Riu Guanacaste: Had a blast! Resort was awesome!

We just got home from a week at the RIU Guanacaste resort and absolutely loved it! Rooms were nice, food was great and lots of variety. The pool and swim up bar was a blast! The staff throughout the whole resort were super nice and friendly, and speak really good English! The weather is beautiful, hot and sunny but not humid! Saw monkeys, cool birds, deer, and a sea turtle! We went for a nice walk on the beach every morning and saw some new wildlife everyday! Overall we had an amazing trip! We w [... read more]ould go back for sure! :)

The Westin Reserva Conchal Golf Resort & Spa: Absolute Beautiful resort

The service at the Westin was phenominal. Super clean resort with amazing food. The grounds were very very clean and just an overall great experience. All of the staff were super friendly. Had a wonderful time.

Punta Leona Beach Club and Nature Resort: Great holiday!!!

This is a second trip to this resort! Hotel and staff are great! Everyone is very helpful and friendly. Beaches are beautiful! Food is wonderful. Lots of variety. There were lots of things to see and do on the resort. Only complaint was lack of shuttle buses to the beaches. Also, on our last day we rented a golf cart and ended up wasting an hour of our time waiting for the golf cart store to open up. We were told they opened at 9 but they didn't show up until 10. Reply from staff was "I guess th [... read more]ey slept in. Try in an hour". Over all, great resort!

Occidental Papagayo: Nice 3 Star

Hotel was not up to our expectations for an Occidental; resort is old/tired and needs upgraded. Beach also fell short of our expectations - note: beaches are public so there will be vendors, locals sharing it with you - Also, no beach bar so take a drink or two down with you!. Lots of steps/walking but they do provide shuttles to take you around (on the 1/2 hour). No outside pool-side bar, so you either had to be served or if you went into the building where the bar was, you had to be dry, shoes [... read more] on, and I felt I had to throw a cover up on also. I have to mention that "Carlos" was an awesome Server and "Jen" was an awesome pool-side entertainment coordinator! Bar closed at 5, and to our disappointment, between 5 and 6:30 when the buffet opened, you can't get a drink unless you pay for room service/alcohol, or you walk all the way up to the main lobby bar! Our room was nice, clean, but nothing special. TV was old and only 2 channels in English (Not that this mattered much to us). Our King size bed was comfortable. Small fridge stocked with 2 beer, 2 pop and 2 water daily but no bar alcohol supplied. All the staff (except 1 guy who clearly didn't like his job), were great and very friendly. Nightly entertainment was lacking unless you like playing games like 'music trivia', local guy playing a guitar, etc. There is a disco that we didn't go to so can't comment on. Food buffet: was ok only. Italian restaurant was excellent! Suggestions for improvements: build an outdoor pool-side bar and expand the concrete around the pool by a few feet so there is more places/room for lounges, and provide more umbrellas; as it is now, people have to pull lounges on to worn away grass to have some space/shade - we did this and when my sandals were wet, they actually got mud on them from the worn ground where are lounge was sitting - I was not impressed! The lounges were also very worn, not clean looking, and also need to be replaced. We went on daytrips through Air Canada and Kudos to Emileyo! He was an awesome tour guide. If there's only one full tour/day you want to do, go to Monteverde - tour a coffee plantation (and lunch), let a hummingbird perch on your finger, and hike in the cloud forest and along the suspended bridges. All ages can do this one and it was an Awesome experience!

Allegro Papagayo by Occidental: Great value and MONKEYS

We spent a week at Allegro Papagayo at the end of January 2015 . The grounds are beautiful but very hilly, the walk to the rooms from the beach, pool, and restaurant is all up hill but very enjoyable. The rooms are a bit dated but clean and comfortable. The beach is huge with open and shaded areas, the sand is black. There are plenty of areas to walk and explore. The pool is great with a shaded swim up bar. All week the food was amazing, whether you want to eat regular food or try new things it  [... read more]did not disappoint. The staff was like anywhere, some were great and looked like they enjoyed being there while others were just going through the paces and doing as little as possible. The resort was pretty well organized except for the trip to the white sand beach which was a disorganized mess and would be the only negative experience of the entire trip, the staff on that trip were lazy and rude. Greatest thing about this resort is the wildlife, beautiful birds , iguanas, and most of all MONKEYS are everywhere. The cappuccin monkeys on the beach will entertain you all day , and will take bananas from your hand if you offer. If you look you will also see howler monkeys , they are not as friendly and keep their distance but are great to watch. It would be hard not to have a great vacation at this resort.

