First congrats!

Second be aware that ""Tripadvertizer" is an owner controlled

censored forum lots of review rankings are bogus baddies are

deleted web sites are photo shopped..

Arenal Green is several kilos away from the town

in the wrong directiona decent but not great place...

Personally always rent a car servicecarrental.com

To save a lot on taxis but my top 5 HM worthy places

www.tabacon.com Volcano View night lava best free hot springs

www.lostiguanaresort.com night lava views hot tubs no springs

www.thespringscostarica.com sort of plastique but pretty

www.royalcorin.com closer to town excellent food

budget www.hotelmountainparadise.com $79 for a junior suite

for me in the past... www.hotelmagicmountain.com in town ok

Things are VERY spread out car best to save

www.desafiocostarica.com best tours www.ruralcostarica.com

Rio Celeste hike my fav if time...

Happy Hunting!

Here is a real one they have not censored yet on Arenal Green


“Didn't live up to our high expectations”

Reviewed July 31, 2011


After reading all the great reviews, we were looking forward to staying here. When we arrived, we were received by German's daughter, who spoke to us entirely in Spanish, very fast. I did my best to understand, but my Spanish is rusty and she spoke very quickly. As a result, we didn't have any information about how to get into town, and spent the afternoon in our room. We did not have a view of the volcano, and I think only two of the rooms at the hotel do have one. At dinnertime, the restaurant was completely deserted, so we ate dinner there alone, and sort of felt like we were bothering the staff with our presence.

Forgot personally would not stay in Castillo too far away

views and hotels all pretty bad compared to those above.

Have you looked at the Arenal Observatory Lodge? Best volcano views and wildlife in the area. Great hiking as well.

Somewhat remote, though--it uses the same awful road as found at El Castillo.

I'd recommend the Lost Iguana. It's a beautiful property with lots of hiking trails. It's right next to the Hanging Bridges, and they sell (at least when we've been there) discounted tickets to the bridges. You might check out Silencio del Campo too; that's another popular spot.

We stayed at Hotel Arenal Green last fall. It's a basic, but nice place. The cabinas were clean, the breakfast was good. For the price, it was a good place to stay. Their website says they are within walking distance to the LaFortuna Waterfall, but it is certainly not an easy walk. It's not walking distance to town, especially not at night. I'd highly recommend a car if you stay there.

Thanks for all your responses. I'm going to look into all the suggestions and will definitely be wary of reviews on TripAdvisor from now on. I knew there had to be a reason they sounded so great there, but aren't mentioned in this forum much.

I use tripadvisor. I like it for the photos that people take and post there. To me, that's more accurate that a hotel's website. Good luck finding your spot!

http://www.arenal.net/arenal-costa-rica-map.htm shows a good map of the area if you want to check it out.

I have not stayed at either place, but if you are looking for forest and trails, I would think Rancho Margot would offer more. It is in the same area as Arenal Observatory Lodge, recommended by RAC, and which is in a great cloud forest location with lots of trails. La Fortuna is not too much to get excited about. I wouldn't worry about being close to it. Is that your only Costa Rican destination? You might not be able to get to the Arenal area the first night, depending on when your flight lands.

Although I can't comment on your hotel choices, I also wouldn't hesitate recommending Lost Iguana for a honeymoon. We stayed there and actually missed a few things in the area because we just enjoyed relaxing around the pool--we had the pool all to ourselves---the grounds there are beautiful. The rooms are really lovely and sitting on the balcony, with a glass of wine, looking out at the volcano is really special. The volcano was not visibly active when we were there, but it was cloud free everyday and there was a lot of rumbling. Lost Iguana also has a spa. Another couple we met gave it high marks but we never used any of the spa services.

We did not have a car. We had a driver pick us up at our hotel in San Jose and drive us to Lost Iguana and then he took us back to the airport. We went with another couple so it was nice to be able to split this cost. We had no problem getting picked up for hiking, tours or zip lining. Lost Iguana can give you names of drivers and the posters here on Fodors can also give you some names. I think the drive from the airport to Lost Iguana was about $150. The roads to Arenal are very well maintained and easy to drive though, so I wouldn't hesitate renting a car.

You can walk to the Hanging Bridges next door--I am embarrassed to tell you that we never made it to the Bridges but when we were sitting by the pool, we did talk about getting up and walking over there. We had beautiful weather during the day except during our trip to the Rio Celeste where we had a major rainstorm that flooded the trails.

We loved eating at their open air dining room. The complimentary breakfast is great and we thought the meals were reasonably priced. We did not go into La Fortuna to eat except for lunch one day--our driver stopped and we ate at a soda in town. We ate at another soda when we went to Rio Celeste.

We went the first week of green season (first week of May) so we got 1 night free which made this a fantastic bargain at $123/nt. I would call or email them and ask if they offer a honeymoon package. Since you are staying 5-6 nts, they may offer you a special rate.

Thanks again everyone. I think we are going to go with Lost Iguana. You were right about the special rate, LindainOhio: they are giving us a discount for staying 5 nights! Otherwise I think we would have had to pick somewhere else. It sounds like you had a great time.

Volcanogirl, that map is great! I've got a much better sense of where things are now.

Shooie, we are arriving in San Jose at 11:00 am. That should give us enough time to get to our hotel that day, right?

I do have one more question for you guys. Our flight home leaves San Jose at 11:40 am. Should we spend our last night in San Jose to be safe? I know we have to get there about 3 hours ahead of time. I wouldn't mind leaving Arenal super early in the morning to get there if it will give us some more time at Lost Iguana. Any thoughts?