Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Beautiful Resort

The hotel room/property/restaurants/pools were very well maintained and clearly a 5 star. Food was delicious, my friend and I are vegetarian and there was a huge variety of options. Beach was not the greatest however that was expected. The monkeys on the resort every day was the best part!

Riu Guanacaste: Great Resort!

The grounds were well groomed and beautiful. The the public areas - washrooms were always cleaned. The staff were always nice. The only downfall was you weren't able to reserve the restaurants. It was first come, first serve. Also the resort was a bit far away from the main attractions- volcano,rainforest etc. Overall we had a great time!

Occidental Tamarindo: Amazing resort

Rooms clean beach is amazing!!!!! Pool amazing Food 🥘 great!! People so friendly Beach everyday was beautiful sunsets incredible best trip ever!! Would recommend this hotel and would go back again. The shows were great.

Coco Beach Hotel and Casino: not bad for the money

this is a run of the mill hotel with friendly staff and a clean room. the food here is good but costly as is all the restaurants in coco beach . pool is clean with a small pool deck and the way the chairs are set up not much shade from the very hot afternoon sun. that being said they have no problem with you moving the chairs around its just a pain to do. great location right on the main strip and not far from the beach.

Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Lovely resort

Overall, my husband and I really enjoyed our stay at Dreams Las Mareas. However, the food was a hit and miss. One evening our beef was so chewy and red that we could not even complete eating our meal. We also found some of the appetizer portions extremely small. We also had ordered room service one morning at 5:00 a.m. only to have the eggs arrive as if they had been sitting out all evening. It was horrible!

Villas Sol: Just OK

You can't beat the views at this resort! Any time of day, but especially at sunset, the view to the ocean was breathtaking. We stayed in the hotel rather than the villas, which I was very glad of once I got there and saw the steepness of the hillside they're perched on. The rooms were a good size, had a balcony and were clean. One thing we found disappointing was that the fridge wasn't stocked. Not even with water. This is the first time we've stayed anywhere that didn't supply a couple bottles  [... read more]of beer, pop and water. The other big disappointment was the food. There was very little choice and it was the same things over and over again, none of it very good. The internet is also not free here. Our one complaint about the staff was our check in. We were handed the keys and a towel card and that was it. No information on even how to get to our room. No info on the internet availability. No 'ticket' for the a la carte restaurant. The guy was very unfriendly as well. When we went down a couple of days later when we found out we were supposed to have a ticket for the a la carte, the woman that we dealt with was very nice and helpful. On a positive note, the beach is beautiful and huge, great for walking. One side is lava rock which is fun to explore at low tide, looking for creatures in the pools. The rest is sand, stretching a couple of kilometers, with several restaurants along the way. The shuttle runs every couple of minutes, between the beach, reception and hotel, so there's never long to wait. The 2 pools are clean and we never had any trouble getting a lounger. The staff are all very friendly and being a small resort, it's easy to meet people. Although we had a great time, it's not a resort I would go back to or one I would recommend to friends.

Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Gorgeous resort!

The resort was beautiful and the service was very good. There was a great variety of excellent food and unlimited visits to the a la carte restaurants with no reservations required. The pools were gorgeous, but sometimes a bit noisy and crowded. We saw monkeys right from the infinity pool that overlooks the beach. The beach was ok, but the ocean was very cold during our first week and snorkeling was not an option. The check-in was the best and fastest we've ever had. We had a swim-up room, which [... read more] was wonderful. We usually had the pool entirely to ourselves. The only other drawback was the location - it was far to travel for some excursions, but close to Nicaragua, where we went for a really great day trip. Overall, we had a fantastic time.

Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Beautiful Property

Great service. Beautiful property. The food was adequate at times but there were a few terrible meals. Friendly and accommodating staff. The tours being sold off the beach were about half the price of those offered in the resort. The bay is beautiful

Hotel Villas Playa Samara: Great resort!

We stayed at the resort from march 11-19 : Great location on the beach and walking distance to Samara. We loved the food but it can get repetitive. The staff was friendly and very helpful - Thanks Marcos and Daniel for the exceptional service! We felt a little pushed aside when there was a wedding on the resort, but we ended up eating at a good restaurant called gusto beach in Samara (the food was excellent)! The kayak/snorkling excursion was fun and surfing was great for beginners! If you e [... read more]ver decide to go to this resort, bring water shoes!

Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Truly a total relaxing resort

Dreams Las Mareas is a beautiful resort with great, friendly staff. For the size of the resort it was never an issue for seating around the many pools or having to wait for a seat at one of the 5 a la carte restaurants. The only downfall was that it wasn't close to any towns to shop and explore.

