I am staying at the Palacio while getting dental work in San Jose. First of all check the price on the Barcelo.com before you book with another web site as they offer up to 15% of the already low price. Also get bed and breakfast rate as the buffet is the best I have ever seen. The ground, staff, pool, room are wonderful. The only problem is it is outside the city a taxi is about $7.00 to get to the city. You can walk a little and take a bus for $.50. Make sure you ask the staff on where to get the bus and the number of the bus. The fitness center is needs work. This hotel would cost about double in any US city.

We stayed here for 3 nights in November 2011 at the beginning of a Caravan Tour of Costa Rica. The staff were pleasant, friendly and helpful. The accommodation was as we expected - great room, large lobby area, cozy lounge where you could get drinks. The food was good and we had lots of choices at the buffet. The hotel is further from city than we expected, but they have a great pool (which is heated) so we spent at lot of time there just relaxing.

First 2 nights of Caravan tour was in San Jose. Good accommodations, nice room, good food and service. An isolated location but we just got on the bus to go anywhere. Nice but small garden area with a path. Can't say enough good things about Caravan but tours aren't a trip advisor category. I"ll just say it was the best value proposition for travel I've ever seen! This tour was 10 days from ocean to ocean and all in between.

We booked in because of their claims of being close to the city center, not. They're sitting out on the highway several miles from downtown. If you don't have a car, you are scrod. I received nothing but attitude from the staff, frustration, and disappoinments. The breakfast buffet is breathtakingly expensive for really bad food. We just looked at the stations, picked over, scattered, scarce, and forlorn, and couldn't believe what we were looking at. I asked one of the waiters about one empty platter for some cheese and they said they would take care of it. No one ever touched it before we left. Do not waste your money here. The room was tired, run down, and we found bed bugs in the sheet!!! We left the next day after a very sleepless night!!!


Never again.