I've stayed in $15 beach cabins in Thailand to $1500 suites at Aman and been equally enchanted by each. Remarkably, the experience at La Lancha was one of the more disappointing of all my travels.
My wife suggested this resort as the cap to our 2 weeks of traveling around Guatemala and having heard good things about the other Coppola properties, thought this would be a nice way to relax at the end of our travels. It wasn't.
First off, the parking lot is right beside reception which is beside the open-air dining room where guests are eating. Pull in and you disturb their dinner. You are then taken to the upper floor where a somewhat tired bar, sofa, gift shop await and handed a sheaf of papers to sign: foremost among them a waiver removing the resort and the Coppolas from all responsibility for anything that happens to you to at their property. I could see this being necessary if we were to zipline to our room, but this is hardly a welcoming gesture for what is supposed to be high-end resort and I don’t think I’ve ever been presented with such a waiver. They literally hover over you until this is signed. Quite frankly, the entre front-end operation seemed to be lacking in charm or friendliness.
Once the legal matters we dealt with, we were shown to our room, which of course meant passing through the diners with luggage. The walk down was nice and the pool area is quite sweet though it desperately needs a hot tub to make it usable after 4pm as the entire pool is unheated.
Simply put, the room was terrible. We were hit with a musty smell as soon as the door opened and the décor was both uninspired and shoddy. I appreciate rustic, but you have to go pretty far put of your way to execute a room this poorly in a handicraft-rich country like Guatemala (a $50/night hotel in Antigua has more charm that this very expensive resort room).
As others have mentioned, the walls between adjoining rooms are paper thin and the rooms laid out in such a way as to put your neighbour’s toilet directly against your bedroom wall. You will hear every noise from a whisper to … use your imagination.
Meals were adequate but very expensive (a $23 turkey soup?) and with a somewhat limited menu. The on-the-house appetizer was welcome, but after three nights of the same appetizer, you’re left wondering how difficult it would be to change it up every day. I will say that the wait staff tries very hard and were quite charming. They are however, poorly trained - table settings were inconsistent, plates taken off tables while others are still eating and we were continually asked which room we were in which seems somewhat silly in a resort with ten rooms.
One of the things that struck me was once at the resort there is pretty much nothing to do other than hang out by the pool. The “beach” on the lake is a cleared area of grass with some left out too long in the rain wooden chairs and a couple of canoes. The bar is uncomfortable and hardly conducive to hanging out and chatting, and you need to go downstairs to find someone to make you a drink. And there are no bicycles to take a tour into the local town.
One goes to Flores for the ruins of Tikal – which are incredible – but even here La Lancha falls short. They continually ask if you would like to book a tour and I enquired about the price - $300 for a private car/lunch/guide/admission. That seemed a little high so I called a cab driver and found my own guide and did the whole thing for less than half. I appreciate that a hotel marks things up but one gets the impression that La Lancha is always gouging you. Talking to other guests the feeling was mutual. We witnessed people complaining about the food and talked to one couple who was cutting their stay short due to disappointment.
The sad thing is that this could be a lovely place and experience with a few simple changes. Sadly there seems to be little interest on the part of La Lancha to improve either. If I could, I would ask for my money back,.
- La Lancha Hotel
- La Lancha Flores
