There are extremely limited accommodations around Semuc Champey, the beautiful turquoise pools hidden in the jungles of Guatemala. Greengos Hotel, however, is one of the most popular choices here, providing a wide variety of lodging options and an excellent location, just a few minutes’ walk from the entrance of Semuc Champey. It also has a bit of a reputation for having some serious backpacker party hostel vibes.
My husband, Justin, and I stayed three nights at this hotel (which we paid for out of our own pockets!) as we explored Semuc Champey and the surrounding area. So, if you’re trying to decide whether it’s the right place for you to stay in Lanquin, here’s our honest and unbiased review of Greengos Hotel.
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Overview of Staying at Greengos Hotel
If you’re looking for the TLDR on whether Greengos Hotel is worth staying at during your time in Semuc Champey, here goes.
Greengos is a simple, but beautiful property, tucked away in the Guatemalan jungle.
Given its remote location, the hotel isn’t exactly luxurious. For example, only a handful of the rooms have private bathrooms and all of the rooms are pretty sparsely equipped and decorated.
However, you’re probably not coming here to hang out in your room anyway. The property is just a short walk from Semuc Champey and there’s plenty of common spaces, like expansive seating by the restaurant and bar or the pool area, to hang out.
Its location in the jungle does have a few drawbacks, though.
For example, you won’t be within walking distance to the restaurants and bars in the small town of Lanquin, leaving you with limited dining options outside of Greengos’ onsite restaurant. The food here is a tad on the pricey side, by Guatemalan standards, but is certainly tasty enough to get by for a few nights.
While the crowd here skews towards younger backpackers who enjoy a cerveza or two, we, as mid-30s digital nomads, still found the environment extremely welcoming and relaxing. The hotel does a good job of allowing its more rowdier guests to party—but only to a sensible time at night.
While staying at Greengos Hotel has a few drawbacks, its proximity to Semuc Champey, beautiful property, and friendly atmosphere make this one of the best options when visiting the area.
Want more in depth information about our stay? Let’s get into it.
Location of Greengos Hotel
Greengos Hotel is located here in the Guatemalan jungle, about a 10 minute walk away from the entrance of Semuc Champey or about a half hour drive from the teeny town of Lanquin.
Its location is honestly a HUGE advantage and the main reason that we decided to stay here.
There’s only a couple of hotels within walking distance to Semuc Champey—otherwise, all of the other options are located in Lanquin itself, which is about a thirty minute drive (or a VERY long walk) away.
Semuc Champey opens at 8 AM every morning. However, the camionetas (basically, a truck that’s been retrofitted with benches to hold about 20 people in the back) that bring the travelers staying in the town of Lanquin don’t typically start arriving until around 9:30 AM or so.
Accordingly, by booking a stay at Greengos, you can make the short walk to Semuc Champey, right when it opens, and have the pools pretty much to yourself for a couple of hours before other visitors start to arrive.
This is exactly what Justin and I did during our stay, They actually let us into Semuc Champey a bit early, around 7:45 AM, and we were able to hike up to the mirador, overlooking its pools, AND down to the water, with almost no one else in the park for hours! It was incredible and definitely one of the main selling points of staying at Greengos Hotel.
And, beyond that, its secluded location in the middle of the jungle makes you feel totally immersed in nature, with the Rio Cahabon babbling beside its cabins and lush mountains in every direction.
Its location is not without its drawbacks, though.
Given its distance from Lanquin, there’s extremely limited restaurants or stores that are easily accessible from the hotel, other than its onsite restaurant. Accordingly, you’re most likely going to eat most of your meals at Greengos itself, which offers pretty standard Western fare (think burgers and sandwiches) at slightly inflated prices.
How to get to Greengos Hotel
Getting to Lanquin
To get to Greengos, you’ll first need to transfer to the town of Lanquin.
Given its remoteness, unless you’re driving yourself, Lanquin will not be your first stop in Guatemala. For example, if you fly into the country, you’ll either start in Guatemala City or Flores, where the country’s two main airports are located.
Luckily, most of the popular destinations around Guatemala offer easy transport to Lanquin, such as:
Antigua to Lanquin
Guatemala City to Lanquin
Lake Atitlan to Lanquin
- Shared shuttle from Panajachel to Lanquin Option #1
- Shared shuttle from Panajachel to Lanquin Option #2
Flores to Lanquin
These shuttles will all drop you off in a nondescript bus station (i.e., dirt parking lot) in Lanquin.
Getting to Greengos Hotel
Greengos is located about half an hour from the Lanquin bus station, down a bumpy road through the jungle.
