Arenal Volcano Hotels
 

Okay - need some help in comparing 3 hotels in the area - Lost Iguana, Arenal Springs & Volcano Lodge. It is 2 families traveling together, both with 2 adults & 1 child (ages 11 & 7). Kids are well traveled and adventureous. We are okay with paying the prices at any of the three (seems a bargain compared to what we pay in Hawaii or Europe!). Was leaning towards Iguana then actually got a personal phone call from Volcano Lodge with a rep explaining the area & the activities we would have to choose from - nice touch of customer service. What is the best family friendly hotel but still nice accommadations and not out in the boonies.

Thanks.

I noticed some not so nice reviews of Lost Iguana on another site which had become our first choice. Would love some feedback on the three hotels.

Thanks.

Just got back from 4 nights at the Lost Iguana. We loved it. Beautiful views of Arenal. The luxury suite was clean and large. Restaurant was good, the breakast was outstanding. Front desk was very helpful arranging tours and taxis. The pool/bar area was very nice as well. We really enjoyed our stay there. It is a bit of drive to other hotels and the hot springs but we felt it was worth the drive.

I'm not familiar with Arenal Springs, but the other two hotels are both good choices. I like the Lost Iguana but it discourages kids. The Volcano Lodge has my vote for the best restaurant in the area, has good views, nice pool area, easy to access from Fortuna, and is a lot cheaper than Lost Iguana. Volcano Lodge is a series of clean, simple two-bed, one story duplexes while Lost Iguana is a ten room, two story hotel with the deluxe suites much more appointed. Hope this helps.

Hi sierranevada, we loved the Lost Iguana in June 2005...my husband and I had a luxury suite and our 3 young adult "kids" had a regular room. Both roooms were nice but the luxury suite is definitely bigger and our shower in the luxury suite was more romantic... I am pretty sure the Lost Iguana has more than 10 rooms, by the way...it has 2 floors and more than one building...we were on the first floor and liked our rooms...aLL THE rooms at the Lost Iguana in Arenal have a volcano view, which is unique, I'm not sure if the other hotels offer this feature...of course that is assuming the volcano isn't clouded over.

We enjoyed the food at the restaurant at the Lost Iguana...restaurant also has a volcano view.

You can always find bad reviews for every hotel...some people just like to complain, and also some people don't do their resarch and have unrealistic expectations. I find the best hotels by comparing these 3 sources:
-guidebooks
-trip reports
-advice from fodorites who travel a lot
-trip advisor hotel reviews (on trip advisor you gotta ignore the worst reviews which are written by people who love to complain; if a hotel or b&b makes it into the top few for its area, it is excellent in spite of any bad reviews you see...you cannot survive very long on trip advisor without gaining a few bad reviews...I have observed this phenomenon over my past several years of planning our family trips. Hope this helps! Also, if there are 50 hotels for a particular city, for example, the top 10 hotels are doing pretty well consistently over time, despite any bad reviews you might read, whereas the bottom half of the hotels on the list are not doing very well...

We spent 3 nights at Volcano lodge a couple of years ago. My children loved the restaurant and pool. Our room also had a back porch with a nice view of Arenal Volcano.

i vote for volcan lodge:

http://costa-rica.typepad.com/la_for...ome/index.html

We stayed at Lost Iguana in July 06. Loved the place. The view from our room was so spectacular. Saw lava flow every single night(I guess we were lucky). It is far from everything else. We had 2 rooms as we were traveling with our 13 & 15yr olds. Our rooms attached via a door, and they loved the fact they had there own space. However, the dinner at Lost Iguana was not nearly as good as the Volcano Lodge. The dinner we had there was the best we had in all of Costa Rica and the most reasonable. It was also the longest wait for food too, but well worth it.

Good luck.