The Marriott Los Suenos is one of the most unforgettable places I have ever stayed at.
Beautiful views, spectacular service and the nicest people are what makes this place OUTSTANDING! We stayed here for two PERFECT nights and will most definitely return!

We drove all over Costa Rica and had a lovely time doing it. Eat at the SODAS and leave the hotel food to others. You will NOT be sorry and neither will your wallet.

We visited Playa Blanca a beautiful, hidden beach that was the highlight of our time in the Pacific.

We also visited Arenal and the waterfall in La Fortuna..STUNNING! Villas Vilma in La Fortuna was a sweet surprise.

This is an absolute beautiful hotel. The grounds are perfect, the staff is extremely friendly, the food was excellent. I can't say enough.

My family of four (two adults, two small children) had a premium ocean view room with breakfast included. The room was perfect and the entire setting was quiet/serene.

I've read in some posts that the food is expensive, but it isn't in my view. I live in Kansas City, Mo. (a relatively inexpensive city) and the food was slightly less at Los Suenos. BUT, here's the kicker. HUGE PORTIONS. At the poolside restaurant, we orered one item for two people and shared, and this worked perfectly. The orders were from $3 for kids meals to $8 for fresh fish sandwiches (not processed).

The beach is bad, with a lot of trash. This is one point I don't understand. Though the beach is public and not owned by Marriott, it would be well worth their while to rake it every morning. They had many grounds crews out every morning on the Marriott grounds; they should send a few of them to rake trask from the beach. Still, we found a clean area (few rocks), played on the beach and had a blast, as were others.

The pool is a series of canals that goes under bridges and by waterfalls. Spectacular.

We also felt very safe here, as there are numerous guards walking the perimeter (which is a little disconcerting).

The town of Herradura is dirty and poor. It sounds like it used to be nice, but development has attracted many to support the hotels and the tourism infrastructure. There is a nice grocery store off the Inter-American Highway at the intersection leading to Los Suenos. Buy beers, snacks and drinks there and you'll save a lot of money. (Again, they had about three armed guards walking around the store).

Costa Rica Safety and Environment: We were last in Costa Rica eight years ago, and it has changed. The people don't seem as friendly (they're probably tired of tourists and the great divide of wealth between them and tourists), the locals don't seem as happy and healthy as they were, the crime seems far worse, and the pollution is really bad. Last time, the country was beautiful with just pockets of trash. Now, there was garbage everywhere, Jaco has become really developed and much dirtier, and we just didn't feel as safe on the roads (though this didn't stop us from driving). There are also tourists everywhere, even in the low season. Last time, we were the only ones around, it seemed. It's still a beautiful country, but I have a lot opf concerns about its future. It seems to be selling out for tourism and not reinvensting our $26 per-person exit tax for upkeep.

Marriott Service: Awesome! Everyone was so friendly. They provided fresh fruit and candy every night. Room service filled up our ice container if we had drinks sitting in there.

This is a truly incredible, beautiful place, and it seemed like people were having a great time. It's very laid back and quiet and upscale, but a terrific value.

The good points: The room was clean and up to par for Marriott standards. The bed, chair, TV, desk, lamps, ceiling fan, and huge bathroom were all in working order. The floor was ceramic tile and had two straw mats on both sides of the extremely comfortable king bed. The room had a balcony, but a sign on the glass door warned guests to “keep this door closed.” We opened it for a few seconds anyway, which wasn’t a good idea. We didn’t want the humidity and insects to enter the room. However, it might be tough for the poor insects to survive because housekeeping gave the room a strong insect spray prior to guest arrival. In fact, we asked to see another room just to make sure other rooms also had the strong smell of insect repellant. Oh boy, maybe we shouldn’t have told housekeeping we didn’t like the smell. They later came in and used another chemical to cover up the insect smell. I guess they solved the problem.

If you stay at this property you will eat in the restaurants. What else are you going to do for dinner? Pet the monkeys as you walk through pitch darkness to the marina, which indeed had three nice restaurants?

Now the not so good points: The front desk staff didn’t really go out of the way to do anything. As a Marriott Platinum guest, they forgot to send the Platinum gift. After asking twice, I decided not to bother them again about sending the half bottle of wine and mixed nuts. The front desk supervisor made a slow decision to “comp” us two glasses of wine at the hotel restaurant instead of the Platinum gift. By the way, we got one free glass even though the half bottle is about two glasses. I just let it go. This was a vacation trip.

The hotel has a nice pool. But, forget about trying to swim laps. This is the type of pool where you’d get and wade around as if you’re in a huge fountain. In fact, the swimming pool is a cross between a fountain and water park. They nickel and dime for some items I think should have been free. For example, we paid $10 to rent a float for the pool. We also paid $10 an hour for tennis court lights to play at night.

The property looks out into a beach. The sand looked like dirt. Don’t stay here for the beach.

I just returned from Los Suenos Resort, the property is beautiful but other than fishing and a very small casino there is not much to do on the property. Had a bit of a problem understanding the money exchange, depending on who you spoke to that day it constantly changed. I'm glad I went but don't think I will return. However the staff could not have been better. We stayed in one of the condos and the service was excellent.