La Tigra Rainforest Lodge

This was the first stop on our trip and everything I had been dreaming about. The epitome of outstanding ecotourism. Amazing treehouses set in the forest, super friendly team, great night walk, really lovely food and awesome trails throughout the property and neighbouring Bosque La Tigra. Such an impressive rainforest restoration project. I was initially concerned about the distance from our excursions around Fortuna but the drive was easy and it’s nice to come back to the serenity of La Tigra each day. A trip highlight!

What you expect might not necessarily be what you get. This Ecolodge is tourist-factory with the Charme of a train station. 1. Staff Staff was friendly though not very personal or interested. They were not even interested in our names and we had the feeling we were just numbers (room numbers) , very different to other Eco lodges we visited, (for example Lirio Lodge), which was probably the case as LaTigra is more like a tourist-factory. They push through large travel groups on a two-nights stay basis. There was no manager present, staff changed on a daily basis, no-one talked with you or explained anything beside taking your orders. 2. Location First , this is a 50 minute drive from La Fortuna and about half of it is a really rough dirt road, only drivable with 4x4. As most activities take place around LaFortuna this is an almost 2 hour waste of time every day. Second, if you drive up a mountain, what would you expect? I think the only reason to drive up a mountain is to get a gorgeous view. The pictures of the bungalows they advertise with suggests that, however, if you are not in a large travel group you are prioritised away to the so called “new” bungalows which lie around 400m off to the other side and are almost dug into the jungle ground. 3. Description of “new” bungalows: Very dark, absolutely no view, no Charme. Just plain dark wood bungalows with lots of spiders and creepy stuff inside, which is no surprise as our bungalow was literally dug into the forest ground. The lighting consisted of two naked light bulbs which hung from the roof and even during daytime you had to use a flashlight if you were looking for something in your bag. Reading was impossible. No Moscito nets, no fan, and no internet in the bungalows !!! Internet only available at the Restaurant. The bathroom smelled very unpleasantly even though the bungalow was new and we were not tempted to take a shower in there. 4. Restaurant The food was okay, though not very tasty. The only upside was, that the food was comparably reasonably priced. My daughter said this was the worst ever accomodation we had had in years of travelling.

If you love cockroaches and tarantulas in your room and rude staff, this is the place for you. We had such an unfortunate experience at La Tigra Rainforest Lodge. I experienced less insects in my accommodation when I was camping in a jungle in Colombia. My two friends and I were so looking forward to our rainforest lodge experience (which we had booked months before arriving), but we were treated poorly by the staff, given a room that isn’t even listed on their website, and ended up with cockroaches in our bags from our room. On the La Tigra website, they describe their “10 rustic tent cabins [which] are located on raised platforms with ample balconies”. They don’t, however, describe the *very* rustic cabin that we were given (and we are people who camp and are not needing luxury accommodations). Details are below: - Room #3 (toucan room) - #1 and #2 would also be similar - wooden cabin with small balcony (no hammock, no mosquito netting) - away from the main resort area (seems to be almost an overflow area) - one foot off of the ground (not on a raised platform with views) with an unfinished wood plank floor with gaps between planks and the jungle directly below - large gaps between the walls and the roof - we encountered over 15 cockroaches in our room, including in our bags - a massive spider was on our ceiling every night Communication with staff: - we were laughed at when we asked about the spider and told “you are in the jungle” - when we complained about the cockroaches we were also told “you are in the jungle” and laughed at by the manager - we (unfortunately) waited until our last morning to look on their website and confirm that our room wasn’t even advertised. When we asked about this, the manger replied that we should have realized this when we arrived and it was our fault for not doing so (again, we had booked months ago, and tend to trust that we would be given a room advertised). We were not given so much as an apology for the wrong room or insects DO NOT STAY HERE and support these dishonest hosts.