Two Friends and I stayed at the lodge for 5 days this past Feb. I found the lodge a great mix of amzon remoteness with enough facilities to still enjoy yourself. The staff at the lodge was very plesant and accomoidating. Meals may have lacked varitey but made up for in quality and quanity. The guides we had really made the trip!! We spent two weeks total in Brazil but by far the highlight was the time we spent at the Juma.

We stayed in Juma Lodge in January, 2007, and we really enjoyed our stay there. The lodge is small and remote, and you really get the feeling like you are in the jungle. The accomodation is simple but very clean. The food is simple as well, but delicious enough for me. Yes, it was repetitive, but you are not there for gourmet meals. I assume people go to Amazon for the wildlife experience. I stayed in Ariau five years ago and also enjoyed it, however, in Juma, the groups are smaller : 5-6 people, the excursions are a bit longer. Activities are the same as in Ariau: motor canoe trips, jungle walks, piranha fishing, and cayman spotting. I think you have to have the right expectations. If you expect to be pampered at this lodge, you will be disappointed. But for that matter, Ariau won't pamper you as well. This lodge is much smaller and intimate than Ariau (Juma had about 20 people at the time that we stayed there). And, as I said, it feels much more remote than Ariau. So, I guess, it all depends on your tastes. If you like crowds, then perhaps this is not the right lodge for you. If you prefer smaller crowds, longer walks and excursions, then Juma should be perfect. The only thing that they should do when they advertise is to remove the claim that on the way back you can swim at the Meeting of the Waters. You are not allowed to swim there, but frankly, it is a wise decision since the currents are strong. But just for clarity they should remove this from their program (you do pass the Meeting of the Waters twice - on the way to the lodge and on the way back, and it is definitely a plus for Juma).
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay. The guide was good (even though he was contractor, he was from the area, and he knew his ways pretty well - plus, he was really a nice guy). So, in my humble opinion, Juma Lodge is definitely a worthy choice for stay in Amazon jungle.

P.S. It looked like they were expanding as more bungalows were being built.

Me and my wife stayed in the lodge on last September.

The lodge is amazing, it seems like you are in a tarzan house. In the same time, you have a spetacular view and a good comfort.

The staff is really good...very nice and eficient people!

The activities are very nice, as well...the best part is the jungle hiking: our guide explained us a lot about the jungle.

I highly recomend!

My wife and I stayed at Juma Lodge for four nights in August 2005. The location is beautiful (yet not quite like the kind of thick jungle teeming with life like you expect after reading magazines like National Geographic). The service and facility standards are however far below the high price the lodge charges and we were extremely disappointed. Don't think you you will be staying in an exclusive lodge with nice, crisp cotton sheets, eating exquisite, varying food served by lodge staff happy to please.

Examples:
- staff playing music loadly in the evening after everyone else has gone to bed
- lodge manager who makes herself scarce from the guests with no apparent interest in making guests feel welcome
- guides who are not familair with the region (they operate on a contractual basis, travelling between hotels/lodges and staying for a few days at a time - our guide had never been to the lodge before)
- food which was similar every day (fish, chicken, fish, etc). The cook tried, but he certainly was no chef and lacked training.
- our sleeping pillows were old and literally falling apart (see picture).
- the motorised canoe we went out on one night broke down and we had to paddle for an hour to get back to camp (see picture).

We have stayed in lodges in Australia, South Africa and Botswana and travelled extensively in Europe and to be honest I have never had the expectation vs reality gap so large.

Lastly, if you want serious jungle then you need to go deeper and further away from Manaus (Juma is only about 2.5 hours boat/car transfer away). We saw few birds and monkeys, but did see dolphins in the rivers (that was the highlight). Do your homework on the type of jungle you want to see - we learned too late that the Amazon forest varies considerably from region to region.

I think Juma has the potential to offer a lot, but they have a great deal to learn about catering to the needs of foreign and experienced tourists. I would not go there until you read more comforting reviews.

(These views were shared with the other guests there at the time)