Has anyone stayed here. It's about an hour from Liberia.

I am taking my son for his first trip to Costa Rica and he is six. We only have five nights. It's a quick trip during his break before Easter. I think we would like to stay at a lodge for two nights and then head to the beach.

I am also looking at Rinconcito lodge.

Thanks

Remote newer pretty basic only reachable by 4WD

Hacienda Guachipelin www.rincondelavieja.net

best bet for short stay for me then hotelcapitansuizo.com

Personally I usually rent a car mapache.com out of LIR

drive the nice paved road around the lake to www.tabacon.com

Best FREE hot springs night lava arenal.net views then

back to www.tamarindo.com for beach... Easy to do nice drive

mapcr.com

http://www.travelforkids.com/Funtodo...Rica/costarica

Lots of fake reviews on TripAdvertizer on Blue River

so caveat emptor... owners are allowed to cull/censor

negative reviews...

Qwo, you're kidding? You mean owners can censor reviews on Trip Advisor? If this is true, where is the integrity in this site? How do you know this? I do rely on TA for a lot of my bookings, outside of this forum, of course.

Instead of re-typing, let me just paste my recent reply to qwo allegations that he never responded. Everyone is allowed their opinions qwo but not making up their own facts. And just to set the record straight crlover, no the owners are not allowed to change bad reviews whatsoever. Copy/paste below:

I'd like to point out that, contrary to qwo's accusations, my review over at Trip Advisor on Costa Verde (as well as many others written since) which was written over 6-7 years ago was indeed MY review and was indeed a true review. I also recently wrote a negative review of a hotel (ironically of one he often says "best for me") and it was also posted and no it was not censored. I know several owners of hotels/lodges and trust me, when they get a poor or bad review, they fret over it just like any business owner would, because they do NOT have a way to "cull" bad reviews and have absolutely no say over them - other than to write a management response. Also, qwo recently accused all Destination Experts of being shills and tour operators. I'd like to point out that for me personally I have posting here at fodor's for almost 8 years and at TA for 6 years and no, am not a tout, simply a traveler who likes to post answers to questions that I have personal experience with (of course, anyone can use google obsessively and pass it off experience but that's not really very helpful is it?).

Thanks Tully. I find it hard to believe that these reviews could be censored on TA. I have seen a lot of negative reviews followed by manager responses. Qwo, I'm just wondering where you got your information?

We stayed at Blue River Resort last year. It is a new property and had very nice cabinas. There are pros & cons. It is more remote than they would lead you to believe.
The mineral pools are nice and drained & cleaned on a rotating basis so there are alwys some available. But they let them go a little long between cleaning (IMO) The dining was very good which is important because it is too far from anywhere else to go eat. We went on a horseback ride to the falls and the Blue river was AMAZING but the 1 1/2 hr ride each way was on rocky roads with the horses' footing slipping and not a trail ride. We didn't see any animals but the gardens were niceOver all, we'd go back again if it wasn't so remote.

Atta Girl tully !!!!

Good question costaricalover. !

Thanks everyone for your input on Blue River. It sounds wonderful but maybe not the best spot for a six year old.

As far as Trip Advisor goes.. My reviews are always posted..good and bad. My only concerns are glowing reviews of places in which the reviewer has only posted one review ever.

It feels good to be going back to Costa Rica. It's been at least four years since my last trip and I am anxious to experience a different area.