We were told the hotel was recently bought by an American. There is alot of work being done on the inside. It seems when it's finished the place will look pretty nice. The room was nice enough; safe, tv (cable), nice bathroom w/ blow dryer, hot! water, telephone. Staff was great! Internet is available in the rooms and once signed on it was much faster than I expected. Area fine to walk in day, near stores and flea market. Flea market place to buy souveniiers, not not airport or fancy stores.

Not a bad place to stay if you're only staying a night or two as we did at the beginning and end of your stay in Costa Rica. Rooms were dated, but spacious and clean (well, the first room we had was anyway! - the second had a really thick layer of dust and lots of cobwebs around the curtain tracks, but I guess it's a little hard to keep on top of things in a dusty city?). Was first a little put off by the iron gate across the doorway, but at night realised this was for our safety which was a good thing. Breakfast was buffet style and filling. Internet access was really slow and the lighting in the internet area at night is terrible - make sure you use during the day! Staff were nice enough.

We were extremely disappointed in this hotel, which we felt was way overpriced for what it offered. Our simple room was adequate in size, with two good size beds, and had a safe (a real plus) BUT the kitchen (for which we had paid extra) had no pots and pans so was of little use. (There was a microwave but , when we arrived late in the evening, we had no microwavable food with us or appropriate containers.) There was a bathroom with the room but the large cockroach which crawled towards my daughter when she opened the bathroom door was something of a negative. The included breakfast (which was a no frills "dorm-style" buffet) in a pleasant dining area with a nice array of tables was stated to be until 10 a.m. but, when we came down at 9:15 a.m., there were only the last
vestiges of some scrambled eggs, rice and fried bananas so we just had cereal, toast and juice. Around 9:35 a.m., some more rice was brought out but no more eggs appeared and no-one came to see how we were doing or to offer us anything.

The hotel is about 10 minutes walk into town - a pleasant, slightly hilly, walk but not one that we would want to do after dark.

We would not return to this hotel and, in fact, we cancelled the reservation which we had made for the end of our Costa Rica trip and, instead, had a delightful experience in a lovely, more centrally located, hotel for about the same price that we would have spent at the Amistad.

The beds weren't comfy, but the room was reasonably clean. The breakfast was exactly the same every day, and the staff appeared to know very little about getting around Costa Rica to the touristy places like Arenal or Monteverde. They also appeared to know very little about places that were nearby like places to eat, dance or set-up tours. On the up hand, it was just a few blocks from the city center, and our room had air conditioning.