My family spent a week at Villas Tranquilas. We had been planning a trip to Costa Rica for about 7 years. This was our first vacation with our three children ages 10, 7 & 5 years old. We knew the family would be best suited in a villa/home style accomodation. The Villas exceeded our expectations in more ways than one.

First of all we want to give a huge thank you to all of the staff there. Diego and Maria were extremely hospitable. There was nothing we asked for that was out of reach. They made us feel welcome and right at home. So much so that I considered selling off all our belongings back home and having family send us the money for a permenant stay!

The villa itself was nearly pefect. The closets had ample space for all of our belongings. The safe was functional. The bathrooms were in perfect order with clean ammenities. The grounds were immaculate. The pool was always warm and clean. They even have grocery delivery service for those who choose not to venture outside of the villas.

The maid service was exceptional. The villa was always in mint condition when we arrived in the afternoons and you can choose what time you want the maid to arrive each day. She even does your dishes which I found to be a huge bonus! Who wants to do the dishes on vacation?

The night guard, Carlos doesn't speak any english but we knew enough spanish to get along swimmingly with him! He is so funny and personable and was always smiling! My kids loved him! He made us feel very safe there. In fact I can't say I feel any safer at home than I did in Costa Rica.

They were always willing to help with information when we were looking for a restaurant or grocery store or private beach. Always had clean towels on hand for the pool or take to the beach.

The villas are about 5 minutes outside of the actual town. It's best to have a rental car if you are staying here. I however loved waking up to the birds and monkeys in the trees that surround the units. We really liked being off the beaten path a little and it's so close to town it didn't feel inconvenient. But it is not close enough to walk.

Quepos is a buzzing little town full of hidden treasures. The have a fantastic pizza restaurant up the hill, a cheap supermarket and if you fall ill to anything go to the pharmacia and ask for Monica. She is fluent in English and super helpful!

The beach at Manuel Antonio was breathtakingly beautiful but also the busiest beach we went to. You can pay folks there to watch your car and there is a company there called Mary's Rentals, which consists of a brother and sister partnership where you can pay a small fee for beach chairs, umbrellas, sand toys, boogie boards, drinks and snacks etc... they also will watch your stuff while you play in the surf. We paid about $20 for all of the above for the entire afternoon to play freely without worry.

The only con's I have about the villa is that the beds could be a little softer. They were comfortable but a bit on the firm side. Some people like that though. Personally I like mine real fluffy =)

And there is only air conditioning in the bedrooms upstairs. Now with the ceiling fan on downstairs or with the windows and slider door open in the evenings it was comfortable downstairs but when you are cooking dinner and breakfast over the stove it gets uncomfortably hot. I do wish we had some sort of air conditioning durning those times.

All in all this was the most beautiful country I've laid eyes on thus far. We will be back, possibly for good next time!

Thank you everyone who made our trip the best ever!

We we're there for a month for a month in february 2010. The staff was so eager to please us and make our stay unforgettable and even help us with our spanish . The villa was super , the ranchero(pool and deck) was always clean and peacefull. Maria and Diego were always helpfull in panning our stay.The ground are clean and the monkeys and hummingbirds are always insight.
We are going back for 2 months next year.

Our family (mom, dad, 2 young kids) spent 4 weeks at Villas Tranquilas. The purpose of our trip was to immerse our family in the Costa Rican culture by enrolling our kids in elementary school and trying as much as we could to live as the locals. I can't say enough about how great our stay was. It was perfect! We'll be going back next year. I'll start by addressing the items that I was worried about before our arrival.

Comfort/Cleanliness: The air-conditioning and fans kept both floors of our villa comfortably cool throughout the day. The showers had hot water and good pressure. The beds were comfortable, closets were spacious, kitchen had all the basics you would need for a 1 month stay. I'm very sensitive to mosquito bites and don't like bugs in general so I'm pretty tough with my opinion on whether a place is has a pest problem - we had a couple non-scary spiders, a couple cute geckos, no mosquitoes got in (we were disciplines about keeping the doors closed), and didn't see a single cockroach. The place/towels/sheets were clean and well-maintained.