While there’s no public transit that leads there, Greengos conveniently offers a camioneta service from the bus stop to its property. It’s a complimentary service if you’re staying for at least two nights or otherwise, it’s Q35 (around $4.50 USD) one-way per person.
You’ll have to provide them the time your shuttle is arriving in Lanquin. Based on our experience, though, it appears that they basically have drivers waiting at the bus station, until their camioneta is full, from 3-9 PM every day.
The Building and Grounds at Greengos Hotel
The buildings at Greengos are definitely on the simpler side, but have some strong boho jungle vibes, with colorful murals painted onto the walls, exposed wood beams, and lots of hammocks and daybeds strewn about.
There’s one main building, built into a hill and overlooking the rest of the property. This building has a reception desk; a huge open air restaurant/bar, which definitely feels like the beating heart of the property; and a mixed dorm room over the bar area, which Greengos aptly refers to as the “noisy” dorm room. There is no shared kitchen that’s available for guests to use and the property actually prohibits bringing outside food or drink onsite.
Down the hill from this building, you’ll find a number of small and colorfully painted A-frame cabins and other structures that are built around the pool.
The property itself is absolutely beautiful, with swaying palm trees and lush greenery everywhere and, in the distance, the surrounding mountains towering above.
Overall, the property is fairly basic, but clean, well-maintained, and perfectly integrated into the surrounding jungle—basically, everything that an ecolodge near Semuc Champey should be!
The Rooms at Greengos Hotel
Greengos offers a wide variety of lodging options, from mixed dorm rooms to a riverside suite, complete with a private ensuite bathroom.
Like the rest of the hotel, the rooms are basically constructed and have simple furnishings, like a floor fan, wooden shelving, and a small (uncomfortable) futon. Like the rest of the property, though, they’re cheerily painted and decorated in tropical colors, with large windows and sliding glass doors that let in plenty of light.
The airy and bright nature of the rooms does have a few drawbacks, though.
For one, there’s no blackout curtains on the windows here. During our stay, we were up early every day to go adventuring, but if you’re planning on partaking in Greengos’ nightlife scene, you may have a hard time sleeping in, with all of the light that streams in the windows.
Another issue is that, like most of the hotels in the Lanquin area, there’s no air conditioning, so the bright, sunny rooms can definitely get pretty warm. When we stayed, we basically were only in our room at nighttime, so it wasn’t really an issue. However, if you’re planning on hanging out in your room a lot during the day, it may get uncomfortably hot.
The more affordable room options, including the “private queen loft” that we stayed in, do not come with a private ensuite bathroom and, rather, use a shared bathroom, with multiple toilet stalls and large sinks. The shared showers have pleasantly hot water, but small-ish curtains that do not provide a ton of privacy to the public area. This area was relatively clean, but keep in mind that there are a decent amount of guests that are in the partying backpacker crowd—so don’t expect anything too pristine!
If I could go back in time, I probably would’ve sprung for one of the rooms with a private en suite bathroom (I just really hate stepping into shared showers that are wet—blech!).
All in all, the rooms at Greengos Hotel generally offer an excellent place to lay your head at night, after a long day of exploring the surrounding jungle.
However, if you prefer more luxurious accommodations, you may want to consider staying at one of the more slightly upscale properties in Lanquin, like El Retiro or Utopia Eco Hotel—although, to be honest, all of the lodging in the area are on the more rustic side.
The Service at Greengos Hotel
In full transparency, I wouldn’t stay at Greengos expecting five star service, but I was pretty happy with the vast majority of my interactions with the staff at the hotel.
Most of the reception attendants were pleasantly friendly and, while the service in the restaurant was a bit on the slow side, we were always waited on and served what we ordered.
The one exception to this were the owners of the establishment, who occasionally worked at reception. I’m not sure if we just caught them at a particularly stressful time, but, during our stay, they came across as a bit on the prickly side, often seeming mildly inconvenienced by guests’ questions or concerns.
If you’re someone who frequently asks for unique accommodations or are fairly particular about your lodging options, I would not go into Greengos with the expectation that your requests will be cheerily fulfilled by its management.
The Amenities at Greengos Hotel
Pool
Greengos Hotel has a nice salt water pool, surrounded by wooden lounge chairs. There’s also a swim-up bar at the far end of the pool, which, during our stay, was only manned during busier timeframes.
We’re not huge “lay by the pool” kinda people, but really enjoyed soaking up the sun and drinking some cervezas amidst the beautiful surroundings every afternoon.
