Our family of 6 along with another family of 5 spent time at the Rancho Grande. Honestly, you will not find a better hotel for the price. The breakfast is amazing, absolutely delicious pancakes, the best ever! Everything was clean and the yards were well kept. We lived close to Panajachel for awhile and really truly you will not get a better place to stay!

We stayed two nights in late Feb. 2011. The pluses were the location, the cleanliness, and the care of the grounds. We were in a small cottage and had a deck that overlooked the lawns. The breakfast (included) was excellent coffee, scrambled eggs, fresh buns, wonderful pancakes and, of course. black beans. The only negative...no hot water when we arrived, but a maintaince man was soon on site and fixed the problem.

My husband, myself, and our 3 school-aged children had traveled to Panajachel in order to visit a non-profit which supports Mayan girls' schooling. We'd collected a suitcase of needed school supplies to bring this organization based in Panajachel. Our stay at the Rancho Grande Inn came at the end of our Guatemala trip.
Prior to this, we had lived for 3 weeks with a Guatemalan family in Antigua and attended Spanish Language school each day. This was both a wonderful and challenging experience. Our homestay did not have consistent hot water and the food we ate with our host family was the local fare. Basically after 3 weeks of sleeping fairly poorly in one room and having to walk outside for our showers, we were sorely in need of a nice place to wash up and rest for two nights.
Rancho Grande Inn's description and price tag suggested it would fit our needs. We reserved their casita for our family of 5. We arrived after dinner and everyone was dying for a warm shower. Unfortunately the water was only cold. We informed the management about the problem. They worked on it for a while and declared it fixed. We tried again, the shower was still cold. They offered us another empty room to shower in. That water was cold too.
At this point, I went to the office and told the hotel owner that $130 was a lot of money to pay for a room without hot water and I was requesting some sort of discount. The owner, who was bilingual in English and Spanish, told me she never gives discounts and that she found it hard to believe that the water was still cold. Then she said, "I mean, did you really come here for the hot water?" After the experience we'd had at our 3 week homestay, I felt like yelling, Yes!
The next day the owner said to my husband that they realized that I wasn't making the water story up, that something was wrong and they'd work on fixing it. They did have someone come out that day, but after this, we only had hot water for our first child's shower.
Beside the hot water issue, this hotel was comfortable, though fairly dark. The sheets and pillows were nice. The breakfasts (included in the hotel price) were delicious. However, it was hard to be treated so rudely by the owner, still not have hot water, and have to pay an expensive price in the end.

This was the second time I stayed here. My friend goes to Guatemala several times a year and she always stays here. I can see why: the rooms are large and cozy with carved wooden furniture. The bathroom was good-sized too - enough for three women to share without getting on each others' nerves.

The rooms are set back from the street with a pretty lawn and there is even a pool set in a garden/orchard (actual fruit trees). The hotel isn't on the main strips of Pana which keeps it quiet but it's an easy walk (albeit on cobblestone streets) to all the shopping, restaurants, nightlife.

Breakfast included with room is the typical cuisine (eggs, refried black beans, white cheese) with a twist - a giant thick german style pancake.

This time they even had wireless internet.