Riu Guanacaste: “Loved the Country, resort not so much...”

“Loved the Country, resort not so much...” Let me start by saying - My wife and I both enjoy laying on the beach playing in the ocean, having a drink from the bar down by the sea. This resort had no bathrooms easily accessible on the beach, no bar located on the beach & very little representation down on the beach! This water was FULL of rocks (and not of the little kind, coconut sized and larger even) so playing in the surf was very limited to say the least. Overall, we had an amazing trip  [... read more]- the room was nice and clean with a safe, a 3 bottle liquor dispenser, huge balcony, our view was facing the Jungle (Hillside), so there are Monkeys who make noises very early in the morning. The resort itself was beautiful, and had a huge pool area, tons of bars and restaurants, and friendly staff. The Riu entertainment team was good and really did a good job! We enjoyed the shows they put on every night at 9pm. The few critiques I would make - the food and drinks are very mediocre, (My wife demanded I add "The BLENDED Mojitos were to Die for") We went to a grocery store to buy DRINKABLE Red wine for the ladies. I couldn't even finish a complete glass of White wine. There are only two Restaurants you make reservations for. You must get in line at 9:00AM to book for Tomorrow night only! The other thing was that they only give you free WiFi 90 min. a day in the lobby, which was annoying but we made the best of it. The Tour company offered many tours, and they discourage guests from booking on the beach due to scams and asking for deposits (which may seem obvious). Pay no attention to the Tour COMPANIES - go to the BEACH and find JOSÉ - Bright pink shirt. His company Costa Rica Best Tours was one of my MOST pleasurable excursions in the many I have taken. We went on a Private Tour of 2 couples, plus José & his driver Warner. New spacious van, knowledgeable guide, stopped at a grocery store to buy us tourists food & drink (told us this was THE best prices to buy Coffee & Liquor to take back home ((We saved Huge comparing prices at the souvenir shops)). My wife & I did a Scuba Dive with the on site Scuba company - Scubacaribe - they were excellent! We also went into Playa del Coco, I would say that is a must! We flew on SunWing, I sure don't like Sunwing!!!!! Two hour delay at Airport plus 1 hour delay & unscheduled stop in Cancun - not being allowed off of plane (all to allow new staff to be flown in to work on plane coming home) - Second straight Sunwing trip that was awful due to delays!

Allegro Papagayo by Occidental: MUCH better than expected!!!

I am a realistic traveler, you get what you pay for. The only reason I give this place four stars is because it did not have all the luxuries of a high end resort...but that is not what we paid for, nor expected. The terrain has a steep incline, but there are shuttles to take you back and forth. Which also provides for a gorgeous areal view from the lobby. The resort is on a bay, so there is no open ocean, but the Four Seasons is next door. If it's good enough for the Four Seasons, it's good en [... read more]ough for us. We really enjoyed that this was a smaller resort. While some may not enjoy the limitations of one buffet and two a la carte restaurants, we relished the community feel of this establishment. Everything was close and nearby. Building 10 & 11 are closest to the pool and restaurants. While there is some noise, it is not anything to complain about. The beach is a black sand beach, but there is a free tour to a pristine beach that goes daily ( you will have to reserve a spot the day before). The trade off is the daily sightings with monkeys. If you bring a cup of water to the jungle gym, they will climb down and drink right out of your cup. That was an experience we would not have gotten at a large resort. The staff were wonderful. Our Nolitours rep was extremely friendly. Esteban at the disco made sure each and every night was fun and memorable. We went into Nicaragua for a day trip. Although we waited at the border, we were in a nice air conditioned bus. We could not have asked for a better excursion. The country is breathtaking! We did have to leave close to 5 am and there were not shuttles running at that time. We walked up the hill in near darkness ( bring a flashlight for this instance). But it was safe, so we were not discouraged. We booked our tour in the lobby. There is a desk on the left hand side when you walk in, before you get to the main desk. We found her prices to be the best! We also struck up a deal with one of our shuttle drivers to take us into town on his day off. Him and his brother picked us up and toured us around, showing us the countryside and completely flexible to our schedule. Finally, we were there over Christmas and New Years, the fest that was prepared and the fireworks display were above and beyond anything we expected. This is not a luxury resort, but it has the essentials, beauty and service to be a fantastic place to lay your head at night while you explore the country. P.S. The staff did not pester us to take part in group activities like so many other resorts, which we REALLY appreciated.

