Hotel Casona Macondo Granada: Our $21 Room With a Pool

I don’t know what kind of accommodation you expect to get for $10 a night, but I certainly wasn’t expecting a beautiful little hotel with a swimming pool literally outside my bedroom door.

And yet, that’s exactly what we found at Hotel Casona Macondo in Granada, Nicaragua.

We were backpacking through all eight countries in Central America, trying to keep our budget around €20 a day, and accommodation was usually whatever cheap place we could find when we arrived somewhere.

But Granada was different. After spending the previous night in a ridiculously basic room in Rivas, where the bathroom walls didn’t even reach the ceiling, I decided we deserved something a little nicer.

And apparently, in Nicaragua, that didn’t mean spending a fortune.

How We Ended Up at Hotel Casona Macondo

We arrived in Granada without having booked anywhere to sleep. Nothing unusual there. That was basically how our entire Central America trip worked.

We’d just survived a journey from Ometepe that was supposed to be straightforward but somehow involved a sold-out ferry, an unexpected night in Rivas, a chicken bus that stopped for an hour, and being dropped about 10 kilometers outside Granada.

By the time we finally arrived, I was ready to put my backpack down.

We found a café, connected to the internet, and started looking for accommodation. My friend told me to just find something, so I started searching.

And that’s when I found Hotel Casona Macondo.

A private room for two people, in a beautiful hotel with a swimming pool, for $21 total.

I mean, why would I say no to that?

Our Room Was Basically a Little Apartment

When we arrived at Hotel Casona Macondo, I immediately loved the place.

The decoration was beautiful, the location was fantastic, and the room was much nicer than anything I was expecting for the price.

It wasn’t just a bed with a bathroom attached. We had an entrance area, a separate bathroom, and then a separate bedroom. It actually felt like we had rented a tiny apartment rather than a regular hotel room.

And considering we’d paid just $21 for both of us, I was already very happy with my choice.

But then I opened the door and saw the swimming pool.

A Swimming Pool Literally Outside Our Door

I’m not exaggerating when I say the pool was right outside our room.

It was about one meter from our door.

We could literally step outside and there it was. No walking through the hotel, no going downstairs, no searching for the pool somewhere at the back of the property.

Just open the door.

POOL.

And after the accommodation we’d stayed in the previous night, this felt particularly ridiculous. We’d gone from sleeping in a half-finished room in Rivas to having our own little apartment with a swimming pool for about $10 each.

This is one of the things I love about backpacking. Sometimes you end up sleeping somewhere that looks like it’s still under construction, and the next day you find a place like this without even increasing your budget.

The Location in Granada

I also loved where the hotel was located.

Granada was one of those cities I liked pretty much immediately. After the quiet beaches and volcanoes of Ometepe, suddenly we were surrounded by colorful buildings, markets, people, traffic and all the chaos of a proper city again.

And I loved it.

Hotel Casona Macondo was a great base for our stay, especially because we wanted to explore Granada rather than spend our time traveling back and forth from somewhere outside the city.

For me, that’s an important part of choosing budget accommodation. Saving a few dollars on a room isn’t particularly useful if you then have to spend money getting everywhere.

How Much Did We Pay?

We paid $21 for the entire private room, not per person.

There were two of us, which meant our accommodation cost approximately $10.50 each for the night.

For that price, we had a separate bedroom and bathroom, a little entrance area, a beautifully decorated property, and a swimming pool right outside our door.

I thought that was an incredible deal, especially considering we hadn’t booked anything in advance.

Obviously, that was the price during my stay, and hotel rates can change depending on your dates and availability. But if you’re looking for budget accommodation in Granada and want something a little nicer than a basic hostel, I’d definitely check what Hotel Casona Macondo is charging.

→ Check Hotel Casona Macondo prices and availability

Would I Stay at Hotel Casona Macondo Again?

Absolutely.

I only stayed for one night, so I’m not going to pretend I know every single thing about the hotel. But I loved our room, the decoration, the location, and especially that swimming pool.

For $21, I genuinely couldn’t have asked for much more.

And I think that’s what made this place memorable. We weren’t planning a fancy hotel stay. We were two backpackers moving through Central America on a tiny budget, and I was just trying to find somewhere nice to sleep after a very long journey.

Instead, we ended up with one of my favorite accommodation finds from that trip.

If I went back to Granada and found a similar deal, I’d happily stay here again.

Read My Other Granada Posts

How to Get from Ometepe to Granada (and How We Actually Did It)

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