Eden Holistic Retreat & Event Center

On arrival there was no one for checking in. When someone came they weren’t eventually even aware that we had booked a stay. After a while we were brought to a room. Spacious, with two beds. But a layer of almost a finger thick dust all over the place. No toilet paper, no soap or shampoo. We had to ask for towel (and got them instantly). Filthy toilet and sink and a shower (with loose wiring for hot water) that gave some drops of water but wasn’t fit for cleaning yourself. Direct contact from the inside with nature & bugs outside through large holes in the walls/ceiling. The beds were covered with some worn out, synthetic bed linnen, no pillow covers on dirty pillows. When booking the website told us there was ‘some construction’ going on. But the fact was that the whole area was one big construction site with our room in the middle of it. Construction workers were working there until the end of the afternoon. The restaurant had a sign it was open and there was some activity in the kitchen. But it was not for the guests apparently. It was totally unclear from the start who we’d need to turn to in case of questions/ problems: no reception, unclear who was in charge on the premises, absence of our online contact (& no reply to online questions). Personnel was hardly around, but when they were around they were friendly and helpful. That is until the moment that we told them after one night that we were going to leave for another place. The reason we gave - we didn’t feel at ease in the dirty room and in the middle of the construction site and we felt misled by the online info - was not heard and we were immediately accused of being complainers online about noise (we had not complained online). We were told that there were no construction workers, although we had seen them working and they had even greated us while walking upstairs passing our balcony. And we were told pretty aggressively that we would not get a refund if we’d leave. Upon having said that the lady left and told us to arrange things with someone else (…”talk to the hand”) On the day of arrival we had already sent some questions about our room and stay to the ‘manager’. He did not respond to us, but apparently spread the word to employees and volunteers around that we weren’t satisfied with what we got on the premises. After the female employee left us in anger and handed us over to someone else we couldn’t come to an agreement about the costs. We then - finally - were put in touch with the manager who was not understanding either and wanted us to pay 1/3 of our stay instead of 1 night alone. Of course we had booked more nights in advance, but as we didn’t get what we had expected to book and couldn’t really arrange things on the premises, we refused to pay for more than 1 night. After a long discussion on the phone with the ‘manager’ we finally agreed to pay just for 1 night. The place advertises with a holistic concept. That concept seems to fall apart immediately when some em

A True Garden of Eden Our stay at Eden was the most enjoyable we’ve had in all of Guatemala. The hotel is absolutely beautiful. I loved stepping outside of my little cabin and smelling fresh herbs like basil, lavender, and oregano. Our cabin was adorable and the staff did everything they could to make us feel comfortable, safe, and like we were apart of the community. Judd and Maria were so friendly and gave us great recommendations of restaurants and things to do. There was even a restaurant at the hotel with yummy thin crust pizza. We even took an aerial silk class at our hotel from an amazing instructor named Calissa. I would definitely come back here again if I had the chance. We got so lucky and felt so blessed to find this place.

Throughout our stay, the staff was no where to be found. We tried checking in online as we were instructed to do so through our booking , but there was no link to do this. Additionally, after trying to find staff around the property, each staff member that we encountered adopted a woah is me mentality and told us they didn’t know anything about our booking and couldn’t help us for various reasons (ie, they didn’t know we were coming, they didn’t know which room we were in, etc). There wasn’t a way to ask the staff for recommendations, or for simple things like plates and spoons. The property will be beautiful one day when the construction within and surrounding is finished, and when the management of this property improves.