Hotel Villas Playa Samara: Quaint resort off the beaten path

This little resort was nice. The food was really good, the rooms clean and the pool and beach were good - although the sand was too hot to walk on and the sand in the water was full of shells and rocks - we needed water shoes. It was also too cloudy to see any fish. The restaurant buffet area is tiny but it wasn't crowded most of the time. On our final day they ran out of food several times unfortunately. It is a very quiet place without any entertainment at night and zero kids activi [... read more]ties but decent wifi. There are no other hotels or resorts close by and it's almost 3 hrs from the airport - it feels very remote and one can really relax here.

Hotel Villas Playa Samara: Nice resort, great staff

The resort was lovely and fairly well kept. The staff was wonderful, accommodating and fun. It was a 2 hour drive from the Liberia airport but a pretty drive. The rooms could use an update and a note thorough cleaning each day. The beach was beautiful, quiet and had a great view of the sunset. The food was good, a variety of foods more often would have been nice. The pool was great and the swim up bar was fantastic. There was not much entertainment (live music 3-5 times when we were there) or ac [... read more]tivities to do/rent on the beach. There needs to be more beach chairs as well. There was construction beside the resort but it wasn't too bothersome. It was a beautiful 40 min walk down the beach to the town where there are cute bars, surfing, kayaking and restaurants. All in all it was a great experience.

Hotel Villas Playa Samara: Great Spot!

This was my second time in Costa Rica and I was pleasantly surprised by this resort. Villas are spacious and clean, grounds are beautiful, food was plentyful and delicious. Staff was friendly and efficient. The beach was breathtaking - but watershoes are a must because of the rocks/corals on it. The resort is located at a conveninent 30 min walk on the beach from the town of Samara where you can find great restaurants, and many small shops. I would go back in a heart beat.

Riu Guanacaste: riu excellence

overall a fine experience - our second visit in 2 years. staff are friendly and well trained. food was good, managed to visit all the restaurants even though you cannot make reservations ahead. the staff at The Toucan made sure a birthday celebration was fun and memorable. the birding and wildlife around the resort are plentiful -saw about 50 species of birds including our favourite, the turquoise browed mot mot. the Diamante nature park next door is worth the visit.

Riu Guanacaste: Nice place but not 5star

My husband and I came here on our honeymoon. We had heard a lot of good things and recommendations on coming here, but my honest opinion is we wouldn't come back. The good things: we had a honeymoon suite room which was very clean and nice. Had a beautiful ocean view. The resort is clean. The weather was hot. The excursions are worth it. ( we did the Vandara one and our tour guide Marteen was amazing) through nexus tours. The staff is very nice. The negative things: hard bed and rough pil [... read more]lows (we did not have a good sleep any of our nights). You do not get room service and the 24hr food is leftover burgers, hotdogs, soggy wraps and nachos. When I was in Cancun at the Hard Rock resort they had great room service and great food options 24hrs. Our last dinner we ate at the Italian restaurant which we waited 45mins for and we had asked for medium rare beef and got it blue with uncooked carrots in the center. And the wine is watered down. Only one restaurant offers bottled cabernet sauvignon. There is no bar at the beach and it is very rocky. You can't walk bare foot in the ocean. All chairs by the pool side are all always taken. We spent most of our time on the beach but without our water shoes it would be painful to walk on the hot sand and in the rocky ocean. Looking overall at our stay, we still had a nice time but not very happy with the food and no good 24hr service. Costa Rica is a beautiful place to visit, but would not stay at the Riu. We talked to some travellers from Montreal who have been to 4 different Riu's and this was the worst resort they've been to so far. I'm sad to have to said mostly negative points but would like to be honest to those spending a lot of money like we did. To me this is a 3.5 star resort.

