This place lies in de mangroves, which makes this very good place to see a lot of animals which is nice. The staff is very pleasant and helpful! (They knew we wanted to see animals so when they saw something they pointed them out to us.) The rooms were very basic and ours a little damp. It was advertised as having a 'river view' but I wouldn't really call those mangroves a 'river but it was nice enough. We saw a racoon there :)
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I’ll go straight to facts. When I checked in, the lady at reception took my payment for a room in Chosa Manglar. Then, AFTER THE PAYMENT, she told me that she has 2 rooms available, one at the back and one at the front. Of course, I thought it was 2 rooms in Chosa Manglar, which corresponded to the price I paid, so I answered : ok I will have the one in the front so I can be closer to the raccoons (never even saw one but that’s not the point). So I got the room in the front and was really disappointed, it didn’t look like what I saw on the pictures of my reservation. The room was ugly, the tap barely working, the decoration almost non existent. I would never have paid more than 70 euros for that. The day after, she told me that I actually stayed in Palapa hut and not the Chosa Manglar I paid for. Palapa Hut is half the price of what I paid. I felt scammed. Why didn’t she tell me that there was a price difference between the 2 available rooms? If I knew, I would obviously have chosen the Chosa Manglar room I paid for!!! But she never mentioned the price difference, she let me stay in that cheap room even if I had paid double the price. No compensation was offered, only a rude attitude when I asked about a solution to this problem. I should have trusted all the negative reviews I have read about them. This lady is dishonest and only cares about making money. The rooms are bad and way too expensive. I have stayed in 12 different lodges in Costa Rica, all of them amazing, and this place was the only disappointment. To avoid!!! Worst customer service ever
Here's what you really need to know about the place.
The quoted text below was written by a fellow traveler and left here on Trip Advisor, who really understands the essence of the place, unlike someone who is upset with room pricing and because the business had the nerve to NOT adjust the room price downwards after they asked the staff to move them to a section of the property where their friend was staying so they could be closer to each other. We did move the guest at no charge AFTER the guest asked us to do them a BIG FAVOR! Some Big Favour huh?
"Don't listen to any negative reviews. We have toured around Costa Rica and Panama for a month now. We're in our mid 30s so we avoid hostels and stay in places that are basic and clean.
All accommodation under $100 a night is basic in CR. If you can get A/C and hot water then you're winning. This place had a shared kitchen which admittedly was a mess but only because of a few younger guests. The poor hotel staff cleaned this up every night.
This place was everything we needed and had the added bonus of beautiful nature and great staff."
Pura Vida, Andrew
We absolutely loved it here. On the grounds we saw capuchins, scarlet macaws, toucans, raccoons, tiger herons and frogs.
The room was basic but clean with hot water and decent A/C.
What makes it though are the owners. They really cared about our stay. I took a bad fall and they cleaned me up and checked in on me.
We booked the Corcovado day hike through their guy. It was incredible. We paid a bit extra to get dropped at Drake Bay after the tour and to have our own guide. It was worth every penny.
Don't listen to any negative reviews. We have toured around Costa Rica and Panama for a month now. We're in our mid 30s so we avoid hostels and stay in places that are basic and clean.
All accommodation under $100 a night is basic in CR. If you can get A/C and hot water then you're winning. This place had a shared kitchen which admittedly was a mess but only because of a few younger guests. The poor hotel staff cleaned this up every night.
This place was everything we needed and had the added bonus of beautiful nature and great staff.
The owner is very friendly and full of recommendations.
Waking up and seeing monkeys in the trees is amazing, the place is accessible, right next to the meeting point for the excursions in the parc, and the city center is sufficient for a couple of nights
The shared space is cosy, the room has a mosquito net which is especially useful around the moistures area
Just wandered in to admire the rambling mangrove garden, reckoning it beyond my backpacker budget.
After some craic with the character who is Scots Canuck Andrew, who runs the place, the close to my Costa Rican chapter was going out with a bang.
Safari type trips tend to knock the stuffing out of careful money management in wildlife-rich parts of the world. Yet sometimes in a months-long trip with necessary economy comes the occasion to bite the bullet. So it was with a $90 day trip into Corcovado of the wild wet west, with a guide who really knew his jungle critturs.
Andrew offered me a dorm bed for $14, which was a lot less than I expected, given the mini-rainforest of the grounds & their cost of upkeep. However, up an iron spiral staircase, with a grubby wee bathroom attached, this was a tired cell of a place for my last night in Costa Rica. Not up to the lovely ambience of the rest of the property, with its birds & lizards & monkeys & butterflies & the cheeky thieving raccoon trying her luck.
Thank you, Andrew, for your take on the world and setting up that Corcovado trip with such a switched-on guide. Two more words: Passerini's Tanager!
We liked staying here b/c there were 2 adults and 2 kids and there's a huge well-equipped kitchen that makes it easy to cook--and even prepare food for hiking instead of having to buy food at the bakery. There's a BM supermarket in town within walking distance and another food store right across from the hostel. The tent on the covered platform is nice for 1-3 people (we had 4 :). And yes, there are animals around --monkeys, herons, even saw a raccoon.
