Holden Ketchum

Just a Hilton from the Curio Collection. Everything was spectacularly nice (to be expected from a 5 Star hotel), but also quite divorced from a Costa Rican Experience; once inside the hotel, we could have been in almost any country anywhere. Great breakfast. Great location. Interestingly, less-than stellar restaurant staff, some of whom were slow and indifferent. If you value the luxury hotel experience, change this rating to 5 stars.

A wonderful place for families. We were 7 and KimKim found us the perfect house (Casa Quinta) on the property. Multiple great pools. Monkeys everywhere, which we all loved.

Not suited for young children. Mostly we saw small sleeping sloths only viewable through binoculars, which little kids can't easily negotiate. Defiinitely go early in the morning, before the heat sets in. Nice tour with a naturalist for older children and adults, with lots of teaching and explaining that bores the little ones and is great for others.

Mangroves are cool for those of us with little experience with them.

Absolutely amazing! The buffet was wonderful. Rooms were clean. Beds and pillows were too hard for my liking. Food was delicious. Beautiful volcano views. Seen a lot of wildlife, including a sloth on our resort.

Hotel was a little dated and not as well taken care of as the first 2 hotels we stayed at. Beds and pillows were comfortable. Too hot to enjoy the roof top patio. The resort was laid out a little funky. Not enough staff to take care of things the way I expected. Nice place, but not exceptional. I did like that we had a 2 bedroom villa.

I did not like hotel. It was clean but no outdoor spaces to enjoy. Food was subpar compared to other hotels we stayed at. No privacy when using bathroom or shower from other guests in my room.

This was amazing. Our guide was knowledgeable. The hike was more difficult than expected. Very hard for my mom.

This was one of our best experiences!!! Wildlife was amazing. Our guide was beyond amazing!! I would do this again with our guide! Surpassed every expectation!!!

I would not choose this again. We did not see wildlife.

Loved this activity!!!

Great location! Great breakfast! The staff was very nice too. The room was beautiful too.

WOW! This was a lovely place. The hot springs on the resort were wonderful.

Great resort. The hotel was clean and close to the ocean. The beach was lovely too.

Mariano was wonderful. The private tour was a treasure! I would recommend spending the money for a private tour.

Mariano was great! We loved his tour and he was always showing us animals and pointing out things for us to see.

The sail trip was very nice! The water was clear and guides were friendly. We were lucky- there was only 1 other couple on the boat.

Fantastic place, great food, nice hot springs pool.

Pros: Wonderful staff, great location, breakfast buffet, swim up bar, quiet Cons: dated premise, spotty Wifi (at checkout the credit card machine went offline), our bathroom had soap scum and hair, common areas are hot, quiet (we were here on a weekday so the vibe might pick up during the weekend idk) Our meals were fine at the hotel, very nice and friendly staff. We also ventured out and can recommend El Chante (low key 80/90's American pop music), Morpho Beach Bar (walkable) and El Avion (nice sunset views in an old airplane hanger)

We spent most our time off-site but we did enjoy the volcanic mud spa massage and little walking trail. Location was convenient for us, we had parking, breakfast buffet was good, enjoyed the rainforest showers and birds from our 'porch'. Close by recommendations: El Chante Verde, Rainbow Chocolate tour, Tiquicia - town is a 7 min drive We went to Paradise Hot Springs at night, the front desk was able to rearrange a pass on short notice.

This place was a dream. Don't leave during sunset, the views are amazing. We had the honeymoon suite, which was huge and the balcony made my life. We only had the breakfast buffet, which was great, bustling during pre-tour hours and the good variety. Treated to a spa massage, amazing. Wish we had more time here to check out the indoor pool and canopy tour but next time! Note: Take the hotel shuttle or drive, everything is uphill; or walk, your calves will look amazing afterwards.

All-inclusive with great view of the bay. Very kid-friendly. We stayed in the hotel section, which had it's own parking lot, view of the bay overlooking the main pool and buffet restaurant (dinner/breakfast was fine but they ran out of food so sometime you were waiting) Staff was nice, my Spanish is rusty so they were patient and kind. Cocktails were inconsistent but it's free so not complaining. They have a lot of on-site activities (like movie night by the pool, dancing lessons) and beach shuttle. Note: need to go to the pool by the wet bar to trade in your towel card, open til 5pm. In the hotel, we didn't see elevators, it's not hard to navigate the stairs but just a note if you have heavy suitcases :) Driving in Entrance is split by two booths, one for Condovac on the left and Villa Sol on the right.

Our guide, Luis, was so knowledgeable and set the bar pretty high for the rest of our trip. He balanced giving information, addressing questions, taking photos in a great pace. The tour walk is short in distance but I felt very satisfied in what we learned and saw. We spent some extra time in the park afterwards exploring the beaches and other trails, we definitely did not see much without Luis' trained eye :)

I was nervous about kayaking the ocean waves but our guide was kind and patient, he explained the schedule and we were off! It was basically a straight shot to the snorkel area, we had good time, it was a bit cloudy but we saw some cool fish and starfish. Our guide tried to point out as much as he could but it was a bit cloudy and here was just some fish (at the time, and I was admittedly a little distracted with the low tide and avoiding rocks). The snorkel gear was basic and I couldn't get my life jacket out of the way (lol) but it was a good kayak, swim, fruit snack, and then kayak back, hop in the shuttle and drove to the tour's restaurant for casado lunch.

Walking the dark trails were exciting, we loved the idea of being able to see the nocturnal nightlife. We saw a lot of bugs and an armadillo lol but it was still fun. Our guide had fun stories and good trivia facts. I enjoyed how the guides helped each other, communicated via radio and left sticks pointing to sleeping creatures. Wish we saw some more frogs and more animals but that's definitely not in the control of the our guide.

