Joshua A.
Google
TLDR; The first night was horrible but after switching rooms it was a bit better. Still nowhere near a 5 star experience but it’s clean. My full detailed review is below.
Pros:
Reasonably priced
Includes parking
Cons:
No way to sleep due to noise
Old musty smell
Extra charge for coffee in the room
TV choppy due to weak signal
Uncomfortable bed
No real privacy
Advertising this as a 5 star hotel is a joke. It’s a 3 at best, and that’s being generous.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon after driving 5+ hrs from Nosara. The staff is friendly enough (certainly not anywhere near 5 star friendly) and speaks just enough English to get by. I understand Spanish is the primary language but you would think a supposed 5 star hotel would ensure fluent English for their guests. Everywhere we went in Nosara (hotels, restaurants, shops, etc) all spoke English.
Our plans had changed and we needed to arrive a day early. Unfortunately the junior suite we booked was not available so we had to take a supreme king instead and switch rooms after the first night. No problem.
They told me the first night would be room 230 and the rest of our stay in the suite would be room 220. We got our key and were shown to our room.
The room (and the second floor as a whole) has a very musty smell to it. The room is a good size but everything is very outdated or just plain old. It has blackout shades which you might as well keep down the entire time because there is no view.
You want coffee? Go down to the restaurant and it’s included but the coffee maker in your room will cost you $1.50/cup. Again, that “true 5-star experience”.
I tried turning on the TV and ended up spending 20 minutes getting it to work (rebooting the router, changing the input, etc), and when I finally got it working the signal is so bad everything you watch is choppy as if very other frame is being dropped.
We always use the safe in a hotel room to keep our important belongings secure. The instructions on their safe are pretty normal. Close the door, enter your code. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong. That doesn’t work at all. You can’t close the door because you have to remove the battery compartment and press/hold the reset button. Then while the door is open you put in your code on a keypad that feels like it’s been overused thousands of times and barely works. Once you get through that make sure you hold the door closed with one hand while you try to enter the code with the other, otherwise it will error on you. We only learned all of this because the bellman was sent up to help us. You could see in his eyes that he knew how bad it was here.
Want a comfortable and quiet sleep? Forget it. Literally everything in the room from the mini fridge to the air conditioning is so loud it will keep you up all night. You can hear every door close when people leave or enter their room, and as an added bonus you’ll hear the person in the next room flush their toilet, turn on their shower, and even the squeak of them adjusting the water temperature. They didn’t bother to insulate the windows so while it’s nice and dark with the blackout shade, every passing car or dog barking is heard loud and clear. Comfortable mattress? Nope. Feels very cheap and the sheets aren’t much better.
That was just our first night and we were both exhausted the next day from lack of sleep.
After our experience thus far, we weren’t comfortable leaving our luggage with the staff so we checked out of the first room, loaded the car and went about our day.
The junior suite is definitely bigger and laid out nicer, but the same issues from the first room were present here. The fridge was quieter at least but the suite was right by the elevator so each morning we were awakened by the sound of luggage and people talking in the halls.
I could go on but Google is limiting the characters.
All in all this place may have some nice art but that’s where it ends. It’s definitely not the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in, but when it comes to quiet, privacy, and being able to relax and sleep it’s close.
