Spa Asclepios

The installations are great, beautiful gardens and very peaceful. However, the service was lacking and confusing. We paid a day pass and were the only people there which was really nice. We were given a timeline for activities once we arrived. Pool was nice, massages were ok, lunch was terrible. They didn't ask what dietary restrictions we might had and only had three types of fish as options. One of us does not eat fish and they said there were no other options except defrosting a chicken on the stop (basically you're screwed if you're vegetarian). The lunch was a piece of fish without much flavor and boiled vegetables. That's it. Nothing more. The lady who served us lunch then disappeared and we were left waiting for dessert or even instructions about where to go for the sauna. We had to physically look for her around the hotel. Seems like she forgot about the dessert and quickly whipped up some toasted frozen lasagna sheets with a tiny piece of frozen fruit (the oddest dessert I've ever seen. Did not eat. Maybe it was phylo and she forgot to bake it?) They recommended that we drink water between sauna sessions but did not provide water, cups or even directions as to where we could get water. If we ignore the weird lunch experience and overall service and focus on the place itself, it was great. We loved that it was very private. It doesn't seem like they want people to go, though? If you still want to go, take some sandwiches, snacks and your own water bottle.

Very special place! I’ve been coming here for a while now and it’s truly a gem… The owner is lovely and accommodates personal requests and all the staff including the treatment therapist and massage therapists are highly trained. I have visited many spas throughout the world, but this one is very special. The rooms are ecologically, friendly, and nontoxic and very well appointed. This is a hidden gem! There is a variety of treatment rooms and modalities and the grounds are stunning ! Gardens well attended to and the infrastructure is beautiful!

It was a terrible experience. The massage was fine but, after that, the sauna had not been previously warmed, so we had to wait half an hour. After the sauna, same story: the jacuzzi had not been turned on, so we had to use it with cold water. Finally, the food was so, but so bad, that we did not eat it at all. The soup tasted like warm water. Unsavory salmon, vegetables did not even have salt, peper or butter, it was so bad that even though we had already paid for it, we did not eat it and had to go to another restaurant to eat.

I recently had the unfortunate experience of hosting my sister's bachelorette party at Asclepios Wellness and Healing Retreat, and it was anything but the relaxing day we had hoped for. We were offered a package that included food, a yoga class, a relaxing massage, and access to the amenities for the day. However, the entire experience was marred by poor communication, inadequate planning, and disappointing service.||||Service and Communication: ⭐||||Three days before the event, we had not received an itinerary or any communication from the hotel. I reached out to them, and they responded the next day, stating that they had not even coordinated the yoga class and did not have an itinerary yet. When I asked for more details about the day, they rudely claimed that they had already provided all the necessary information in previous messages, which was not true.||||Yoga Class and Food: ⭐||||We began the day with a yoga class, which was the only highlight. The yoga instructor was excellent. However, she informed us that she had been told to arrive but was not informed of the number of participants or the duration of the class.||||The lunch provided was truly disappointing. While the menu options sounded promising, the reality was far from it. The dishes consisted solely of a protein, and there was nothing else on the plate. Additionally, there was only water available to drink. Our group of 10 people struggled to even eat together, as there was only one cook who seemed to be overwhelmed and inexperienced. Some of our food, including my salmon, was undercooked, and when a friend asked for her salmon to be cooked a bit more, it was simply microwaved. The portions were limited, and there was no opportunity to order more food.||||Massage and Exploitation: ⭐||||We did receive enjoyable massages, but the organization was lacking. We had to start massages from 1 PM to 5 PM because there were only two massage therapists for a group of 10 people, and this arrangement was made just two days before the event. Making therapists massage continuously for four hours seems like exploitation to me.||||Owner's Behavior: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐||||To make matters worse, we had the unfortunate opportunity to meet the owner. At 5 PM, two people still needed their massages, but we decided to cancel them as we had other commitments, and it was well past the originally scheduled time. When we informed the owner of this, she began shouting at us, claiming it wasn't her fault and that we had to pay the therapists. We tried to maintain a civil conversation, but she continued yelling and asked us to leave, stating she didn't want to see us again. It was a completely unprofessional and hostile encounter.||||Unpleasant Online Interaction: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐||||The ordeal did not end there. I left a negative review of the hotel on their website, and the owner responded by commenting on my personal social media photos, calling me a bad person and insinuating that I had personal issues. She also sent me personal messages, calling me spoiled. I have evidence of all these interactions if anyone would like to see them.||||In conclusion, I cannot recommend this place at all. The "wellness and retreat" experience promised was completely nonexistent. It's a shame because the location itself is beautiful, but the terrible management and unprofessional behavior of the owner ruined what could have been a pleasant day.

We booked a couple package that included several services and lunch. We should have suspected things were not going to be smooth by the lack of details and response during the booking process, but we had good references from a friend who visit years ago, and that's the key. If you read other reviews, almost nothing positive comes after 2019.|First the positive, Lucia, the therapist, was very good, professional and welcoming. The massage experience with her was very good.|The place is in need of repair, you can tell it has seen better days, and that was part of the issue, there was one person that was fixing the wooden door of the Hamman, sawing, drilling, hammering, just about 10 steps from the sauna, which was our first treatment. We kindly let the management know that it wasn't a very relaxing experience to have this kind of repairs going on while we were in the area, to what they agree and ask the worker to stop. But this was a momentary fix, as soon as we moved from the sauna the construction continued around us for the rest of the day. |We were the only guests for the day, including that all hotel rooms on site were empty, still, the restaurant staff wasn't aware that we agreed on our reservation to have a vegan lunch. Which, by the way, is the only food/drink service you can get on site except for water that was brought to us a couple of times during the day. We suggested a couple of ideas on what they can prepare for lunch because when we declined the fish plate the suggestion was to have salad and grilled vegetables. |At 1:30pm, after lunch we were asked to move to the flotation therapy room. We asked them if we could wait until 2pm as we just had a meal. The receptionist was not very happy about it and was walking around with our towels waiting for us to follow her. She showed us to the flotation room and we asked them how it works, because it was our first time. She couldn't give us any type of explanation besides that we had 1 hour each and that she was going to know the door to let us know we were done. |It is sad to see a beautiful place in such a state of decline, and specially, without proper hospitality management. Besides the repairs they need to take actions to improve their whole service and attention to details.|I can see understand now that the other negative reviews here are true, because the experience at Asclepios is not at to par with their pricing and it's nearly surreally bad.

