How does Tamarindo compare to Jaco
 

I am wondering if Tamarindo is similar to Jaco....I keep reading "stuff" about both...I've only visited Jaco by passing through and that was enough for us. I had no desire to stop for long & was glad we had not planned to stay there overnight. It was depressing. I'm sure there are some good parts, but on first impression, it did not make us want to stick around to find them.

I will be visiting near Tamarindo next month & am concerned if it might be similar....

Any thoughts?

Define "visiting near Tamarindo."

Of the two, I'd choose Tamarindo over Jaco any day, but I'm not a big fan of Tamarindo either. It's overgrown, sometimes dirty, and has a growing crime problem ... still not as bad as Jaco. Yet there are still some very nice places to close to Tamarindo where you can be removed from the noise and congestion.

www.hotelcapitansuizo.com my fav

totally different experience

than Jaco as long as you

are in the general hotel area

I think you will enjoy Tamarindo. There are drugs for sale and buildings being built, but there are also a lot of really good restaurants/bars, a great beach, fantastic sunsets, laundry service, banks, dozens of days trips to choose from, taxis at any time of the day/evening, etc.

Where are you staying? Unless you are right in town, you probably won't encounter anyone selling drugs or hear the construction noise.

We will be staying at the new JW Marriott, Hacienda Pinella. We will be going into Tamarindo for restaurants & possible activities such as shops, sportfishing &/or a sailing trip out of the marina.

Just to follow up, we ended up enjoying ourselves in Tamarindo & found some excellent restaurants, our favorite being Dragonfly. Felt relatively safe walking around using common sense & never felt threatened by any situation.

Glad to hear you enjoyed Tamarindo. We have so much fun there.

Dragonfly is great - the owners are very nice and their place is so tasteful. For some reason, we find ourselves at Mama's Deli a lot. Their new beach location is much nicer than the old spot. We also tried VooDoo Lounge and Wok N Roll this year and both of those are excellent too.

We ate at the Voodoo Lounge one night too. The food was good but the service was painstakingly slow...started out great but then our "waiter" (who may have been the owner...not sure) ended up having to go cook so he never came back to our table after food was brought. My husband was ready to just walk out but finally we were able to get a check & pay up....other tables were waiting on themselves going to the kitchen to order, etc. I understand "laid back", but that was a bit too much for us!