AM going with a gorup to CR
the hotels are
Hotel Irazu
Hotel El establo
Lomas del VOlcan
Hotel Punta Leona

Any advice?
Not so thrilled with the nights in San Jose, but oh well...

Thanks

You can have fun in San Jose. Try to check out what is going on at the Teatro Nacional or Teatro Melico Salazar (probaby misspelled that). But sometimes there are some good performances at either--or the Jazz Cafe in San Pedro.

Hi:

Did you ever stay at Hotel Punta Leona? I am in the thick of planning a trip and one of the hotels is the Punta Leona and I would LOVE to hear your impressions, including activities in the area. We are planning on going toward the end of July.

Any other info you may have would be fantastic as it is my first trip.

Thank you!

Ahgee,

Yes, we stayed at Punta Leona.
The grounds are quite pretty, there are 2 beaches (one right behind the hotel, the other a shuttle takes you to).
If you go, you are sort of stranded there (if you don't have a car). You go through 2 security guardhouses.
The rooms were the smallest that we had on the trip. Beds were comfortable, great AC.
We stayed in the bungalows. Since it rained a lot, we got pretty wet--everything is spread out, but easily accessible. I believe they have a shuttle, but it was nice to walk.
When we were there, one of the big pools was closed. It was the deeper water one. The "family" pool (shallow) was open. There was also a pool near our room (smaller).
Breakfast was pretty good--dinner so so.
Overall, it is a nice place. Would I stay there again? Only if I wanted to go somewhere and stay put for a day or two, realxing by the pool etc. We were there mid week, so it was fairly deserted since it was low season. The disco was closed, although one night they had Kareoke (?) for us at one of the bars.
Other questions??
Oh, Jaco is close by. (maybe 20-30 minutes). Quite the surfer town. It was the only place that a restaurant really tried to rip us off (telling us our bill was "about" $20 when we asked how much in USD--seemed high to us--it was actually $12 USD. If you are traveling with young kids, I am not sure that Jaco is the place to go (for a long time). Lots of drug references--we only saw this here. I was not terribly impressed by Jaco--especially after all the other beautiful places we saw.
OH! At the hotel, it was the ONLY place I stayed at that my phone card from ATT/Sams worked. ALso, free Internet access.

plmrod:

Thank you! I'm pretty sure we're going to be changing our plans - I really appreciate your thoughts!

ahgee