My husband and I stayed here the last two nights of our honeymoon and it was AWFUL in comparison to the first five days in Costa Rica. Prior to arriving to The Springs we stayed at Nayara (check out my review for there for more details) and let's just say The Springs left us begging to go back to Nayara from the moment we arrived.

Arrival: We asked upon arrival if we could cancel our transportation to the airport two days later because we arranged for other transportation. We were assured this would be done. During check out on Saturday we had two drivers show up for us- the one we tried to cancel through The Springs and the one we actually wanted to take. We felt bad for the driver we cancelled but it was yet another mistake on The Springs part, not ours.

Staff: Not friendly, little "costa rican culture" presented, they don't ask your names or even offer theirs, they rarely reach out to say hello to you- we said hello to almost all of the staff first, they never asked us how things were going, and when we had an issue we had to wait until our last night around 6 p.m. to see the manager.

Dining: Yuck, that's all I can say. I didn't get sick at all in Costa Rica until I ate at The Springs. The first night we paid almost 80 dollars for an appetizer, a salad, and a sandwich- all of which were mediocre at best. During this dining experience we had FIVE waiters, yes FIVE. The woman walking around with bread went to every table BUT ours to offer free bread and we had to inform our 3rd waiter after waiting forever that we wanted to order entrees after our appetizers. We knew NONE of their names, none of them asked us how our food was, and again, the food was NOT worth the price.

Room: I went out onto our patio area (in one of the vista's) to enjoy some peace and quiet before dinner when we started to hear banging and drilling. It went on for over an hour so as we walked up for dinner we stopped at the front desk to speak to someone. They had NO idea what we were talking about but said they would get a manager to speak to us. We returned after dinner to speak to the manager and he was still no where to be found. They did however inform us that they were installing cameras on the outside of our building "but no one knew about it". WHAT?! At this point we were annoyed beyond belief and told them to have the manager come speak to us immediately. They assured us he would. We waited for 2.5 hours and were getting tired. We called the front desk again and they said he would call us back in 2 minutes. 10 minutes later, no call. We called again. Finally we got someone else who stepped up in place of the manager to come speak to us. He upgraded our room to what they called "the honeymoon suite". Correct me if I'm wrong but do you usually bring your children on your honeymoon? This “upgraded” room was the same as our first minus having an additional handicap bathroom and bedroom with two twin sized beds. Again- not honeymoon.
After all of this we decided to clean the slate and try to relax. However, when we tried to turn on music it started to make a terrible grinding noise that echoed throughout the entire place. We tried to fix this the next day and had to wait for hours for someone to repair it. When they came they spoke little English and had to have two guys take care of it before my husband just suggested they take the one out of the 2nd bedroom and we’d just use that one- so they did that…. 45 minutes later and we had music (this was on our last day it finally got resolved).

Other cons:
Hot Springs are extremely fake and the rock “paint” flakes off into the pool. I felt dirty just looking at it.
The whole place is pricey for being so mediocre.
Their breakfast buffet is NOT worth the $20+ dollars they charge- yuck.
There were no real lockers down by Club Rio- they held your stuff in a “warehouse”.
The gym has two treadmills that face a giant mirror so all you are looking at is yourself the entire workout. I’m training for a marathon so running 8 miles each day we stayed there was on my program and they were some of the most boring runs I’ve EVER had due to the circumstances of this gym. They have giant windows in there why can’t they move the treadmills over so you can look out at the ONE good part about the place- the view (which we hardly saw due to weather).
I got sick after the first day there and the second night I bought crackers from the gift shop to try and sooth my belly. Sick.

Overall review- NO THANK YOU! Never, ever, ever again.

I will preface my review by saying that my wife and I stayed at Nayara before regretfully going to The Springs for a few nights and part of the reason for our lackluster opinion likely stems from comparing it to Nayara. Given that The Springs is more expensive, we expected the experience to be as good if not better.

The Good- The grounds are pretty and the vistas that can be viewed from the main building are pretty incredible. There is a cool bar that might have the best view of the Volcano in the area. The hot springs were kind of cool but the novelty wears off rather quickly. In addition, like other reviewers have indicated, this place is incredibly fake. The whole time we were there we kept joking that it felt like we were on the set for The Flintstones movie. Given that everything is fake, particles and chunks of the “rocks” have a tendency of getting into the water creating a less than sanitary feeling.

The Bad- The food is not good and incredibly overpriced to boot. At dinner our first night, we had 5 different waiters and none of them displayed any semblance of personality. In fact, when one of our new waiters came by to take the menus off our table, I had to tell him that we wanted to actually order food.

The Ugly- We arrived to our room only to encounter the lovely sounds of a hammer and drill. The perfect complement to any honeymoon. It took an act of Congress to find the manager and only after repeated attempts did another person with any authority call us to apologize and offer us a room upgrade. We accepted and were transported to our new room, turned on some music to relax, and were immediately hit with what sounded like the noise of a cat in a blender coming from our broken stereo system. While we were over The Springs at this point, the comedy of errors continued. Upon checking in, we cancelled our prearranged return transportation. However, despite being assured that this would be taken care of, the driver from The Springs still showed up and we had to pull to the bags out of the van and explain to every worker at the hotel that we cancelled our transportation and had other transportation.

While none of these complaints is overly egregious or terrible, it is not what you expect for a place in their price range. It is beyond overhyped and I am disappointed to have wasted money staying there. I guess they are content living on the notoriety of hosting one of the Bachelor shows.

This hotel is perfect in nearly every way - breathtaking views, lush, vibrant tropical foilage, soothing (and romantic) natural hot tubs...the list goes on and on. The drive to get here is indeed long and rough at times. For that, I am glad - it means no crowds to spoil this remote paradise. The food could be a bit bland and unappealing at times, but it was a small price to pay.

We just stayed at the Springs for 3 nights. It was truly a great experience which I would highly recommend. We stayed in the honeymoon vista room which was spectacular with its own private hot spring. The views of the volcano were absolutely amazing. I can't wait to go back! There are lots of things to do both at the resort and on tours operating about half hour away. The restaurants were very good. We had excellent meals and the service was also great. Three nights was not enough. I would have liked to stay here for a minimum of four nights. Will be returning for sure.