My husband and I stayed at Punta Islita for the second half of our honeymoon and we loved the resort. We were upgraded to a two bedroom casita with a plunge pool. It was the most beautiful and luxurious space and the plunge pool was awesome b/c we had total privacy. The food at the resort was excellent. The views of the ocean were wonderful. The tour prices were also reasonable. This is an excellent place for romance. However, there was not alot of entertainment going on. Also, the hotel is basically the town, so there is not a night life other than the hotel.

We thought we had a great hotel, and while the staff was very outgoing
and wonderful, and the setting rustic and simple, the reality was startling to say the least.

5:30 am day two of our trip we were awakened to find what appears to have been a hotel employee peeping into the main windows of our casita. He was both sneaky and blatant in his attempt to peek into our
room, and ran off immediately as we saw him and verbally challenged him. This is a remote hotel, there was no one from the hotel available
including security at that time of the morning (I both phoned the main
line and went up to the main lodge), and had the motive been robbery, rape, or other we don't know. We were shocked, angry, and very upset to have our privacy invaded so deeply.

The manager listened in the am (7am) and expressed adequate concern, and profusely claimed an inquiry immediately, with employee pictures (We could have easily identified the man). We checked out immediately and scrambled to find another hotel for the remaining 5 days of our costa rica trip.

Unfortunately we have yet to hear back from the hotel management. They
treated us respectfully, but the follow through on this incident is disappointing. Beware of this hotel, it is ripe for many different kinds of crime due to it's remote setting.

We spent the thanksgiving weekend at hotel punta islita and we loved everything about the hotel, the location, the seclusion, the staff, the beach, the spa. We were lucky to be upgraded to a 2 bedroom villa with a private pool and amazing views of the ocean and felt really priviledged to be surrounded by so much beauty.
Getting to Islita was part of the adventure, we came down the coast from Nosara and crossed Rio Ora with relative ease, but while we crossed it a car got stuck right in the middle. I advise the travelers to rent a sturdy, four wheel drive car, especially if planning of going further south (e.g. we went from Islita all the way to Malpais crossing numerous rivers, including the Bongo, which was more challanging than Ora, but the experience was most rewarding as the real costa rica is not in islita or malpais, but in between...).
The only negatives were the restaurant (inbalanced pricing-$3 for an expresso and $35 for a huge lobster?)which served relatively bland food and we were quite dissapointed with the turtle tour, but we might have simply been unlucky.
If travelling in the dry season we strongly recommend driving south: playa bejuco, san miguel and coyote are simply amazing and so is playa carillo, further north.
and did I mention the spa?

We splashed out here for the last two nights of our hols and it was so worth it! Not only because we were lucky enough to get a free upgrade!

The resort is beautiful and the staff really are sooo friendly all the time. Our ‘honeymoon suite’ included a private Jacuzzi in the garden! Still we spent most our time next to the infinity pool near the 1492 restaurant. By the way the food at the restaurant is very good and better value than you might expect for a restaurant at an exclusive resort with few other dining options.

The hotel is very strong on its links to the community though we didn’t get time to look at all the projects its put in place.

There is quite a large spa at the resort, which is beautiful with views across the mountains.

Only downside is that its hard to get to, even with your own wheels, its almost probably most convenient to fly there from san jose! Nature Air provided us with cheap flights for $40 and the hotel can arrange transfers to the airport for about $7.50. Getting there from nearby places on the coast was more tricky – a taxi from Samara was $60 (even though on tripadvisor it lists it as beingin Samara it isnt)! Still if you want to splash out this place is great and we had a very memorable time.