avoid like the plague!
my friends and I were initially really excited about this hostel, but we only stayed for one night (Nov 4th 2008) because when I woke up in the morning, I was covered in bug bites. I literally had 25-30 on each arm, a few on my shoulders and neck and even face. When checking out, I told the desk lady how when I went to bed, I didn't have a single bug bite, but when I woke up I was covered in them. She feigned concern (and disgust) but still made me pay for my stay because only the owner could authorize a comp. Of course the owner wasn't going to be there until later in the afternoon. We decided to leave and visit Earth Lodge, a hostel outside Antigua instead. Throughout the day, the bug bites all swelled and blistered up to 3-5 times their original size. The next day, I was back in Antigua visiting a doctor. Between the doctor visit and and prescriptions i spent about 500 Q (the equivalent of $75 US), money I didn't have. I went back to the jungle party to talk to the owner, of course she wasn't there again.
Staying at the jungle party nearly ruined my trip to Guatemala. I was only to be in Guatemala for 3 weeks, the incident happened on my 4th day there (the 4th of November). Per doctors orders, I was not to swim or be in the sun for 1 week due to the bites. When visiting Lake Atitlan, I could not swim or cliff dive as I had hoped, could not go outside at all without long sleeves. I actually had to buy two new long sleeve shirts because I didn't have any packed for my trip. Plus, I looked like a leper with boils all over my skin for the duration of my trip.
Now it is the 25th of november, and I still have marks on my arms where the bites are still healing (3 weeks later!!!!).
To make it all worse, through our travels we met some people who had stayed there about a week before we had. They said that someone else staying in that exact same room as we had had woken up covered in bug bites. So obviously the management knew there was a problem with either the room or the mattress.
Besides all of this, the Jungle party wasn't that neat anyway. If you are going to Antigua, stay at Kafka. It's right up the street from Jungle party and has the same chill type of atmosphere and is even a little cheaper.