While the lodging is decent, the owners are quite nasty people. When we arrived in the afternoon, they asked if we wanted to eat dinner there. I said yes. When we showed up for dinner, the husband informed us that most of the items on the menu weren't available, and we had to give at least two hours' advance notice for the paella. Why didn't they mention that when we said we'd stay for dinner?

Most of the hotels where we stayed had computers with free Internet access for the guests. Not here. When I asked if I could use a computer to look for lodging for the next night, the wife told me directly, "No." Lousy customer service!

The web site and the brochure stated that the hotel offers free breakfast. What a joke! It's stale bread with disgusting fake butter and a bit of fruit.

Worst of all, when I tried to share my disappointment with the owners, they couldn't care less. With this kind of customer service (or lack of customer service), I'm surprised they're still in business. Stay away!

i am at the hotel at the moment and i am so enjoying staying here
the room has pretty much everything you might need and one thing i love is that there are plug sockets everywhere so you can recharge you cell phone, lap top, camera and i pod at the same time.
the italian restaurant of this hotel is currently out of service.

Having just returned from staying at the Bahia Esmeralda I can honestly warn all travelers not to stay here. With the exception of the room cleaning staff and the groundskeepers. The staff lied to us and treated us rudely. We came to believe this was at the direction of the owner. Our 1st impression was good Juan greeted us and was very helpful. There was a pool table in the "restaurant" and we asked for the sticks so we could play, he went off to get the sticks but after he consulted with the owner we were told that we could not play after 6:00PM because of the noise, on our last night we returned at 8:30 from eating out and a group was playing pool, I asked Juan what had happened to the 6:00PM rule and was told; "Oh they are with the French group" (different rules for different countries??)
The beaches were in fact beautiful, however when we called to ask the distance to the beach prior to booking we where told it was a 2 minute walk, which is true of a beach which is so full of gravel and rocks that it is virtually unswimable. The beautiful beaches where a good 15 minute walk on a hilly, rutted, dusty, dirt and gravel road. Several of us inquired how far was it to the Bahia Del Sol before booking. We came for a family wedding and the rest of our party was staying there. They told us a 10 minute walk. This hotel was in fact at least 2 miles from where we were staying over these same difficult roads.
There were several occasions when the hotel lost water one time for a day and a half. We were told the whole town was out of water and they had to drill a deeper well! It would seem that this must be a known problem that we could of been made aware of prior to our stay. There was no concession made to us for the inconvenience, not even a "we are sorry" no bottled water was offered, no discount to our bill, When we asked for a refund so we could find a more suitable hotel we where told "no". If you do go to this country bring a lot of money, it is very expensive. The food is expensive the taxi's are expensive and if you stay at this hotel you will need to take a lot of taxi's or rent a car because there is nothing anywhere within a nice walking distance. We did have pizza at the hotel the first night we arrived, suggested to us by Juan. The pizza was somewhat like Pizza Hut pizza.

Where to start...we stayed march 6-13th with a large group for a wedding taking place at a hotel down the street. The room I stayed in was a 3 bedroom suite with other members of our party staying in one bedrooms. The rooms were standard. The fridge is old takes a while to cool things. The couches in our room were useless as they weren't comfy to sit or lay on. The rooms were either 2 hot or 2 cold. My rooms air conditioner shut off after every hour then the room would become really hot. The A/C blows right on you when it is on. In another bedroom the A/C dripped water all over the bed soaking the mattress. The hotel only puts paper thin sheets on the bed. No blankets. The water is always being shut off there for entire days at a time. We had to go to a wedding without taking a shower. Our room, number 17, was located in front of some type of farm so farm animals were always walking around and a pack of dogs barked all night long on a number of nights. We did see monkeys in the trees on this farm which was cool. The house keepers were also very good. While sitting on the patio 2 nights, we had the pleasure of being skunked causing the evening to end quite quickly as it was very unpleasant.
Water issues: The hotel gave us one small bottle of water to split amount 12 adults and 2 kids when it went off. Then they charged us double the cost for a bottle of water thoen the store down the street charges.
This place advertises they offer a resturant open in the evening from 6-9. Well they closed early everyday and 95% of the time they didn't have all the ingrediates for the plates they offered so we didn't get to eat much and they weren't very pleasant or understanding about this. They charged $6.00 for a banana and scope of ice cream. You can get breakfast there for $6.00 for a small plate of fruit or 2 eggs with rice and beans but good luck because one day we got eggs with the rice and beans and a fruit plate with a whole banana and the next day they were out of rice and beans and only gave us half a banana tho we were charged full price for half the food.
The owner: A jerk. It appears they don't like americans.
Taxi Service: RENT A CAR. This hotel skims off the top from the taxi drivers. We were overcharged on a number of times which promted us to stop using them. We had to pay $110.00 for a 30 minute trip while people we knew in the hotel down the street paid $25.00 for the same trip. THEY OVERCHARGE. RENT A CAR BEFORE U GET THERE. Then we refused to take their taxi's the owner spoke to other guests in italian about us without knowing my husband understands it. It was nice that one of the guests did state they agreed with us and that it was unfare to be charged that much.
This hotel is located about 20 minutes walking down dirt dusty roads to the beach. A closer beach was unuseable as there were pelicans and wild dogs all over it.
The rooms also do not offer phones so you are forced to use theirs if you need one as cell phones didn't work.
Food: Not the greatest in this town. Nothing special and expensive. Not impressede.
The pool: It was small but clean. a number of lawn chairs were broken.
We did not this this hotel at all. The owner could have tried to help make our stay better but he walked around like he was better then everyone with his nose to the sky. This is a really small town. You need a car to get anywhere. We were not at all impressed. I strongly urge anyone not to travel to this part of costa rica and not to stay at this resort.
I am willing to offer further advice at a_pannarale@yahoo.com.