Having read previous reviews we were very concerned that we had used our RCI points to book Condovac la Costa for out two week honeymoon.
But when we arrived there we were meet by extremely happy and helpful staff.
The villas were cleaned daily including cleaning bathroom,clean towels, bed making and washing the floors.
They even made a decoration on the spare bed ! towels rolled into a heart with swans made from flannels and fresh flowers, absolutely beautiful.!
All the staff were lovely, but our favourite had to be Alexis the barman, he made outstanding cocktails, laughed all the time and was a pleasure to be around.
We booked a boat trip with Charlies Adventures and had the best day, again all the crew were attentive, informative,polite and happy. We had a BBQ on a private beach, snorkeled and saw dolphins.when we went into the Mangroves our guides knowledge was incredible, he was local with great pride of his homeland.
The swimming pools were great and cleaned daily, everyone at the resort spoke English.
Ok the beach was not white sand, but its a volcanic region so obviously the sand, as in the Canary Islands, will be dark!
We did visit Gingers restaurant as advised and had a nice meal.
Again despite previous comments the food at the Condovac restaurant was good value and the Pizzas were huge! This is a family resort, and everyone there was friendly,polite, extremely well mannered. We have made lots of new friends in America and Costa Rica. We will go back again! PURA VIDA !!!!!!!!

After reading all the reviews in March, I was sick about having exchanged my RCI timeshare in Cabo (value around $1,000), but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be in most of the important ways. Because I had read the reviews and knew that the first level of condos had been remodeled, we called ahead to make sure we got a condo on that level. A former guest described it as Motel 6 accomodations but bigger, and that was pretty accurate. Bedroom was about 20x20 and so was the living room/kitchen, so plenty of room. One tip was to close the bedroom off at night so the A/C worked better and that was really helpful. The electricity went out at the resort two of the nights we were there, but it came back on w/in 15 minutes each time (and in all fairness, that 2nd night the power went out in ALL of Costa Rica...). One night our picture tube went out on our TV, and they were there within 15 minutes with a new TV (and WOULD NOT accept a tip). We had trouble also with the microscopic mites running around the counter in the kitchen but we knew from the reviews to bring Raid and we made sure and put the food in the refrigerator at night (that includes chips, crackers, cookies, candy, etc.) and it was fine. The resort IS very steep but we found the shuttles came around about every 5 minutes, not 15, as previous reviews had stated. Staff is very helpful, courteous, but a good thing I was fluent in spanish- they speak very little english compared to Cabo & Cancun. Beach was nice, no complaints there- beautiful sunsets. Pool very clean but all activities in spanish; workout room nice but massage was waaay average- I thought I might have to wring out the oil on my skin by the time the hour was up (but hey- what do you expect for $20? :-)). Minimarket above the pool was very nice and we bought quite a bit of our snacks up there. They accept American dollars and have a conversion calculator there. We bought big bags of ice and 1.5 gallon bottled water at a pretty reasonable price. (And they have ice cream too!)
I agree with prior reviews- restaurant was horrible, I mean horrible, food and twice the price we should have paid. One bright spot is the cats were meandering here and there but they looked pretty well cared for and didn't jump up on chairs or anything. Good luck trying to get your bill from the server...
I had read a good review about "Charlie's Adventures", right at the shuttle stop as you get out at the beach, so we did all our tours with them and they really were wonderful. Boat ride/snorkeling to a "cave" was fun and better priced than Maui, for example. Really good lunch, but don't swim all the way through the cave to the rocks unless you see someone else do it first... we were the typical stupid americans and could've really gotten into trouble if not for our guardian angels... :-)
ATV riding with guide "Danilo" was a blast, but I wouldn't go on the canopy portion of the tour unless it's the only one you're going to do while you're in Costa Rica (Monteverde, on the other hand, was UNBELIEVABLE for $40!!). It was much shorter and more expensive than Monteverde and we were there at the last week of the dry season; so it was like zipping through a desert area, not a lush rainforest like we expected. We also went horseback riding with the same outfit and it was a little pricey but fun. It turned out to be just the two of us with the guide, so it was like a private ride. He was very nice and pointed out vegetation, howler monkeys, etc. along the way.
So I'd recommend Charlie's for any of the tours with all that in mind.
Playa del Coco is the closest place to buy any souvenirs (other than tiny shop at the bottom of the resort by the shuttle stop), and it's filthy.... Absolutely filthy... Souvenirs were great and priced well, though; but we were disappointed that that was really our only choice of where to buy. Restaurants looked pretty scary, but we ate twice and had good luck in one that is right at the first when you enter Playa del Coco- can't remember the name but it had Louisiana cajun something in the name- sat on the balcony for dinner and watched the howler monkeys climb nearly up to the ledge!
If you're going to stay somewhere in Costa Rica for close to a week, I think I would rather have been near San Jose and southern beaches. We had quite a drive to go to Arenal and the Monteverde rain forest, and spent a lot of travel time on the roads where it wasn't lush rainforest as we'd expected.
There's a GREAT supermarket on the main drag in Liberia; other than that, we didn't see any places to buy food supplies other than roadside kiosks. Driving is a little scary, but once you understand stop signs are only suggestions, you'll get along fine. :-) Rental car is a must, only about $20/day for an SUV, but the insurance is about $32 on top of that (and I wouldn't think twice about paying it! ).
Charlie's put us in touch with a guide named Jorge (George) to do Monteverde on our way back to San Jose. Although he didn't speak as well as he said he did, he still spoke plenty well for any tourist using his services. He charges $60/day no matter how many of you there are in the group. When we got to Monteverde (he got to go free if he brought four visitors) he took pictures of us to and from the 18 platforms; he was so thoughtful about thinking of our needs before we even did! He took us to a nice roadside cafe in town for a traditional Costa Rican meal, which was WONDERFUL and the total bill for the five of us, including five soft drinks and bottled water, was $15!!!
All in all, we had a wonderful time and didn't really feel "shorted" at all for our exchange. The people are very friendly and the 'hawkers' aren't nearly as rabid as the ones you find in Cabo and Cancun. So don't panic if you've already made your timeshare exchange at Condovac, there were a lot of positives. And although I'd go back to Costa Rica and stay somewhere else in the south, we still felt that all in all it was a great, memorable trip!

