My wife and I just returned from a belated honeymoon at the incredible Villa Caletas.

You arrive and are greeted with cool towels and ice tea at check in. They help you to your room with a smile and make sure you want for absolutely nothing. The restaurants are wonderful and the servers are friendly and knowledgeable. Most of the staff are fluent in English making the experience that much easier for those nervous about traveling abroad and any potential language barriers. The Villas are beautiful, with exceptional views but the absolute best value at Villa Caletas comes int he form of their brand new Jr. Suites on the opposite site of the property. With room numbers in the 80's (ex. 85, 86, 87,...) these rooms are gigantic, clean, new (about a year or so old) and come with a hammock and private jacuzzi on their 100ft wide private terraces.

Traveling into Jaco for provisions (water bottles, soda, snacks) is only a $13.00/15 minute one wway trip. Complaints about the trip are without merit.

The infinity pool is perfect. The right temperatur, the right view, never crowded even when the hotel is fully booked, and with staff always available to bring you a drink or snack.

The spa has the same view as the infinity pool and is run in an efficient, clean, and very soothing way. Our couples massage was lovely and rivaled those we have found at big name spas here in the states.

Please do yourself a favor and stay here once in your life. You will talk about it forever.

Before I visited Villa Caletes and the other hotels we were going to stay at I looked up a number of review sites. I was surprised to see many disapproving reviews for Vila Caletes. Upon arrival I didn't believe a word, the rooms are stunning, the views are the best you will ever see. Having said that, the customer service was horrible. The wait staff at the restaurant over charged us then refused to remove the charges. Then after we left they continued to charge our account for who knows what..we paid cash for our whole visit...they racked up about $200 in charges! We were not the only unhappy customers another couple we talked to also had additional items charged to their lunch bill. Plus if you want to go to Jaco be prepared to spend $40+ because the only way you can get there is by taxi. The beach at the hotel is too rocky to walk or swim. I would say be wary and don't get your hopes up.

My stay here was the worst experience I had ever while traveling. We stayed at a villa room and placed our cash in their safe-deposit box and locked it with the key given to us. One afternoon we went to the poolside and when we returned, a total of $1,200 was missing. The maid had cleaned our room for the 2nd time that day....which we had not requested, and someone had entered our safe-deposit box! We reported what happened to the management and to the police and no one cared! Please do not stay at this hotel...they are thieves. There are many insects at this hotel which entered our room and added to our horrible experience. The hotel has no elevators and we had to carry our 11 month old baby in our hands while climbing more than 140 stairs every time. I had read about this recommend hotel in travel books, but I would never recommend this hotel to anyone!

First of all this review is long and late in coming because we had some money issues with Villa Caletas that have just now been resolved.

My husband and I were married at Villa Caletas back in November and stayed a total of 3 nights. There is no denying that the grounds and view are absolutely breathtaking. Just Beautiful...

The first night I stayed by myself in a standard room while my husband stayed down at Claritas in Jaco. The room was nice and opened to a small patio enclosed by lush greenery and a fountain. Thought the room was fine, and after seeing some of the other rooms that had views overlooking the ocean..would definitely recommend a stay in one of those instead. My whole stay I never had a problem with bugs or hard mattresses. Bugs are definitely around, but as others have stated you are in the rainforest and these accomodations bring the outside in instead of closing you off from everything.

The second and third night we stayed in a master suite which we loved. We walked down 152 steps and at the end of the trail was the door to our room. It was very private and had a panoramic view of the ocean. No other rooms were below us, it was just all foliage and ocean. The room was really seperated into 3 different sections and each section had glass french doors that opened out onto the patio with pool. One section housed the bed and bath, one section had a living room setup with couch and the last section had a jacuzzi which was great to sit in and enjoy the view.

We were there mid November and apparently the rainy season, or green as its often referred to, was coming to an end. The day of the wedding it lightly showered about 1:00 then cleared off at 2:00 and was beautiful. All of us were sweating during the ceremony which was around 4:30 to view the sunset. We were extremely blessed because the next day it did rain for most of the day. So if you're planning a wedding you may want to consider the end of November or even December to make sure rain won't be in the forecast. We did get in the pool and it was a bit chilly but we paid for it and were going to use it.

As for the rest of the facilities we did eat several times at the ampitheatre restaurant and enjoyed the atmosphere and food. Food is definitely expensive but it was our wedding/honeymoon and we had planned for it.

The last comments I have pertain to the lack of communication from the wedding coordinator at Villa Caletas. When I first called Villa Caletas (they never responded to the email request I made off of their own website) I explained that I wanted to have the wedding there and was immediatedly referred to the "wedding coordinator". She was to make all the arrangements for of course the wedding but also the accomodations for my husband and I and also my parents. The whole process was very trying and at times it was as the saying goes "like pulling teeth". Getting information from her was sometimes impossible. I'd eventually pick up the phone and call her and she'd tell me yes i'll send you pictures of locations, flowers, etc and she would never email me or it would take weeks when she had just said she'd email the next day. Very frustrating. The biggest frustration however was the whole process of handling our money. We had to give our credit card number to put down a deposit on the wedding and pay for the accomodations up front. This was also given to the wedding coordinator who was to handle all the charges. After signing all their required paperwork, copying it and emailing it back with authorization...
literally months went by and no charges were put on our card. I kept emailing and asking why they hadn't charged our card because obviously we also wanted the peace of mind that our wedding and accomodations were for sure taken care of. And of course emails were not answered. Finally when the charges were put on our card they were always several dollars over the amount we had authorized. When I asked about this I was told that Visa was charging me an exchange rate. However, once we actually got to Costa Rica and used the card all over the country, all of our receipts and charges matched dollar for dollar everywhere else and were never overcharged even a penny. The only thing we've been able to determine through my bank and visa is that Villa Caletas took more than they were authorized to. Lastly, we checked out of the hotel and paid all of our bills....Four days after we left Villa Caletas and were all the way up in Tamarindo, Villa Caletas charged our card for an additional $710.00. Of course we didn't know about the charge until we got back to the states and received the bank statement. It has taken months to get this straightened out and I called the wedding coordinator back in January and emailed her as well, and nothing happened. No response. Even asked her to email me who I should talk to in the resort and again no response. Had to file a chargeback with Visa and finally called down to the resort and spoke with someone who was able to put me in touch with the right person. All in all its been nearly 4 1/2 months since the charge and it's just now been resolved. Since that money was already budgeted for other things to do with our reception back in the states, you can imagine the headache we've dealt with.

Would we do it again knowing what we know now? Only by paying with colones and hiring a wedding coordinator. The money issue has been a nightmare and really clouded our experience. If you choose to stay at Villa Caletas it is beautiful and I would recommend you watch your charges. Oh and also, my parents used their credit card and their charges matched dollar for dollar & penny for penny. Thought that was very interesting that we got charged an "exchange rate" but they didn't. They used visa also.

Would also recommend hiring a wedding coordinator outside of the resort. I forgot to mention that her office is not even at the resort, it's in San Jose which is about 2 hours away. We never once met her during our stay...all conversations were by phone to san jose. She wasn't even there for the wedding to make sure things went right.

We hired our own photographers and they were excellent. There names are Carlos & Pamela Fuster and their website is www.costaricaweddingparadise.com