Occidental Tamarindo: Fantastic Beach!

Loved our week stay at the Barcelo Langosta in January. The staff are outstanding and looked after us very well. Friendly and nice people. Loved the small size of the resort and proximity to the most amazing beach I have ever seen. Not another hotel in site which we loved. Surfers and their dogs kept us entertained daily. Buffet was great. My only complaint would be the quality of the red wine. Not very good.

Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica: Beautiful Resort

I had read a lot of mixed reviews on this resort....so I was contemplating a last minute resort change but I was so glad we didn't. The resort itself is magical....beautifully decorated, spacious rooms, friendly staff. The bathroom is a weird open concept design which could get awkward if you go with a friend or new bf or gf...lol. The service was a bit slow in the a la carte restaurants but the food was not great but good. Pool bar had great service and lots of high end alcohol for their prefer [... read more]red guests. The beach was beautiful but the water was extremely cold...not good snorkeling either...too murky. Lots of monkeys to be seen across the street and tons of chattering birds in the trees outside our oceanview room. I hardly saw anyone using the swim out pool...glad we didnt get that upgrade. All in all a great vacation. I think this resort will only get better with time.

Riu Palace Costa Rica: Amazing resort

Everything was first class, food, drinks, entertainment & staff. Booked a snorkelling trip on the Hibiscus. Best trip ever! Saw dolphins & whales. Rooms were very clean. Good variety of food every day in all of the restaurants. Staff went out of their way to be helpful.

Occidental Tamarindo: Great small resort.

The grounds were really nice, saw some monkeys at night fall. The buffet food so good ate there all the time never went to the a la carte (mediterranean).Staff friendly and helpful.The beach was nice, lots of sand and some lava rocks to explore.The resort offers surfing right on the beach.Other surfers do come to use the beach so it can get a little crowded ,still nice to watch them all.You can walk to Tamarindo on the beach or the road in about 15 min (2 km). Nice surf town and safe in the day.

Riu Guanacaste: Amazing Guanacaste

The Riu Guanacaste was an amazing resort! The people there are friendly and it's nice that most of them can speak English so that communication is not an issue. The rooms are clean and the excursions that you can go on in this region are beautiful!

Secrets Papagayo Resort: beautiful resort

A beautiful place to relax and enjoy the amazing scenery. The grounds are kept extremely clean and we were able too see monkeys and equanas right at the resort. The food was really good and we will certinaly revisit in the future

Occidental Papagayo: Wasnt amazing but wasn't horrible

This hotel was alright. The food could have been better, the rooms could have been better, but the staff was amazing! Too many stairs thow! The view out of the rooms was not nice, and when you walk out the scenery isn't nice eathier. They need grass or flowers. The shuttle service is awesome thow! To get around on the resort!

Riu Palace Costa Rica: RIU Palace Costa Rica - Awesome holiday

My husband and I have been considering Costa Rica for a vacation for quite some time, and I am now wondering what took us so long! Our flight through Sunwing and Package through Nexus / Signature was seamless and enjoyable. The country is beautiful; the food was outstanding; the rooms at the RIU Palace were immaculate; and the service was second to none. As part of our vacation, we signed up for two excursions: (1) Africa Safari - Good and (2) Borinquen Safari (Natural Spring / spa / zipline, e [... read more]tc.) - Awesome! We took a shuttle to Coco Beach which was a cool outing for the day. The beach was picturesque and the little shopping town had local made souvenirs, but much much more (clothing, banks, pharmacies, etc.). Out of all the locations we have been to, this has been our best vacation ever, and we're already planning for our return next year. We want to say a special thank you to Gilbert and Orion from Nexus for the being the ultimate tour hosts. They were extremely helpful and demonstrated the importance and appreciation of the tourists who visit Costa Rica. Also, a special thanks to Karol Chareza at Trip Central for taking such good care of us in booking our holiday and being so knowledgeable in answering any questions we had about our vacation and the resort. We highly recommend RIU Palace Costa Rica for a vacation spot! The recent publication on a survey that was done stating that Costa Rican people are the happiest in the world stands true - and now we know why!

