La Perla Negra is a very well kept and very clean resort that is about 3 km from the small town of Puerto Veijo. The resort is right on the Caribbean Ocean and is nestled, comfortably, in the lush jungles of Southern Costa Rica. La Perla Negra is not a place to go if you are looking for the college spring break crowd. It is more for those who would like to get away to a nice quiet sanctuary and relax. The beach is gorgeous and you will have it mostly to yourself. I never saw more than 10 people for as far as my eyes could see. The rooms are neat and clean. The floors are made of hardwood and each room has a deck and as well as a private bath and shower.

The town of Cahuita is about 12 km away and has everything that you would need for a long vacation. The town of Puerto Veijo which is about 3 km away has a nice variety of grocery stores, eating establishments, and for those who like to have a good time, they have plenty of nightclubs. They even have a bank and multiple gift shops. Each town has a medical clinic and a pharmacy which dispense medications, many without a prescription.

The people at the resort were friendly and very helpful. Everyone for the management to the cleaning ladies are super friendly.

Things to see in the area include a sloth conservatory, very neat, Cahuita National Park, which provides you with a beautiful hike through the jungle. Along the way, you will have monkeys come up and greet you. You will see sloth's and tucans and a whole variety of animals. There is also a chocolate factory that offers tours, and a park where you can ride a zip line through the tree tops.

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at La Perla Negra and forget what you read about any negative reviews for this facility. La Perla Negra is simply a beautiful place to relax in paradise.

The only warning that I have for you is that if you rent a car beware of the cost of the mandatory insurance that the government requires you to purchase. I was not informed of this cost until I turned my car back into the leasing facility. The cost of the mandatory insurance is twice what it cost me to rent the car itself and NO your insurance will not work.

The second warning is that their is a check point between Puerto Veijo and Cahuita. This check point is to simply check your passport to make sure that you are not coming in from Panama illegally. Panama is about 40 minutes away.
The warning here is that the police will shake you down for cigarettes, food, drink, or whatever. I was stopped and given a list of items that I was to purchase in order for me to get back to my hotel room. I, of coursed purchased the items as I did not want trouble with men who were toting M-16's and telling me that if I did as they say that I would get through the checkpoint with no problems.

Other than these two issues the stay was calming and peaceful. Do not be fearful of travelling to Costa Rica. I felt safe during my entire stay and I drove everywhere on the east side of the country. I feel more endangered when I go to Houston than I did when I was in Costa Rica.

La Perla Negra is a must place to stay and you will not regret your choice.

Jscottpa

Just what the doctor ordered. We spent sixteen days in Costa Rica over Christmas vacation and all of them fabulous. After a night or two in San Jose we drove to La Perla Negra. If your just looking for a place to relax, you can't do better. We walked on the beach, went diving, saw monkeys, shoped in town etc. Puerto Viejo is no better or worse than other small towns and we found an early morning walk on the beach to town enjoyable. The hotel staff was excellent and the atmosphere very relaxed and friendly. We didn't understand the showers till the second day but if you run them slow they stay hot. the pool was rarely used so it's perfect for a dip or light exersize. The horses on the beach and the sunrises were also highlights. It's nothing like Cancun, Mazatlan or other tourist destinations, thank heavens! But we wouldn't have traded the experiece for anything. For the price it is an amazing deal.

My wife and I selected La Perla Negra because they were one of the few places that would allow us to bring our dog. But we ended up being very happy with the hotel and especially the hospitality and will almost certainly stay here again on our next trip to Puerto Viejo.

The rooms are not fancy and the shower water was pretty cold, but the folks who run the place and work here are incredibly accomodating and helpful, and they speak english. But the best thing about this hotel is the location. It is about a 4 minute drive or 20 minute walk to Puerto Viejo... close enough to go to town easily anytime, but far enough away to be on a different section of beach. The beach here, which is less than 50 meters away from the hotel (we could hear the waves crashing from our room), is solitary, desolute, clean and absolutely beautiful. Trust me, this is the best beach in the area! You will have it completely to yourself.

My husband and I spent two nights at La Perla Negra Beach Resort in Puerto Viejo de Limon, Costa Rica, in early October 2007. While the weather was great, the hotel itself was average and the town of Puerto Viejo de Limon, located about 2.5 kilometers away, was a dump. Lots of ganster wannabes and poverty. Don't get me wrong, there are nice, honest people in the area, but with little if any police presence and no infastructure in the area (seems like the country of Costa Rica has left the Caribbean Coast to rot), this is no place for a woman or children to be hanging out alone.

Okay, La Perla Negra Beach Resort looks as nice as any property in the area. The new American hotel manager, a woman named Suzanne, is genuinely nice and friendly, but the yin and yang of the place just is not right. But then, I found the entire Puerto Viejo area to be lacking, so when the toilet in the room beside ours backed up and flooded our room, it just seemed par for the course.

We upgraded from the $45 USD per night room we had initially booked to a $100 USD per night, two year old condo, because we wanted a king size bed and air conditioning. The condo, we discovered to our dismay, had no sound proofing (you could literally hear everything in the rooms beside us), two and a half bathrooms (but no bathtub, only two very small showers), beautiful tiled floors, very little lighting (strangely, there were next to no windows, instead of the floor to ceiling windows one would expect, and no sky lights), pillows that were the worst I have ever experienced at any hotel/motel in my life, and a smell of insect repellant that just refused to go away. The one nice thing was that the condo had a king size bed and air conditioner (which worked only part of the time) in the master bedroom.

I cannot recommend La Perla Negra Beach Resort, because I would not recommend anyone spend time in Puerto Viejo de Limon. Instead, stay 18 kilometers north, in the quaint town of Cahuita, for a genuine Costa Rican Caribbean experience.