We stayed at the Condovac La Costa in Playa Hermosa in Guanacaste province in Costa Rica. The hotel is in a nice location on a hill overlooking Playa Hermosa especially from the pool and restaurant. So if you don't like climbing, look else where.
We booked it as a timeshare exchange through RCI but you can rent it as a normal hotel. The resort is an older hotel that joined RCI in 1977. The rooms are Spanish hacienda style one bedroom suites with a kitchenette and a futon sofa. The room has AC in the bedroom but only a fan in the kitchenette.
We had a problem with tiny sugar ants looking for food in the kitchenette area. If you left anything edible, they pounced. We told the maid and she gave us a can or raid!!!
The hotel has decent facilities including a workout room, a outdoor theater area where 6 employees would do live dancing performances to the tune of latin music, Costa Rican music and variety show, mini-mart, game area and disco room.
The live variety show was free and pretty good. Since the hotel has hills, to their credit they have shuttles that take you from the beach all the way to the top (reception or restaurant).
Our biggest gripe with the hotel was that they had a deal with Grayline tours to sell excursions and limited access to other tour operators. They seem to try to sell you rental cars etc so if you need a hotel somewhere else and they can't make money on it they will help. But if you are looking for an excursion that they do not have, they probably won't help because they probably want you to take their excursions.
We booked a canopy tour and a horseback riding tour and inquired about rafting. They told us the good rivers were in the other part of the country. The nearby rivers were only level 1 or 2.
The Grayline representative didn't even mention that in a town about 45 minutes away (Canas) there was a place called Rios Tropical Rafting Trip which had good rafting trips down the Coribici river. We did it and had a blast. It was an 8 mile ride down the river with level 1-4 sections. We even had a 12 foot drop which was a blast (we did it twice and I fell in the water twice!).
When we were returning from Playa Del Coco from some shopping we got a fortuitious taxi lift from a tour operator named German Bonilla (337-1536). He was a really nice, honest guy, gave you a lot of information and spent all day with us. He speaks limited English, but since we spoke Spanish it wasn't a problem. If you book him and need English translation, he will have a fluent person ride along.
What really bugged us a guest about the hotel was that if you want to have your representative pick you up for excursion or simple taxi trips, the hotel would not let them in because they wanted you to use Grayline or taxi services that I believe pay the hotel commissions for access. It got to the point that if we had to do it again, we simply would rent a car and hire a guide.
Therefore I would recommend the Condovac La Costa hotel is you are tolerant of imperfection and don't have a huge ego that requires you to have Four Season service. Oh by the way if you happen to be military or retired military, check out [--]. It is a RCI clearinghouse of timeshare and condo inventory for timeshare exchanges set up for military families to get an affordable vacation. You can get rooms for $299 plus tax including Condovac La Costa the week we stayed.