Beach Break Resort: Loved our stay here.

Pools were clean, staff were friendly and helpful, food was delicious, and you never wanted to leave the beach! Would highly recommend Morgans Cove to other travellers. Jaco is a great place to be - easy to explore other parts of the beautiful country from here.

Riu Guanacaste: Going back again

This was the most beautiful resort I have been to. The hotel is surrounded by untouched beauty and wildness. The food was amazing and healthy. The only downfall was minor but if you speak English don't expect to wind down with a program on tv. It is entirely Spanish. Overall a must see.

Occidental Papagayo: Nice resort

Lots of work needed at Asian rest. Poor food and lots of kitchen noise. The resort on a whole was well maintained and staff very friendly lots of stairs people should be made aware of this before booking

Riu Guanacaste: Good Resort...Bad Beach and other things

Been at about a dozen all inclusive vacations in the carribean, this is my 1st review about this resort. The GOOD: -about 45 min. on bus from airport -Beautiful grounds -Check-in quick, easy to carry your luggages to your room without help from Bellboy if you want. -Room very large and clean, modern. -Lighting adequate, beds very good/firm, -A/C is running good and quiet (but program to maximum cooling about 24C, with a sensor at balcony sliding door to auto-off when door is open). -Repair serv [... read more]ice is excellent, got couple of things done each time less than 1hr. after reported(broken toilet/ plugged sink) -Employees are mostly very nice and helpful. -Only Food in main buffet restaurant is very good (even compare to other resorts those we'd been before) with lots of varieties, lots of fruits, always some new varieties everyday, no or very little of line-ups. - Hardly find a nearly empty food tray, they always bring out more to refill even it's 10-15 min. before closing. - Pool is good, always can find chairs even when you come late. -Very little of mosquitoes, flies or birds. Almost nothing if compare to Punta Cana, Jamaica,... -Entertainment is above average but repeated after 6th night. The BAD: -Still using actual room keys with big key chain attach instead of Card reader system. -Bath towels in bathroom are thick and roughed like coarse sand paper, can hurt you if have sensitive skin. -TV channels have ONLY ONE ENGLISH Channel out of about 50 and the resort has about 90% of English spoken tourists, the rest is spanish. This channel is Fox news and keeps repeating the topics every hour. I always fall to sleep in minutes if relaxing in the room because there are nothing to watch. -Public washrooms don't have any touchless stuff installed and become bad when people these days are lazy or don't dare to touch to flush. There is no paper towels in washroom either, every time I go I have to grab some napkins from the bar instead to flush the urinal or turn on-off the faucet. -Internet is ok especially late at night but limited to 90min./day, if you disconnect your wifi connection after connected, you don't have a second chance again, so make sure u don't really need it before disconnecting. -All A La Carte Restaurants Food is "Terrible", we tried them all but if we knew, we could go to the main buffet instead and didn't have to waste time to book and wait in-line. The Italian one is the worst, we left in the middle of the course and tried to run into the Main Buffet restaurant before it closes. -Pool is good but nowhere is deeper than approx.1.4m, but the shallowest area is around the swim-up bar and its about 1M deep and it's the only area suits my 7 y/o daughter height (she's 49" tall). If you have smaller kids, it would be a problem for you. -There is actually no food to eat (i.e.: burgers, fries, hotdogs, pizza, etc..) between Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner, and also after dinner as well, unless you get some nachos or cold cut sandwiches in the sports bar in main lobby, so you have to make sure to fill yourself up before leaving the restaurant. -Beach has black sand and lots of small stones which hurt your feet, unless you go further out but most of the time we'd been there the ocean was roughed. -Lots and lots of vendors come around and snaking between tourist chairs, you need to keep an eye on your stuff all the times. -The closest bar to get a drink is the Swimup bar in the pool and it's about 400-500ft from the beach. I would rate resort as a 4* overall but the Food and Service as 4.5*, definitely it's not a 5*. I would recommend this resort if the person is not a beach type like me and with a more reasonable price than what I paid. I would not come back to this resort mainly because of the worse beach that I'd been experienced, even I have an excellent deal.

Riu Guanacaste: Good - but not Great

Overall good stay at the RIU but it did not live up to RIU expectation nor did I feel it was reflective of the pricing considering I've had better stays in the DR for $400-$600 less during NYE celebrations.