Amazing family adventure!

Guatemala | Dec 21 - Dec 28, 2024

We were only here one night. Hotel was clean and breakfast was great. There was no safe in the room. That would have been nice to have.

This was my favourite hotel of the three. Staff was welcoming and front desk staff all spoke English. Staff were very friendly and accommodating. Grounds were beautiful and the kids loved the playground and the parrots. The breakfast was also excellent. We had one bad experience in the restaurant on the first night we arrived. A large tour group came in (from old town tours), and they got served right away and we got forgotten for about an hour and a half. I think the guide was quite aggressive with the staff as we just got forgotten. Otherwise the service was great and it was a very positive experience.

This hotel was great. It was quite cool and rainy when we were there and we were not feeling great, so we did not get to enjoy this hotel as much as the others.

This was like being in a large hotel in any large international city. It was clean and amenities were great. We waited about an hour to check in. Breakfast was good, but we ended up having to pay for the kids as for some reason they were not included. They were not originally on the reservation either which delayed check in a bit.

Service was poor and they are building a conference centre beside the hotel and there was rock blasting happening all day. It was tough to enjoy your room or the pool. Hotel was busy and when we arrived (along with about 20 United airline pilots and flight attendants) rooms were not ready and they sent us to two different rooms that had not been cleaned ( this was around 4pm). We waited about 90 minutes to get into a room, which turned out to be last room right beside the construction. It was fine for sleeping. There was a strong musty/ mouldy smell as well. We were glad we were only there one night.

Tikal itself was amazing!! Guide was good, but did not seem to have a good sense of when we were losing the kids attention. He was speaking to Paul and I which was interesting for us/ but he lost the kids and then they would start to complain. The kids did love the ruins and the birds we saw, but I don’t think they took in much of the history part. The day was too long for the kids, because we went from Flores to Tikal, back to Flores, flew to Guatemala City and then drove to Antigua. With the traffic, that was about 10 hours of travelling, plus Tikal! There was also no time built in for lunch. We ended us having a donut at the airport in Flores for lunch, which meant that the kids were cranky and not feeling great on the long drive from Guatemala City to Antigua (with traffic about 2.5 hours). They were so tired when we arrived they did not want to eat dinner, and when we got to the restaurant at the hotel we had a very long wait. With kids that age I think it would have been better to maybe stay right in Tikal, or to stay two nights in Flores so that it would not have been as rushed.

This was a great trip! It was a tough hike for the kids, but they made it! And Giannina was very patient with us. The best part was going out onto the lava field at the top and roasting marshmallows. It would have been great to now how long the drive was going to be to and from the volcano!

Dart was engaging and interesting! Loved the old churches and the ruins. She understood the kids attention span and made sure to have a well timed ice cream break. This tour was cut short in order to bump up the time of ziplining. We did this so the kids could have a few hours of just hanging out by the pool and text before dinner. We were trying to stay up to midnight on Christmas Eve to see the fireworks!

The whole family loved this!

We did this on Christmas Day and there was no traffic! Drive was great. It would have been good if there a place to stop for the kids to run around a bit on the way.

We all loved this trip. We went to Santiago and San Juan. Paul was not feeling well this day. Kids really loved stopping to see the bees at the honey exhibit and learning how chocolate is made. I really loved wandering around the market in Santiago. It would have been great if we could have had lunch at the hotel before leaving. I got sick from eating lunch at one of the little restaurants in Santiago.