you could just send your order over whatsapp. Although meals might be more expensive than you could get at local restaurants around the lake, we received good portions at a reasonable price.

Amenities

The pool could do with being kept a bit cleaner and was a little cold. By the afternoon, it always felt like there were a few bugs or leaves floating around in it. Lots of loungers around. Within the main building, there is a snooker table, a large living room with a TV and a dining room. There is a small gym with a few machines and free weights, and a separate yoga studio. Both have a great view out onto the lake. There is also a small ping pong table and a beach volleyball court for some reason! Tours and massage services were weirdly very expensive, and not worth booking through the hotel.

Location

On the shores of Lake Atitlan, the nearest town is Santa Cruz, which is a fairly small town compared to the other bigger, livelier ones around the lake. This makes the hotel a pretty quiet and peaceful place to stay. The hotel has a bit of a jungle vibe to it, so expect a few insects. To get here with suitcases, you need to get a boat. The hotel has its own boat for pick-up/drop-off but this only operates during the daytime. You can get a private boat at any other time (eg. we arranged one to do a sunrise hike, and the hotel helped by making sure the security guard was aware and could open the gates for us to leave at 3am). The local public boat service can drop you off directly to the Casa Prana dock, instead of the nearest town, which is useful. However, there is also a lakeside path which takes about 15 mins to walk to Santa Cruz.

Logistics

I'm including a little section here on logistics of the hotel, because this was quite stressful prior to arrival. Note it does clearly say on the website that check-in has to be done before 6pm. Although you can get a private boat any time, (and a boat is necessary with suitcases), this is a small hotel with only 8 rooms, which doesn't need many staff to operate late at night. I think this explains the tight check-in restrictions. Our flight was delayed to a 4pm landing in Guatemala City. We arranged the taxi to Panajachel through the hotel, and even though we were an hour later than the late check-in they had given us, (due to high levels of traffic), everything was fine in the end.

Overall, we had a very relaxing stay at this hotel, where the highlights were a great room, amazing service and...

The short story: ||New management cancelled our reservation. They provided a curt and vague explanation on why. They then ignored our many follow up messages seeking clarity on whether we could rebook, during which time the other comparable places all became booked up, really creating a headache for us. Just stay away from them.||The full story:||We were planning a trip for 11 people to Guatemala with a stay at Casa Prana as a key part of it. After many attempts to reach them, I spoke to someone at the hotel about how to book for a group. We then booked our rooms and received a confirm. After that, we booked other hotels, flights and activities around Guatemala. To repeat, they sent us confirms, one of which I attached. Then we got an email from Casa Prana cancelling all six rooms because I had used my credit card to reserve my adult son’s room, which is against their rules for reasons I don’t understand. I immediately went to rebook. The whole hotel was somehow instantly booked – see pictures of their website attached. Their first email response was vague and the second one rude. Neither explained if we would have a chance to re-book. They ignored our many follow up emails and what’s app messages in English and Spanish looking for more clarity. ||We were told by others in the Atitlan community that there was a change in ownership around the time we booked. New ownership believed they could get much higher prices and were looking to cancel as many reservations as they could. ||I’m sure they will have some dishonest response below. Look at all the reviews and posts I have on this site. I travel a lot and very rarely have anything bad to say. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Reserve at...

This place is simply fantastic, and the staff make this a remarkable experience. Maria was incredible and took care of us so well throughout our stay, and Astrid in the office was truly lovely.

Casa Prana is so special - the food was the best we had in all of Guatemala, and the privacy and amenities are unlike any other place on the lake. The decor is so unique and the huge variety of areas to explore made this the best property we've ever stayed at. It's definitely a splurge compared to other places on the lake, but it's well worth it. The grounds are immaculate and the staff take such care of the house and gardens - it was so hard to leave when our trip was over.

Our only suggestions for improvement- the volleyball court and sauna we're out of service for all 4 days of our stay which was disappointing, and we weren't informed until we arrived. We were in the luxury suite and the bathroom was gorgeous, but the shades don't provide true privacy even when drawn (they're too sheer) and it's awkward to make eye contact with passing staff as you're enjoying that beautiful tub. Given the stunning vegetation on the property and then need for open windows, you can expect a few ants in the room, but it was cleaned daily and is to be expected considering the location/ surroundings. Lastly, we were charged a 10% gratuity upon check out - that may have been disclosed in the fine print when we booked, but we tipped generously throughout our stay and it would have been helpful to have been reminded at check in of that future charge.

That being said, all minor things when you consider the true beauty of this place. Thank you for the trip...