By: Rener Gracie

Rener Gracie — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you Planeta EXO!
We did four days at a beautiful lodge in the Amazon. Beatriz was so helpful in making sure we were taken care of. This was especially important since I had very specific needs due to a current medical condition that required cautious monitoring. We took our two sons that were seven and 10 years old and they had the best time!

By: Ioannis Meili

Ioannis Meili — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Great organisation
Great organisation to have an amazing time at the Gavião Amazonas Lodge!

By: Patrick Granja

Patrick Granja — Sun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A luxurious oasis at the entrance to an Igarapé
A luxurious oasis at the entrance to an Igarapé, with an incredible swimming pool and a restaurant with very well prepared dishes. I recommend the Surubim Moqueca. The access to the river via the staircase wasn’t as good as in the photos, as I was there at the height of the historic dry tide of 2023.

By: Buyisiwe Shongwe

Buyisiwe Shongwe — Thu, 16 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Absolutely unbelievable!!
Absolutely unbelievable!! Paradise in paradise. It’s really worth upgrading to the premium rooms. We had a wonderful time full of activity and some down time too. Good was always good and fresh.

By: John

John — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Recent trip with my wife and son - great experience and amazing staff
Our family has just returned from a great trip to the Amazon and we stayed for 4 nights and 5 days. Our experience was excellent and I’ll go into more detail below.
Summary:
Amazing staff on a different level! Amazing guides. Great hotel facilities and rooms. Fun and instructive tours. All in all, a great experience. More details below, but I highly recommend it.
The Amazon:
It was the Amazon’s dry season and the Rio Negro where the hotel is located was very low. This means that you have a short walk to the water and therefore canoeing and paddle boarding are essentially out of the question. Apart from that and the fact that you can’t go boating in the jungle, the rest was great. We saw caimans (giant and small), giant otters, snakes, tarantulas, tons of birds, sloths, dolphins (both types), pirarucu and other fish, etc. ). Surprisingly, bugs were not a problem. We used insect repellent and my wife got bitten, but it wasn’t as bad as some places we’ve been to here in the US. It may have been the dry season, but apparently the Rio Negro isn’t very hospitable to mosquitoes. If you’re planning a trip to the Amazon, think about whether you want to go in the flood season or the dry season. It’s still incredible, but your experience will be different.
Hotel:
The hotel is great. It’s in the municipality of Novo Ariau but it’s well covered in vegetation and very well designed to fit in with its surroundings. Most of the rooms were on stilts and connected by paths that made it look like they were tree houses connected by bridges, very cool. We stayed in a room and our daughter stayed in her own room in a tower that had a viewing platform at the top. The air conditioning worked very well and quietly and cooled the room as much as you wanted. The towels were great, plentiful and the room was always clean and tidy when we returned from our tours. I would rate the room a 10. There was a very large deck facing the water and it would have had an even better view if the river had been full.
The gardens were very well kept and tidy, the restaurant was very nice and had a great view. The pool was amazing and if the river water had been higher, it would have looked great with the infinity edge. There was a games room hidden in the jungle with glass walls which was very cool. The hotel is great and I recommend it.
The food was great. Breakfast was a feast and on the third day we asked them not to send so much food because we couldn’t eat it all. It would probably be possible to skip lunch if you ate the whole breakfast. Lots of local fruit, juices, cakes, tapioca, you name it, plus eggs, cold cuts and bread. Lunch and dinner came from the same menu, which included lots of local fish, sauces, dishes and desserts. What’s more, the dishes were large and the meals included an appetizer, main course and dessert. Again, on the second day I was missing one of the courses as there was too much food. Although the menu remained the same, it was large enough for me to order the same thing only once.
Staff:
I found this out because the hotel staff were fantastic! Really amazing! The reception was always willing to help and spoke English, the drivers who drove the transfer car were professional and the cars were new and clean, the cleaning staff were great and thorough, but the restaurant and guides were on another level. First the dining room staff. Super friendly, helpful and everything you wanted them to do. The drinks were amazing! If you had a dining restriction (we didn’t), they would accommodate. I can’t say enough about the people who worked in the restaurant.