This wellness Spa is just that, a place to get away from it all. If you need internet and wi-fi 24/7 because you just cannot let it go or you have to keep a communication line with work, then this is not the place for you. Yes, the internet is pretty much non-existent in the rooms but for me it was such a detox moment to be able to have 2 days and nights without constantly looking at that darn screen. Mind you, I would check when I was by the pool or the main area/restaurant but it was good enough for me.||||Pluses: the silence, the massage wow!, the pool, the room, loved the soaps and shampoos they have there. And while due to Covid right now they have some rooms closed off, and there's less staff, it didn't bother me at all. The restaurant is also more limited right now again due to Covid, but we tried every option of main entrees and desserts and none disappointed. ||||Negatives: the glass door to the shower needs serious maintenance (it kept getting stuck). My room was Aphrodite! Loved it really and only had. that issue. All the other rooms seem just as lovely. If you are traveling from out of town/country, its a short 15 min ride to Alajuela downtown. Plenty of everything there...restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, etc etc etc.

We decided to visit the place with 8 friends for a very special celebration. We made the reservation more than a month before the date (Saturday, March 11), the package included the use of facilities, lunch, massage, and we were even offered that lunch could be in the green area at picnic tables with cushions for an additional cost, which we agreed to. This happened:||1. Four days before our reservation, the administration texts to tell us that there was a problem with the provider of the picnic table and that, just for transportation of it to the place, we had to pay $ 300 more if we wanted to maintain the service. We declined for his position and happily we did.||2. Upon arrival at the venue, the therapy staff was not ready to start at 9.30 as we had scheduled. In addition, the owner had not made the distribution of the order in which we were going to receive the massage. Everything felt very improvised and with a very bad attitude on the part of the owner, we had to propose the solution ourselves together with the therapy girls who were always very friendly. We rescued that the massage was fine, although we later learned that one of the people who gave one of the massages, was the kitchen assistant of the place to which the owner asked her to give a massage because one of the masseuses did not arrive. This is very concerning because a massage given by an untrained person can have consequences, our friend told us that she had her abdomen massaged, which is rare when one receives a spa massage.||3. Facilities such as the pool and jacuzzi are dirty and shabby. The jacuzzi began to fill up around 10 am that day. Even though our visit was scheduled for 9am. In addition, unfortunately the jacuzzi was nothing more than hot water because the bubbles did not work, for a while now, and nobody had come to repair it. Again, it felt as if the visit hadn't been planned for a long time.||4. The only meal included is lunch, scheduled for 1.30pm. There are no snacks or anything extra. The owner asked us for the list of what we were going to eat two weeks before because "she wanted to have everything ready". That day at 1.30pm there was NO ONE in any room, neither in reception, nor in the common areas. We had to go into the kitchen to ask for lunch to which, the only person who was working who was the kitchen assistant / masseuse, told us that she did not know that lunch was at 1.30 and that he was going to see what she could do. There we realized that the cook had not arrived that day either. After a while she told us that she was not sure what type of food we had ordered, and that the owner was in the village buying the meat. At the end we were served lunch at 3.15 pm, when at 4 we had to leave the facilities. The description of the dishes was not what we were served, and the portions were extremely small and of very low quality.||5. The sauna was turned on at 2 pm and took more than 40 min to warm up. It was ready at 3pm, when we were served lunch, we couldn't use it off course.||6. When at the end we indicated to the owner that we were not happy with the service received and that we were not provided with the contracted package, she had a reaction that we did not expect. She got upset and asked us which of the services we had not received that the only bad thing was a "small delay" at lunch. With the manager you definitely cannot talk, she interrupted us constantly and when we indicated that we were not going to pay for the remaining 30%, she was even more annoyed and asked us to leave the premises, to which of course we agreed.||It's definitely one of the worst experiences in customer service and overall service I've ever received. The only good thing about the place is that the facilities are incredible and the service of the rest of the staff is very good and attentive, but the attitude of the owner, her poor management and little planning will end up taking this place to bankrupt. 

So, everything negative you read in reviews is true. This place lacks serious hospitality management, in a country where tourism is the majority of its income. The front desk did their best to accommodate, but it was clear that the rest were not managed or trained . Breakfast, as stated in other reviews, was minimal. The waitress completely messed up my coffee request, which took too long, and eventually brought me curdled milk for it. I later saw her cleaning my room, which explained a lot, but she didn’t do that very well either.|The food at dinner was okay, but not as described on the menu, and the vegetables were overcooked and not fresh.||I had a lot of trouble getting hot water in my shower on several occasions. ||The jacuzzi was fine since I asked well ahead to have it turned on. Yes, the pool was ice cold, but I liked that in the heat.||The place was nearly empty, which I found very nice, but I can’t imagine how the staff could handle any more guests. Attention to detail is NOT a strength . Some reviewers ask why there are so few guests here; it’s pretty obvious that, while the place is beautiful and the rooms are nicely done, the service is hopeless. It is not cheap, but you are paying for the grounds and the rooms, and that’s it.