Hotel Camino Real Tikal

Beautiful hotel on a beautiful piece of property. Breakfast and dinner Included in the price and the food was enjoyable, especially the desserts! The staff were really hospitable and went out of their way to ensure an enjoyable stay. We had a nice view of the lake from the room which was tastefully furnished and very clean. The location is great for visiting Tikal but away from everything else. The hotel was not very busy and was very peaceful with a nice pool and lovely swimming area on the lake. There were kayaks available to use as well. We would stay here again, it was truly lovely. Cons: The room smelled very strongly of lemon when we arrived. It was so horrible that we were coughing and couldn't breathe. We opened the door for a while to air it out and fortunately a few a couple of hours the smell was mostly gone. We asked them not to clean the room for the rest of our stay. The next day we could smell the lemon coming from the other rooms after they were cleaned. The road to the hotel is under extensive construction. We were stopped for over 45 minutes waiting for the road to clear, so it took over 90 minutes to get there. It's a single lane and will probably be for a long time.

Armando in the bar was the best! Went out of his way to be helpful and we were so appreciative for it. Otherwise, this hotel was…fine. Rooms are dated and dark with no WiFi outside of the main area (in 2024?!). Shore line is nice, although there are no ladders on the docks and the shore is very rocky. Food was also only fine - only a buffet for dinner and you’re basically captive there because of how far the hotel is from anything else.

The hotel itself was fine. It is a bit of an older hotel and you can tell but it was clean and presentable in every way. The issues were; 1. No wifi unless you’re in the lobby. This makes it extremely inconvenient when you are travelling from abroad. 2. The front desk has connections with local tour guides and taxi drivers, to provide packages for tourists. We paid $75 for a taxi from the airport to the hotel (through the front desk). That is a much higher than normal fee for a taxi in that area and we had to take it again to get back to the airport at the end of our trip. The second time we felt that we were taking advantage of was the tour to the ruins. You would pay for the entry separately and then they charged us (No receipt/invoice/company name of course) $220 for 2 people. Again, this is a tour promoted by the front desk. As a tourist, you don’t have many options since you’re in the middle of nowhere without any way of transportation to shop around. We think that price was also completely disproportionate to the current market. An excursion to the ruins including transportation and a tour guide should be around $25 per person, not $110. 3. The bar staff would not show the drink menu on purpose. The staff would show you only food menu and you would have to trust the prices that they gave you verbally. They would change us $13 USD per 355 ml canned beer. That is an insane mark up for any restaurant or hotel. We had never charged us that much in any 5 star hotel. The price of a can outside of the hotel is $1 USD. I highly discourage anyone to visit this hotel and trust the staff. I feel terrible for the workers that do work hard and do their part. This is a huge reason why people are moving away from staying at hotels and book Airbnb/ private homes instead.