The guides, however, were on a different level. First, we had a guide who spoke English and was also a local. A native Brazilian of British descent who grew up in the Amazon and Guyana and knows everyone and everything. If I were to open a resort in the Amazon, my first hire would be our guide! My wife and daughter don’t speak Portuguese and without him this trip would have been nice, but not as amazing as it was. We were walking through the jungle and suddenly he would stop us and point to some trees, tell us what to look for and after squinting we would see some animal. Crazy! He alone was responsible for taking this trip to the next level. However, he wasn’t alone, our boat driver was also amazing, he didn’t speak English, but our guide and he worked as a great team. I can’t say enough about these two and, although the hotel was great, I would recommend the lodge because of the guide and the staff. Whoever runs the lodge’s HR deserves a raise.
The only thing that wasn’t great about the hotel was that it’s in the city and at night we could hear a religious revival going on nearby and it was noisy. On a different night, there was apparently a disco somewhere playing music. Nothing that made us lose sleep, but it did detract from the scenery.
Tours:
All the tours were included. Our first tour was a river trip through the Anavilhanas archipelago where we saw dolphins feeding, giant otters feeding and with a baby, sloths, lots of caimans and even managed to hold a few small ones and lots of different birds. We also stopped to swim at a beach, watched the sunset and returned in the dark in search of animals. Incredible. The second tour was a walk through the jungle where we saw lots of different trees, fruit, ants, spiders and snakes, all in the wild. This was followed by lunch in a local village which was also incredible. Talking to the great people who live in that small village (12 houses) about their life and love for the Amazon was incredible. Our third tour was a 3-hour hike through the jungle and some caves that were amazing and hot! The cave had lots of bats, we saw snakes, huge tarantulas (the size of your head), various fruits, trees, we drank water from lianas, various insects and we had to walk with gaiters to protect us from the snakes. We also had a good lunch afterwards. Our fourth excursion was an interaction with wild dolphins and a ride home on a pedal bike. The interaction with the dolphins was amazing and I highly recommend it. The water bike home was good, but if you want to skip something during the low river season, that’s it. Maybe it’s more interesting during the high river season. We did see the gray river dolphin (tucuxi) during the bike ride so that was nice. Our fourth tour was a river tour where we saw where the patrollers of the Anavilhanas reserve live and also two giant caimans. They were huge. Finally, on the day we checked out, we went on a city tour to Novo Ariau. A great local guide who also spoke fluent English. It was a quick tour and getting to know a town of 50,000 inhabitants in the middle of the jungle was interesting.
Final thoughts:
Great hotel. Amazing staff on a different level. Guides at an even higher level. Incredible scenery and animals. Think dry season versus rainy/flooded season. Highly recommended.

By: Val Stepanov

Val Stepanov — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Love at first sight!
Love at first sight. We received a recommendation from a local friend in Manaus to visit this place. We can only encourage booking. We felt like kings.

By: Sang Woo

Sang Woo — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Wonderful trip!
I spent some great days with my family in this special place, the Amazon. Sensational tours, everything really was better than planned!

By: Isa Robinson

Isa Robinson — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 13:02:10 +0000

The hotel is amazing, you can see the care of the owners in every detail. The construction does not conflict with the surrounding forest, on the contrary, it integrates with it.

Large rooms, named after local trees, with balconies, where you can enjoy the view of the Rio Negro and the tranquility of the place. In my opinion, it could have more lighting in the bathroom.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:21:38 +0000

It has an inviting and very beautiful swimming pool with a beautiful view of the river. The restaurant also has a beautiful view of the river.

By: Roberta Mendonça

Roberta Mendonça — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:18:12 +0000

I loved this hotel in every way: beautiful architecture, overlooking the Rio Negro, attentive staff, I felt at home, DIVINE food, pleased both the children with hamburgers and more homemade dishes and the adults with delicious and well-prepared fish. Cozy room. Great tours with local guides who know the area well.

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