Occidental Papagayo: Guest Services Huge Disappointment

The rooms were mediocre, especially the bathrooms. Housekeeping could have been better and replacing used toiletries would have been appreciated. We were short towels a couple of times, called Housekeeping and nobody showed up to bring the towels we were missing. The grounds were ok, pool needed to be cleaned better. The best resort feature was the restaurant and bar staff. They were all very courteous, friendly, and eager to please. Food in the a-la carte restaurants was very good. Buffets at [... read more] breakfast and lunch were good, but dinners could have been better. Lots of rice, beans, potatoes, cassava, and the same vegetables everyday. We could have overlooked all of this if we hadn't received such horrible and disrespectful treatment at the guest services desk. Trying to make dinner reservations was a nightmare! Saturday and Sunday reservations could only be made the day of. We would go first thing in the morning, line up, only to be told there was NOTHING available at any of the restaurants. They suggested we try again in an hour, so we did and again NOTHING was available. Some days we had to make 3 trips and still did not get reservations. We were told that on Monday we could reserve for the entire week. However, when we lined up on Monday we were told we could only reserve for 2 days. Although we did manage to get reservations for a few dinners during our week stay, the time and effort involved was ridiculous. On Wednesday guest services said there was a problem with his excel program, come back in an hour and he would give us a reservation. Once again, we go back only to be told there was NOTHING available. To add to this, errors were made with reservations we did get on other days. One evening we received a call to go to the buffet, since the Grill was closed, and order from the Grill menu. We were given reservations for the Grill for Thursday and it was closed when we showed up. When we went to speak to guest services AGAIN we were given the blame. This was our last evening and we had had enough and asked to file a written complaint, (as stated in the guest book in our room), and guest services said NO! We reminded him that this was clearly written in the guest book as the only procedure that they would follow up on regarding complaints and he insisted that he would not allow us to file a complaint. We asked to speak to the manager and he REFUSED to let us speak to him!!! We have travelled extensively all over the world and have never been treated in such a manner at any of the places we have stayed at. When we informed him that we would be writing to Air Transat and Trip Advisor, he got on the phone with someone and then offered us a bottle of wine. We told him we were leaving in the morning and had no room for a bottle of wine in our luggage and couldn't bring it in our carry-on. Needless to say, this was a terrible way to end our vacation, especially after all the hassle we went through all week. Worst Guest Servive ever!!!

Riu Guanacaste: Beautiful Resort

The Riu Guanacaste was a beautiful resort with lots of amenities. The rooms were spacious and the cleaning staff was excellent. The grounds were nicely manicured. The pool was fabulous with lots of chairs in both sun and shade. The beach also had lots of chairs and you could seek sun or shade there as well. The beach was nice, but there were lots of rocks in the water. If you walked down the beach 5 minutes, it was much easier to get into the water as there were much less rocks there. The [... read more] food was quite good, and there was a lot of variety each day. One thing I would like to see improvement on is the way the restaurants handled reservations. We saw monkeys on the grounds and just 10 minutes down the beach, we were able to feed the white-faced monkeys. Lots of excursions to choose from. A fabulous and memorable family vacation!

Occidental Tamarindo: Beautiful sunsets

Beautiful sunsets on the beach. It is a very clean resort with staff willing to go above and beyond to ensure a home away from home. I did not order the wifi and was told it was sketchy due to high winds. Food was amazing. No al la carte restaurant due to private booking and I was entitled to 2 reservations so I was disappointed with the service. Evening entertainment was lacking and very rushed. Do not go to this resort to swim and snorkel as the beach had high winds and rocks, more of surf des [... read more]tination. Lots of touristy things to do within a couple of hours and Tamarindo has a beautiful beach to access via bus 5min or walk the beach when low tide.

Occidental Papagayo: Has potential but not well run.

Beautiful property and location. Check in was really late and unorganized. Guest services was not available nearly enough. You had to go through them to make a la carte reservations but could only book 24 hours before. Because they start late and finish early, if you are on an excursion you can't make a reservation. We were able to eat at the Italian and it was good. The wait Staff were lovely but didn't know anything about wine in terms of what kinds they had to offer. We came back late after a [... read more] 17 hour excursion and we could get nothing to eat. We were told by one employee that there was nowhere to get food, then another employee told us to go into the disco and we would find finger food there which was adequate. We ran out of hot water in our room and had to have keys redone 3 times and the safe re-keyed once. Rooms were clean but air conditioning was very poor considering the heat. Wifi was scetchy at best. Nightly entertainment was one man with a sax in the lobby. Entertainment staff were great. The only bar around the pool was only for show. It wasn't functional and only one staff member taking drink orders for the entire pool. Again they were great doing the best they could to keep up, there simply were not enough staff. The pool was cloudy and murky all week. Food was good but a very small buffet. The Grille by the pool had good food as well at lunchtime. The bar "by the beach" is nowhere near the beach or the pool. It is in between the two and there are no toilets close by. When we checked out we paid our bill in cash and they had no change available. Do not book tours with Benito from Air Transat. He is misleading and uses scare tactics to get your business. He shows you one tour and you think that is the one you are buying then you go on a different one day of. Very disappointing. He just walked away when we questioned him at the airport. That was the first opportunity we saw him after the tour. All in all not a terrible place and it has so much potential. We got a good deal in terms of cost and I feel it was good for what we paid. Just needs some TLC.

Riu Palace Costa Rica: Costa Rica is Awesome!

Sunny and hot every day in Liberia. The Riu Palace is a First Class Resort: the food is delicious, the restaurants don't require a reservation, the Brand name Liquor is excellent and the Staff is very friendly and happy!