We arrived to be met by one of the cleaning staff (?) as there is no hotel reception. The lady called someone and we spoke over the phone to arrange the check-in. The pool, greatly advertised through numerous pictures on the website, was empty. There was no indication of this on the website. the whole place is rather run-down and seedy looking. We decided not to stay but they still charged a fee despite the false advertising. A complaint through the booking service was met with a rude, unhelpful response from the hotel. There are so many options in this area - choose somewhere else!
The owner of this place was amazing: Not only did he give us great advice on restaurants, but he also spent at least 45min on the phone for us changing our bookings in other places. He also let us choose our room as he had two available in the same price category. We took the one just above the pool with a grat view over the ocean. It was quite big and had not only a bathroom, but also a little kitchen included. When my boyfriend had to go to the hospital after an accident at the beach, he did a great job calming me down and even offered to come with me to translate everything for us. We're really grateful and can only recommend the place.
room (dorm) was clean, but sheets were all dirty. disgusting! mattress was old and saged! under one mattress was a wooden board missing, so u were lying directly on the metal pipe of the bed. when we were asking for a wooden board the owner rolled his eyes and reacted unfriendly. at the end he put some folded cardboard under the mattress which was not helpin at all! same reaction when we were asking for an additional ventilator - we didn't get one! furthermore he was unflexible and pretty unfriendly. no drinking in the room, pool is open only until 8 p.m., and no noise at all after 10 p.m., pls. not recommendable at all for backpackers or groups who wanna spend a nice time together
Start with the positives: The manager David was obviously well intentioned, showing us a map with recommendations of things to do, making us a coffee and giving us an additional fan. The hotel is cheap for Manuel Antonio and is in a decent location half way between Manuel Antonio Beach and Quepos. The view from the room was amazing. Now for the comprehensive list of negatives: Despite his intentions David's customer service skills left a lot to be desired, his handling of a number of the below problems was far from professional. The room we paid an additional $20 for above the standard room advertised air conditioning. This is the only reason we paid the extra (the other benefits such as an additional bed/kitchenette/sea view were fairly irrelevant to us). Upon arrival we were shown to a room with no A/C and told we'd have to pay even more for that room, and that even if we were willing to pay more, the room was unavailable. When we asked for an additional fan to compensate for the lack of AC (also as we were afraid to use the roof fan, it looked like it might fall of the roof at any minute), David said "I'll give you may fan". I told him I wouldn't accept his fan as I would feel bad, and he repeatedly shouted at me "no you take it and you feel bad". He did then give us the fan which we accepted. The room was also incredibly dated with ancient dirty sheets and a kitchenette so old and decrepit it was basically unusable. The shower looked like it might kill you if you touched it, exposed wiring and running water... and only had burning hot or cold as it's two settings. The shower also leaked considerably leaving the bathroom floor soaking wet. Lastly, we had booked on booking.com where the price was listed in US dollars. As we only were carrying Costa Rican Colones we emailed ahead and asked if it was OK to pay using the local currency, which it was confirmed would be OK. However, we were not told that we would be charged a ludicrously unfavourable exchange rate to do so. It is frowned upon and actually illegal in most shops to, when advertising in dollars in Costa Rica to offer anything other than the government exchange rate to pay in Colones. However, he wouldn't budge and also asked for a 5% credit card surcharge, something else unheard of in Costa Rica. Overall, if you really can't afford anything else, staying here (probably) won't kill you. But if you can avoid it, I probably would. …
My girlfriend and I have been traveling for about a week and this place was, to be fair, not bad, but fat from good. We're easy travelers and thought we could save a few bucks considering Manuel Antonio is a bit pricey. We booked here through booking.com at a decent price and the description said that there would be A/C, washing machine in the apartment, hot water, pool, and cable tv. There was no hot water. The shower only dribbled cold water actually. No A/C, no washing machine, and pool was unkept. The sheets were really old and appeared as if they were bought from a second hand store from the 80s. We would've been OK with everything but what was upsetting was that the owner, was rude, argumentative, and a liar. We waited 4 hours with a volunteer to check-in and when he finally arrived he was rude from the beginning. You just didn't feel safe or comfortable there. So we tried a night, cut our losses the 2nd night and moved up the road to a nice little place.…
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