I'm not sure why the person who wrote the "Couldn't make a Reservation to stay, because no one spoke English" review expected English in a Spanish speaking country. That should not have, in my opinion, tainted the review. Especially since the Tambor area is not a common tourist area.
At any rate, we encountered much the same, lots of Spanish, very little English, but expected it and had a dictionary with us. The staff was incredible. They went out of their way to make sure things were good for us.
We came to this hotel after a bad experience at the Tropico Latino in Mal Pais. Our first room was very nice, clean, colorful and had a t.v. and phone. It also had a small kitchen and refrigerator. Great to keep water cold! We had one small problem with the inline shower heater not working. They immediately relocated us to another room.
The new room was equally as nice. It was very clean again, colorful and had the t.v. and phone. The beds were comfortable...a bit firm for me, but still nice.
The pool was clean and nice. The restaurant was beautiful. The food was ok, but we found that to be the case in a lot of hotels...they seem to try to aim to the American palate but miss simply because seasonings and the such are different in Costa Rica. The breakfast each morning was nice and came with your stay. You could choose the Typical Tican breakfast or American breakfast. The fruit was fresh, the juice was fresh, everything was good.
Downsides: The inline shower heaters don't really heat the water so much as take the edge off. This really isn't a big deal because its 95-100 degrees F each day so the tepid shower feels good. The air conditioner wasn't super effecient, but did a good enough job to sleep comfortably. We were in the front of the building so traffic noise was a bit of an issue, but we're all pretty hard sleepers so it was not a deal breaker for us. Other than that, the hotel was very quiet.
The beach was nice. There were several excellent restaurants nearby. I'd recommend eating at the small restaurant 1/2 a Km down the road heading toward the airport, its on the left. The food was fantastic. Another great restaurant is at the Tambor Tropical hotel. Both were extremely affordable and delicious.
The beach is not too far away. Its a nice beach with some shade. The water is incredibly warm. The hotel gave us beach towels on request.
When we flew out of Tambor a few days later, one of the hotel employees was at the airstrip (he worked for Nature Air, we were flying Sansa). He saw us, recognized us, and came over to help us haul all of our luggage over to the waiting area. I felt this was above and beyond!
We had a wonderful experience at the Costa Coral!
