My son and his girlfriend and I recently spent 2 weeks at the Los Suenos Resort which is only a 15 minute drive from the Villa Caletas. It was recommended to us that this was a must on our to-do list. We visited the restaurant for lunch on December 23 and were not disappointed. The scenery was breathtaking, the food was excellent and reasonably priced in comparison to anywhere else we had eaten (Los Suenos, Tamarindo, Jaco, etc), and the service was good. I cannot comment on the resort itself as we only experienced the restaurant but the grounds were beautifully maintained and very clean. The drive up to the Resort off the Highway was an experience in itself and well worth it.

We stayed here over Christmas period 2012.

Highlights
Great views over the coastline, sunset every evening is truly amazing and local wildlife you can see is great from birds of prey, iguanas to hummingbirds and toucans.

Hotel is clean and well looked after and all of the staff are very pleasant

What you need to know

Staff level of English is very poor - given 90% of business comes from English speaking guests the management need to address.

Our package included breakfast however, when you ask for a latte this is apparently extra, we then found out that if you ask for any of the smoothies these are also extra ! On our last day I asked for pancakes and guess what this was also extra!! What they don't tell you is that you have a $15 limit per person on the menu after which they charge for everything - carving out the drinks mentioned above which are extra regardless. Basically there is no need for this and simply upsets the guests for the sake of a few "Colones"

Actual quality of food by western standards is average nothing bad but nothing great either

Spa staff are very nice and mean well but again you get a very average service

As a UK traveller maybe it is a common American thing but in our bathroom they put a jacuzzi unit - we are not talking a nice bath with jacuzzi but a garden centre unit which not only was out of place but complete waste of space given you need to set it up for an hour before and get interrupted every day for half an our by a guy coming to industrial clean - maybe it is a matter of taste.

Which kind of summarises Villa Caletas - it is a good 4 star hotel - they try hard, mean well but ultimately fall short.

This place has a stunning view overlooking the Pacific Ocean with their very pricey cocktails going on sale for $5 USD for the sunset. The hotel is beautiful and the scenery is amazing. It is totally worth the cab ride from Jaco and the overpriced drinks to see this view.

The food was very good, but also very expensive, and the service was just good, for the the prices I would expect more.

My recommendation is to go for the sunset and cocktails and go somewhere else for dinner.

Pros - great view, decent service, wildlife around u (we saw a few iguanas, monkeys, sloths & birds).

Cons - remote location (10 km from Jaco, on the top of a hill), overly priced food & drinks, private beach is not really a beach (rocky) & requires a 15 min ride down the hill.

So we stayed there from Dec 12 - 15, booked our stay through hotels.com. BEWARE hotels.com bookers - we were given a 2 single-bed room with the worst possible view (looking at a couple of trees and a wall), and the front desk would not apologize or change our room. So they ended up pulling the 2 beds together to make a king sized bed! They wanted $75 a night for an upgrade to a good room with a decent view, which I wish I had known in the first place.

We were in shock that night looking at their food menu - USD $16 for a chick quesadilla! Overly priced, but tasty though.

I am giving them three staffs only because of the wildlife and staff (/excluding the front desk). Would not stay here again.