Hotels in Costa Rica
 

I am planning a trip to Costa Rica in June 2006. My initial plan is to spend:

2 Nights in Arenal
3 Nights in Monteverde
3 Nights in Manuel Antonio

Hotel choices in Arenal:
Tabacon Resort or Lost Iguana Resort

Hotel choices in Monteverde:
Hotel Fonda Vela or El Sapo Dorado

Hotel choice in Manuel Antonio:
Buena Vista Villas or ?

I would appreciate any comments and suggestions on the Hotels and am I spending too much or too little time at each location.

Thanks for your help.

I've stayed at the Fonda Vela. Very nice, and you can even walk to the reserve. Personally, I'd do 3 nights in Arenal and 2 in M.A., but that's because I can go to beaches at home.

Sandy

rich99, Unless you are really a beach-lover, I recommend you spend 3 nights in Arenal and 3 nights in Monteverde and only 2 nights in Manuel Antonio.

Loved the Lost Iguana resort in Arenal! Get the luxury suite, it's bigger and more romantic. Every room has a volcano view, that is, if the volcano isn't clouded over. Food is pretty good at the hotel. I recommend a car if you're staying at Lost Iguana, we had a car. By the way their regular rooms are very nicely decorated and also have volcano views, they are just quite a bit smaller than the luxury suites, and although very nice, definitely not as romantic. (We had 1 of each type of rooms for the family.)

We stayed at El Sapo Dorado in Monteverde; food is great, gourmet actually in their restaurant. However we didn't like having 4 people in their classic mountain cabin...2 people would have been okay. Also previous guests had lit such smoky fires that the whole cabin reeked of smoke and made me wheeze...we couldn't even use the fireplace because of that. (Never had that problem before in other cabins.) If you like cabins, I'd ask for one of the other types of cabins without a fire place. Also the easy hikes on the El Sapo Dorado grounds are really boring and not worth trying. Now, the difficult hikes might be worthwhile, but they looked steep and muddy so my daughter and I decided to skip the difficult ones, and save our energy for the Monteverde cloud forest reserve, which is amazing and primordial. The bathroom in our cabin didn't have any counter space around the sink...there wasn't anyplace to put your toothbrush and other bathroom stuff, etc. It was more like a stand-alone sink. Not an easy situation with 3 women and 1 man in the cabin! There is one table and four chairs in the bedroom near the 2 beds so that's where we put our luggage and toiletries. On the positive side, the cabins are a reasonable price at El Sapo Dorado. On the negative side, they are duplex cabins with fairly thin walls and you will hear your lovely neighbors through the walls. Luckily our neighbors seemed to be on roughly the same sleep schedule as we were. If you are feelin' romantic be careful not to be too loud...your neighbors are listening through the wall! Okay I want to be fair, on the plus side, when I told the front desk about my wheezing problem in the smoky cabin, they didn't have any other cabins to change us to, but they washed the bedspreads for us (the bedsprads smelled like smoke too so this did help, I was able to sleep better the next night.) Since the only source of heat for the cabin was the fireplace, which we didn't dare light because of my wheezing, evenings and nights were a bit damp and cold even in June.

In Manuel Antonio we stayed at Hotel Si Como No, which was our splurge hotel. We enjoyed it, yes it's expensive, we liked the overall atmosphere. Rooms are comfortable but nothing over the top, you are paying for the overall resort, not for a fancy room.

However the Manuel Antonio Park reserve was our least favorite park in Costa Rica...it just seemed so affected by man, people were going off the path...By contrast it isn't possible to go off the path at Monteverde Cloud forest preserve which is much more dense. But yes, the beaches within the Manuel Antonio park reserve are very nice beaches. WE're from San Diego so we didn't go for beaches though.

Have fun!

We stayed at the Fonda Vela in January last year. We enjoyed the accomodations, service, and restaurant very much.

Take pocket flashlights with you--they came in very handy on our trip.

RufusTFirefly is right, small flashlights are great! I like the really tiny ones that can fit in your pocket or on your keychain, I brought 10 of them (small and easy to fit in suitcase) for our family of 5 people. Very handy for finding your cabin or room at night, and for getting into your room at night without turning on all the lights which attracts bugs into your room. Ground is uneven, handy for going to dinner at night too.

You will love all three locations. Each has something special to offer. Making Manuel Antonio your last stop is also very wise. I always end my trips to Costa Rica there where I am able to spend my last days in paradise relaxing at the beach, in the national park, or going on one of the many tours offered such as white water rafting, canopy, sunset cruise, dolphin watch, ATVs....there are a million to choose from! As far as your hotel though, I would strongly recommend La Mansion Inn. It is a little more high end, but a sure thing when it comes to great service, amazing views, food, the whole shebang and it is 5 min walking distance from this amazing and peaceful beach called Playa Biesanz. It is a must to see while in Manuel Antonio. Smaller and almost unknown to the majority of the tourists so it is most often like your private beach and it offers an amazing view!

Tulemar Bungalows is indeed a great choice .... (AKA Buena Vists Villas ) And you can actuallly kayak over to BiesanzBeach from your beach at Tulemar .

My husband and I stayed at the Tabacon three years ago on our honeymoon. The resort was nice, but you can get better views of the volcano at some of the small lodges along the road to La Fortuna. We checked out the Volcano Lodge for future travels and liked what we saw. You can always pay a fee to get into the hot springs and spa at Tabacon, which you really should do. The best spa we've ever been to.

Have a great trip.