lachat

Help!!! My travel agent just told me that all the hotels in the Arenal area including Arenal Paraiso, Montana de Feugo, Los Lagos Hotel and Volcano Lodge are fully booked for the nights of July 29 and 30. He said the only hotel with available room is Hotel Lagos & Senderos. However, I can't find any information about this hotel in the web. Could anyone give me any advice? My vacation dates are fixed and I can't change my schedule. I'm so desperate

TAGriffin

First, I'm very surprised that all of these hotels are booked in late July. Must be a convention in town because when I've been there previously in June and July, there were plenty of rooms available.

Second, to the best of my knowledge, Los Lagos and Lagos & Senderos are the same hotel. (www.hotelloslagos.com) I would advise you to contact the hotels directly regarding their availability for those dates.

Barbarian

All the hotels in the Arenal area are booked? In July? Can you spell b-u-l-l-s-* -*-*?

It is time to find a new travel agent. There are more hotels in the Arenal area than you can shake a stick at. No way they are all full. I would wager a free trip to Costa Rica that you could show up in the Arenal area on that weekend in July without reservations and find a room with ease.

lachat

Yes Barbarian, below is the advice of www.costaricatransfers.com regarding my staying at Arenal on 30 and 31 July:

30&31 July :
Hotel Lagos & Senderos in Arenal area, is the only hotel that has avaialability untill today all the rest that are near the Volcano area are full. The only room type avaialbale is the Premium at $96.00 USD including taxes and breakfast.
Rate per night -per double room taxes included $96.00. Total $192.00 USD

Barbarian

Read my response on the other thread with this same title. Just get the hotel booked for San Jose and don't worry about a place in Arenal until you arrive. The hotel staff in San Jose will call some places (you might give them the telephone numbers of a few you've looked at on the Internet) and will reserve a place for you in Arenal for no charge.

I do not know the website you listed, but they are obviously trying to sell you the expensive rooms at the hotel run by their friend, Jose. If they can convince you that the choice is limited, you will let them put you where they want you to stay and charge you what they want to charge.

Don't fall for it.

Wolfiesmom

I have dealt with Costa Rica Transfers and they have been nothing but professional and honest with me. In fact, they gave me a better deal than the hotel and my travel agent.

Try e-mailing Neta Talmor at [email protected]. She used to post on this site and owns a place near San Jose. She has helped many people on this board with Costa Rica information, travel arrangements, etc. She may be willing to assist and maybe you can stay with her if it fits your itinerary. Good luck.

my5

the same thing happened to me for June 18-19 two weeks ago. I was on a wait list at Los Lagos and Tabacon. I emailed a couple of times directly to them and 5 days before we went, we got in at Tabacon. I stopped checking at Los Lagos because withthe cost of going to the Tabacon hotsprings for 5 of us it was a better deal at Tabacon Hotel and much nicer. We had a great time there! It will work out!

trevorjoyce

I agree, do try Neta; she is knowledgable and may offer other suggestions...also, I hear her place is wonderful!

koa

Apparently Costa Rica has been getting more popular in july/august than before. People are catching on that there are better deals. TABACON actually has july/august as high season rates. I booked in early May and I was told all the junior suites were booked. Just a matter of time before CR starts charging a little more during the so called green season!

my5

I was told that the junior suites were booked for end of June but it opened up. We paid high season at Tabacon but not at other places we stayed.

skaderian

We just got back from our trip to CR and we were in Arenal for 3 nights. We arrived with no reservation in place and it was a Wed/Thur/Fri night stay. We had no problem getting finding a place - we just walked into Arenal Paraiso. There are so many options I would not worry about it at all. I agree with the person who said to have someone at the hotel you're staying at in San Jose find something for you. You're gonna be fine!

lachat

Thanks all for your advice. I guess Costa Rica is getting very popular now and July/Aug is no longer regard as the green season. That's why I experienced difficulty reserving a room at Arenal. But now the problem has been solved. I've successfully and, dramatically, reserved a Superior room at Arenal Paraiso, though it took much efforts! After getting advices from you guys, I tried to send both email and fax inquiries to all major hotels with good volcano views, eg, Arenal Paraiso, Volcano Lodge, etc. No problem with the email but, for hours I couldn't get thru a single fax line. As I didnt get any email replies from the hotels, I started to call Arenal Paraiso and Volcano Lodge ( I was hesitate to call before because I speak no Spanish). Surprisingly we could communicate well in English. However, their answers were no room available. But later the same day, I got an email message by Arenal Paraiso saying that they had Superior Room available for my specific date. I informed my travel agent and he made reservation for me rightaway. You may ask why I still reserve the room thru a travel agent. It's because I got a USD5 discount from the agent, while the hotel offered no discount. Actually I got almost everything pre-booked by www.costaricatransfers.com. It bought me peace of mind and, a few dollars discount each for everything, including tours and interbus. I haven't got the hotel and tour coupons yet. Hope no problems in the final stage.

Tess_Durberville

July/August very much is the green season, however it's become a popular destination at that time for those who are taking their summer vacations.

Glad to see that you were able to obtain accommadations, especially with a good view of the volcano. It's active ! Just read this news story and Arenal erupted last night > > >

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...9222301996B223

"Costa Rica on alert after volcanic eruption" --- July 07 2004 at 07:45PM

San Jose - Costa Rica's National Emergency Commission (CNE) has issued an alert following an eruption of the Arenal volcano, one of the Central American country's key tourist attractions.

The Arenal volcano, 150km north of the capital, has a cone of 1 633m and erupted on Tuesday evening, sending an avalanche of lava down one side of its summit, according to the authorities.

No fresh eruptions have been reported on Wednesday, but the CNE has prohibited people approaching the volcano in a bid to highlight its potential danger to visiting tourists."

LA_FadeAway

Wow, it sounds like we might get a nice show if it's not cloudy or TOO active!

Tess_Durberville

I've looked on the Tico Times website and they don't mention anything about Arenal --- hmmmm, just that one brief article I already mentioned. Soooo, I guess it couldn't have been too bad an eruption.

Barbarian

There is a front page story on the Tico Times website today

http://www.ticotimes.net/daily.htm

Arenal is still acting up, but it does so once or twice every year. Just causes you to sleep a little lighter than usual, but no reason not to go visit it. In fact, it's an excellent reason to go!

krispykraut

We stayed at Hotel Tacatol in June. It's not too bad, good view of the Volcano, glad we brought our binoculars. There was not too much available when we were there, middle of June.Had no reservations. We paid about $75. for 3.