Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort Member of the Cayuga Collection

Beautiful location and for the most part the service was great. First the pluses ....beach is super and the staff down by the beach was friendly and welcoming and they do a great job of creating safety (lots of lifeguard drills it appeared!) and overall the sense of a lovely vacation feel. There are golf carts to take you everywhere on the property, which is pretty necessary as the property is steep and quite spread out. You just give a call and someone shows up in minutes. Many of the drivers have a great personality, just made it surprising when a few of them seemed not friendly--and for us there was no need to speak English--I was always happy to try my Spanish! Ditto for the staff in the main restaurant--some were friendly and welcoming and a few others were all business and not very welcoming or patient. On with the plus items...the beds are very comfortable, rooms are private and quiet, and the policy of free mini bar snacks (with free restocking) is wonderful! The monkeys and iguanas --and sloths--on the property are terrific. There is a dinner in the beach restaurant on Wednesdays, Sats and Suns and since we were only there for the Wed dinner, I wish that the staff at breakfast had reminded us of it and also, there could be a small guide in the room that would include the beach dinner evening schedule as well as a map of the nature trail --with distances. We wanted to walk it ourselves, without their guide, but didn't have a good sense of the overall length of the trail. There was a little sense that they wanted to encourage us to sign up for their guided (for a fee) walk. The food in the main restaurant was good, but not exceptional and the dinners are quite expensive. The breakfast has many choices and again, it's good but not exceptional--but nice that it's included in the room price. Overall, however, it's a lovely place, clearly the nicest place to stay in Manuel Antonio, but also quite pricey, which you know if you're reading this! Trip.com had the best price by far, at least for November.

Our stay here was fabulous. The views of the ocean were amazing. They had beach chairs and bar service on the beach. We saw lots of animals: iguana, crabs, agouti, monkeys, and even a boa constrictor! From our room window, an iguana came everyday to see us and sunbathe. The staff was top notch. They were always very helpful and kind. I booked all our tours through the hotel. Julian was our guide for two of the tours and he was very good and nice. The Nauyaca waterfall tour was the best! The breakfast was delicious. They had a lot of variety on their menu. Their transport service to local restaurants was way better than calling a taxi. Loved the golf cart service to get you around the property. We will definitely come back! Thank you so much for a lovely vacation.

A real mixed bag. Beautiful location with wonderful facilities and great staff with a good service mentality. However, bedrooms have a 3-4 star feel ; more like a Spanish holiday resort on the Costa Brava than Costa Rica. Housekeeping was a little hit and miss. On occasions the hotel served brilliant food but often it was disappointing e.g 3 breakfasts out of 4 had to be returned as hot food was served cold.