My wife and I spent 9 nights on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica in early October 2007. The first 7 nights were in Cahuita at the Atlantida Lodge (fantastic experience. See review under Atlantida Lodge in Cahuita). Our next two nights (October 7 and 8, 2007) were at La Perla Negra Beach Resort outside of Puerto Viejo de Limon. I had previously stayed at La Perla Negra Beach Resort in February of 2006 (my earlier 2006 review is posted on TripAdvisor).

I was especially interested to see what was going on at La Perla Negra Beach Resort, given that it had dropped to number 25 of 27 properties in Puerto Viejo on TripAdvisor, primarily as the result of an extremely poor review in August of 2007 by someone claiming to be a United Nations affiliated group that experienced racism when trying to get a room (although it appears as though they never actually stayed at the property).

First of all, as coincidence has it, La Perla Negra Beach Resort is under new management as of September 2007 (but not new ownership). Suzanne, an American who speaks English and Spanish and has been in Costa Rica for a couple of years, is the new manager. She is very nice and wanting to ensure that her guests have a good experience. Secondly, there are two lodging choices at La Perla Negra Beach Resort: regular rooms in the now 14 year old original hotel (approximately $45 USD per night for a double) or one bedroom, two level condos in the 2 year old condo development in the back of the property (approximately $100 USD per night).

Although my wife and I had booked a regular double room at $45 per night, Suzanne up-sold us on a $100 per night condo, with beautiful tile floors, two and a half washrooms, kitchen, air conditioner, and King size bed in the upstair master bedroon (strangely enough, it also had four single beds crammed into the downstairs livingroom, with a sofa in the front kitchen area). Like many Costa Rican properties, La Perla Negra Beach Resort does not have King beds in its regular rooms, so in order to get a King size bed, we had to upgrade. And yes, my wife wanted a King bed, especially in a room with an air conditioner (temperatures in Puerto Viejo average around 90 farenheit/32 celsius in October). The regular rooms do not have air conditioners or fridges.

Pros:

1. Located approximately two and a half kilometers north of Puerto Viejo, 20 meters (66 feet) from the Caribbean Sea and a gorgeous beach, it has a good location. You can walk along the beach all the way to town in about 30 minutes.

2. Suzanne and the other employees are very nice people.

3. No telephone or television in the rooms (you are not on vacation to watch tv).

4. One of the nicer looking properties in the Puerto Viejo area.

Cons:

1. Small fresh water pool (15 meters by 5 meters in size).

2. Our room had a smell of RAID insect repellant that never went away. We had ants marching through the room, a dead crab in the sink, a resident mouse and multiple lizards on the walls (they're okay and found everywhere in the area...friendly little guys).

3. Our room had the thinnest, without sound-proofing, walls you can imagine. We could hear everything in the rooms on either side of us, and I mean everything! Very poor construction that resulted in a very poor sleep for my wife and I both nights.

4. Toilet in the condo beside us broke down on the second night we were there, resulting in the lower level of our unit being flooded. Not nice. Also, although the unit had two small showers in the washrooms, there was no bathtub, which my wife found especially troubling in a new condo development (regular rooms do not have bathtubs either).

5. Multiple power outages (problem with the entire area, not just La Perla Negra Beach Resort) and our air conditioner broke down and did not work on night two.

6. Does not take credit cards. You have to pre-pay for your room, in cash, when you arrive.

Conclusion:

Warning: Puerto Viejo de Limon is a dirty little town, over-run by ganster wannabes and other undesireables. Although it has some very nice residents and legit business people trying to make an honest living, the town is very much like an 1870's wild, wild, west town from the American frontier era. Little to no police presence and a very "unsafe" feeling after dark.

I remain of the view that La Perla Negra Beach Resort is one of the better hotel options in the Puerto Viejo de Limon area, but that is not saying much, given the general state of disrepair of hotel properties in the area. If you are planning a trip to the area, do your homework first and ensure that you bring your e-mail confirmation, including price agreed to, with you.

I'm actually the agent who booked the travel. We are a non-profit agency working just down the street from this hotel. We had heard awful things about this place, but wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. We had a VIP and his family from the United Nations coming to town and our own hotel was booked. So we called and tried to book a room at this place. The German manager actually hung up on us during the call we placed to book the room. We didn't take it personally, thinking maybe he had an emergency or something and had to go really fast. When we showed up -- big surprise -- they didn't have our reservation and made a big deal about it in front of our VIP clients.

Not only were they rude to us, lied to us, changed the rate on us three times, but they also accused us of lying about being a non-profit and a travel agency so we could get a cheaper rate. I finally figured out at the end that they were doing so because our clients, the United Nations folks, who were from Uganda, were people of color.

Mind you, we're not only their neighbors of only maybe 500 meters away, but we are a non-profit foundation that not only works with the poor in their community, but also cleans the beach in front of their hotel. We thought they would actually be glad we were sending clients to them. Instead we were embarrassed and shocked. And we will certainly never send anyone there again.