Costa Rica is very expensive for the average person. We had frequent flier tickets and had our hotel exchange. If you rent a car, take excursion with food etc, expect to pay about $300 a day for a family of 4. You can save on this by renting a car, driving to the excursion such as Arenal and Monteverde and cooking meals in your room. The white water rafting trip costs us $90 a person including snack and lunch plus $35 for the CD containing digital pictures. We also had to pay $100 for our tour guide to take us there so it cost us $495 for 4 people to go rafting for 3 hours!

P.S. Do not forget your iron, because they don't have irons or ironing boards in the rooms and they will not lend you one. Also internet access is a bit pricy at $3 an hour. Do your internet access for $1 an hour in Playa Del Coco or other local places.

If you are looking for a resort to hang out in and never leave the property, go somewhere else. Condovac is not the place for you. However, if you just want to have a place to sleep and shower, then it’s okay.

First a couple of cautions:
CAUTION: Under *NO* circumstances should you eat at the restaurant. It is overpriced and disgusting. My wife was almost in tears as the food was served, ½ naked ticos were running around, and the cats were rubbing up against the table. But never fear, we grabbed a six pack of Imperial and hit the beach and the tears soon subsided.

ANOTHER CAUTION: Most places around Playa Hermosa take credit cards (just make sure you call your card and tell them that you are going to be in Costa Rica), but if you do want cash bring it with you from home. The ATMs there are sketchy and rarely work, I tried several ATMs in the area a dozen times and only ever managed to get out $10 total. Condovac offers to cash traveler’s checks without a fee, which they did. AFTER we had made the trek up the HILL for the 6th time (all the other times they would tell us that they didn’t have enough cash – but 10minutes earlier they could’ve helped us out).

Now the good stuff:
We were in Costa Rica for our honeymoon and had an amazing time, even for the week that we were in Condovac, though we did just use it as a place to sleep.

Playa Hermosa is one of the best scuba diving spots on the pacific coast (though don’t go expecting it to be the clear Carribbean, this is the Pacific wer’re talking about – 40 feet visibility at best. But it’s not how far you see in CR, it’s what you see. We swam with five or six 20ft manta’s, a school of fifty or sixty 8ft devil rays, white tip reef sharks, several other large sting rays, Morish Idols, tons of puffers, and a couple of sea horses). We dove with Diving Safaris and they were awesome for the diving, the service, and the restaurant recommendations.

We also took an all day adventure pass with Hacienda Gauchipelin ($70 each) which included the best zip line tour we’d been on, a horseback ride through the jungle, 2 hours of white water intertubing, and a trip to the spa for a volcanic mud bath and hot spring soak. Oh, all that and a decent lunch.

The hike to the waterfalls in El Rincon de la Vieja was strenuous, but spectacular.

Playa Flamingo is an awesome white sand beach that we spent a couple days at. Don’t visit Tamirindo unless you are missing the US, because it’s basically a southern California beach town (our guide book told us not to worry if we were in Tamarindo and started to get sick of the hustle/bustle, because Costa Rica was a few kilometers away – never a truer statement).


The best resturaunts were: Hotel Villa del Sueno ($$$), Ginger ($$$), and El Velero ($$ wed and sat nights are seafood bbq) in Playa Hermosa, Comida Dorado ($ - in Bracilitos). Papagayo was good at the 4-seasons also ($$$$$$$$$$).

The resort itself is old, but clean. As other reviewers have mentioned it is mostly Tico families, who are running up and down the STEEP hill that Condovac sits on. The other views were pretty dead on too when the mentioned the large amount to ‘stray’ cats running around. This is not the place for a secluded romantic getaway.

The rooms are good sized and the AC works well (except for the few times that I think we overworked the poor thing and it started leaking in the middle of the night). The accommodations are sorta like an oversized motel 6, nothing luxurious, but no blood stains on the walls.