There’s also a smaller pool, which, prior to our visit, I assumed was a hot tub. However, this is also an unheated pool. To be honest, I really have no idea what its function is—but I want to prevent your disappointment if you’re a hot tub lover like me!
Restaurant/bar
The main hangout area of Greengos is its restaurant/bar area, which also has a bunch of hammocks and daybeds that you can use, even if you’re not ordering anything. We spent a lot of time out here, working behind our laptops, drinking iced coffees, and taking in the beautiful views of the surrounding jungle.
The restaurant serves standard Western fare, like pizzas, burgers, pastas, or wraps. I certainly wouldn’t travel back to Lanquin for the food alone, but it certainly was tasty enough for a couple of days. You can expect most entrees to cost around $10 USD and beers to cost between $3-5 USD.
One thing that’s worth noting is that the restaurant is pretty restrictive about not making modifications to any of the dishes on its menu. So, if you have any serious dietary restrictions or allergies, you may want to reach out to Greengos directly to see if they’ll be able to accommodate you. For what it’s worth, we’re both vegan and didn’t have difficulty finding items on the menu that worked for us, but it may be an issue if you have a more specific need.
When you check into the hotel, you’ll be given a special electronic bracelet that’s associated with your room that you use to order food and drinks as you go. This is kind of nice, so you don’t have to worry about carrying around cash or cards. On the other hand, it can be pretty easy to accidentally go a bit overboard on the food and drinks here, as there’s no super easy way to track expenses (I suspect that may be intentional…). Just be sure to double check your bill at the end of your stay to make sure everything looks right!
It’s also worth noting that, while Greengos accepts credit cards, they charge a 6% fee for using them. So if you’re an uber budget traveler (or just don’t want to waste money on exorbitant fees), I’d suggest bringing along enough cash to cover your stay, as there isn’t an ATM onsite.
Wifi
Greengos has pretty fast wifi, provided over Starink.
As mentioned above, we regularly worked in the restaurant area on our laptops and never had any issues with the internet. The signal was weak but usable in our room, but I wouldn’t necessarily count on it. Our cabin was the closest one to the main building, so I’m not confident the signal would be strong in all of the rooms.
Accordingly, I wouldn’t plan any online meetings that would significantly impact your career here, but otherwise, if you’re a digital nomad like us, you’ll certainly be able to get some work done. And, even if you’re not working remotely in paradise, you can still easily check your email, Instagram, TikTok, or whatever else floats your online boat.
Activities
Greengos offers a variety of complimentary activities every day, from guided hikes around its property to volleyball tournaments. Accordingly, I think this would be a great option for solo travelers, given its lively and social environment.
The activities definitely are geared towards a younger crowd keen on partying. For example, during our stay, there was a beer pong competition, karaoke, and trivia night. Still, guests of all ages are definitely encouraged to participate in these activities—we’re in our mid-30s and had a blast at the trivia night!
And if you’re more into sleep than organized social activities, the hotel is pretty mindful of other guests and ensures the noise is kept to a minimum after around 11 PM or so.
Tours
Like any good hostel, you can book all kinds of tours around Semuc Champey and transfers to other cities, directly from Greengos’ reception desk. We booked our shuttle from Lanquin to Flores this way and found the process straightforward and the prices fair.
The Crowd at Greengos Hotel
As alluded to above, most of the travelers at Greengos were backpackers in their 20s that are just as interested in partying as they are exploring Semuc Champey.
I definitely wouldn’t classify ourselves in that contingent, but we still found all of the other guests to be friendly, courteous, and respectful.
And we certainly weren’t the only ones to not fit into Greengos’ “typical” demographic during our stay—there were plenty of other guests that were in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s! So, if you’re not a partying backpacker, I really wouldn’t let that scare you away.
The one kind of traveler that isn’t welcome at Greengos? Kiddos! Because of its party vibes, Greengos does not allow children under the age of 18 to stay at its property.
Greengos Hotel Review
So would I recommend Greengos Hotel?
Yes! Our experience at Greengos was overall positive—we LOVED the property’s proximity to Semuc Champey, enjoyed the pool and the lush jungle surroundings, and the chill and friendly atmosphere.
That being said, I don’t think Greengos is for everyone. If you’re looking for a luxurious stay, close proximity to a variety of bars and restaurants, or total peace and quiet at nighttime, you may want to consider some of the other hotels in Lanquin.
Enjoy explornig Semuc Champey and the surrounding area! Do you have any questions about staying at Greengos Hotel? Let us know in the comments below!