I'm terrified of heights and had to do the 7-course zipline! I would recommend the Sky Adventure Sky tram + Zipline tour, we had a nice ride up the skytram, where the guides made small talk about a little history of Arenal and some biodiversity facts. The only way down was going through the 7 ziplines (1 intro, 5 long, 1 short to the finish line), our group made it through fairly quickly and with ease. The guides did a great job distracting us during any hold ups or waiting on line. I felt very safe and comfortable, even when I was terrified. This was for sure a once in a lifetime experience for me, I even bought the photo package.

Kuna Vela was great time! The staff was helpful, they even took some photos on the beach and on the boat. Originally, when we booked it we thought we were going to a snorkeling site but with the recent rainstorms, they recommended going to Huevos Playa where we could check out the caves AND do some snorkeling. It was a great alternative. We spent an hour on the beach, checked out the cave (we didn't get to walk to the other beach but it was still good photo op and great timing cause after 45min there were waves and the tide was definitely coming in), they gave out some snorkel gear and noodles to float, some people saw a turtle, lots of fish. Then we took the dingy back to the sailboat, plenty of food, offered lots of drinks, relaxing sail back, saw some dolphins, flying fish, birds, birds, birds, and a manta ray.

Fantastic from the casita we had, the pool, the food, the hiking trails. It was genuinely a hideaway for a moment in our lives. We had wonderful love-making here!

This was my (Ellie's) favorite place - the breakfasts were wonderful, the room was high above the sea from which we could see for miles into the ocean, service was wonderful, the room was spacious with a lovely little deck to sit on when we felt like we wanted to be outside. We had wonderful love-making here, too!

Lovely setting outside the city of La Fortuna; we visited the community several times. The breakfasts were overly generous offerings with a beautiful view of a lagoon with dozens of white herons, our couple spa experience was fantastic, the grounds were beautiful. The staff was always ready to help and...we greatly enjoyed the Arenal Zip Line experience. and much more.

This hotel was a different, but enjoyable, experience. The casita was hidden away nicely with a path to breakfast readily available. The views from the restaurant were good, but not spectacular. The food was good, well prepared, and excellently served by the wait staff. Our experience was fewer opportunities to explore the mountains without going a ways out of town, though Monteverde itself was an interesting place to explore.

This was the most unusual location and surroundings of any of the hotels. Trogon Lodge is tucked away 'way down' into the valley, with roads that required some careful attention for driving (7 kilometers off Route 2 on a narrow, curve-filled drive). Nevertheless, the location was well-worth it! Note that it was cold (relatively) since it sits at roughly 7000 feet in altitude. The dining room was very nice with excellent food. and service. A beautiful river, with many waterfalls, runs directly through Trogon grounds with several trails to explore along the river. The casitas are also located such that you will follow one, two or more trails to get to your lodging. In this sense, a person with handicaps would be challenged, but could ask for a casita most closely located to necessities. Trogon Lodge is also fairly isolated, meaning no gas station or other convenience stores are within 20-30 kilometers. We didn't need them, though we had some concern about having only a quarter tank of gas. Not a problem, since the nearest gas was 31 kilometers away and well within reach. Though cold much of the day, we thoroughly enjoyed the natural setting and our stay (2 nights)!!

Amazing and fantastic, with a very helpful and entertaining crew!! This is a 12-platform zip line, one of which is a kilometer long in itself.

Excellent night walk!! Our guide was eager to show us all forms of frogs, snakes, birds! But the frosting on the cake was finding a Tapir (with four young ones) 'eating up the forest'. Yes, they feast on small trees and other fodder of the forest. We were able to get excellent video evidence of this experience.

This was an event set up by KimKim (Serendipity Adventures) with us. We had a good guide (Ian). He was able to show us several spectacular bird events. The most exciting was seeing a Quetzal perched in a tree. Through the guides monocular, we took several pictures we will treasure.

This worked well. The first distance down the mountain (Route 606) was ok. The main route (Routes 1 and 324) were ok, too. Keep in mind that the infrastructure of Costa Rica is not as clearly developed as we in the US, spoiled as we are, are used to. Most of our highway routes were two lane, with a few four lanes now and then. In some cases, as when we went to Trogon Lodge, the 7 kilometers to the Lodge were very curvy and narrow. But, hey, it's part of the experience!!!

This was a major highlight of our time in Costa Rica. The National Park is over the top, especially given that we had a guide who was informed, informative and responsive to questions. We learned much about all manner of wildlife. In addition, our guide was a historian of Latin America providing us wonderful detail about the creation and evolution of the National Park. Included in that, of course, was information about colonialism, the United Fruit Company and the history of America Central as opposed to Central America (the latter being the history with which many of us are familiar).

What's to say!! It was a genuine sunset cruise, on a 3-sail, wooden sail boat (according to our guide the only one in Costa Rica?). Food was excellent, staff, too. Opportunities for swimming and snorkeling were provided. Fun time and people!!

Everything was amazing. The room, the view, the staff, the food…. The only negative is we didn’t stay long enough to explore the grounds, restaurant and pool

The hotel was nice and staff were great, but everything does feel a little run down. The pool wasn’t fully operational and wifi was spotty or out.

Check in was easy and the staff was helpful in explaining how to get around town and in setting up a trip to a hot spring. Their spa, pool and breakfast were also great.

Pleasant kayak and snorkeling experience with a snack and lunch included.

It was nice to see and hear animals that are normally not visible during the day

Great experience on the zipline, helpful guides and ground staff. Great views of the volcano and lake from the deck.

The crew was very nice, informative, and quick to offer drinks/snacks.