Location/Convenience: The villas are conveniently located off a main/paved freeway, near a brand new large grocery store, 5 minutes driving distance from the center of the town of Quepos, 10 minutes drive from Manuel Antonio beach. It's in a quiet and peaceful location. I would strongly suggest renting a car. If you don't want to rent a car, a cab drive to the middle of Manuel Antonio is around $10. There are grocery stores and restaurants that deliver. You could walk to a bus stop, but it would take about 15 minutes and you'd be walking along a a busy road (there are other pedestrians that on this road). Many excursion tours will pick you up at the Villas.

Safety: We had nothing stolen, no intruders, and no scary animals. Actually, as would be expected in a clearing of the jungle, there was one snake in our outdoor closet. Luckily, our housekeeper monitored everything and, upon finding the snake, made sure it was quickly and safely removed. There is 24 hour supervision by very friendly security guards. Our daytime security person was English speaking and very resourceful in terms of helping us set up weekend excursions. Our night-time security people were really personable and always made us feel safe. They constantly walked the grounds to make sure that we had no intruders. There is a lock box in each Villa. Even though it was recommended to us to not keep any shoes/clothes outside, we sometimes did... and nobody took anything.

Health: The Villas is 5 minutes driving distance from the Quepos hospital and 5 minutes driving distance from a smaller/boutique 24 hour clinic. There are multiple pharmacies in Quepos and we especially liked Farmacia Economia near the main bus stop.

The people: The people who own and run the Villas Tranquilas really are the heart of what makes this place amazing. Maria, the main concierge is a wealth of information, trustworthy, and just plain real. It is refreshing to be in a place run by Costa Ricans who know and love their country and culture. Maria and Diego are both fully bilingual English/Spanish but we insisted they only speak in Spanish with us. Despite our slow/broken Spanish, they complied and helped us with our Spanish. Maria's sister, Raquel and her husband Roberto were also awesome! We were fortunate enough to stay there at the same time as one of the Villa owners. Each villa is owned by an individual or family and they all know each other. They seem like a great group of people who really care about creating a good experience for their guests. They seem to care more about giving back to the Costa Rican community and creating a good experience than being in it to make a profit.

The facilities: The grounds are beautiful. It's manicured but very natural. There are animals on the complex (monkeys, frogs, geckos, beautiful birds). The driveway is not paved but the potholes are maintained and you drive less than 1 minute on a dirt road to get to your villa. The two pools are clean and the temperature of the water is perfect (I don't like cold pools). There's a central meeting area with outdoor tables for outdoor eating. There's a large grass area for kids to run around on. Wifi and phone were available in each unit and satisfactory. The villa - you might want to know that each unit has 2 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms with walk in showers, 1 bathroom has 2 sinks. The kitchen has a medium sized fridge/freezer, an electric cooktop, oven, double sink, dishwasher, coffee maker, toaster, blender, microwave and plenty of storage space. The closets are large. The whole unit is tiled. There is cable tv and DVD players. I'm not sure why, but our ipad 2 had trouble getting on the wifi. We had a mac and our friend had a PC, both had no problems getting on the wifi. Each unit has 2 sliding/lockable/screened glass doors. The windows have shades that let the light in as soon as the sun comes up. You can hear the animals (crickets, frogs, birds) through the glass doors (it's so cool!). We were there 1 month and had one water outage (the whole town had an outage due to the town's main supply doing maintenance) but the Villas Tranquilas had their own back up. We had one power outage due to a monkey getting electrocuted. The outage lasted a couple hours.

With complete honesty and openness, I give this place 5 stars!!

Beautiful proprety, amazing staff, exactly what we thought it would be.
We had a 2 bedroom unit, with 2 bathrooms. We enjoyed the freedom to shop in town and make our food or go out to eat. Very quiet and relaxing place, a few minutes drive from Quepos and about 15 minutes to Manuel Antonio. I cannot say enough how friendly the staff was: willing to let me practice my Spanish on them, answering all my questions, and the coordinator ( Maria) was simply the best. She made us feel right at home.