My family loved our visit to Barcelo Tambor in May 2011 and we're a 30something couple with 12-year-old and 7-year-old boys.

Exquisite location on the beach with spacious pools and decent rooms. Centrally located to access zip lining, off -roading, and surf paradise Mal Pais.

But you never need to leave because everything is here: butterfly gardens, horse riding on the beach, tennis, pool, hot tub, and spa. Grounds are well maintained and cafeteria food was decent and varied. You can opt to pay for 4-star dining, but we were on a budget.

Barcelo.com photos of rooms and facilities are accurate. The primary guests of this resort are Spanish-speaking locals; if you don't have a superior English-speaking attitude you'll be fine.

Though Excellent for an all-inclusive hotel on a budget (6 nights with R/T airfare from LAX for $600 per person), this hotel is 4 stars based on Staff courtesy, room size, smoking, and kids activities.

My wife and I spent 3 nights at Tambor, I've been there before and have to say that the place has improved a lot since the new management took over last year. Great food, the room was dry clean and very secured, we left our IPhones, iPad and even money without problems. The gardens are beautiful, the sushi bar was very nice and had some good sushi options as well as the steakhouse. I recommend hiring the shuttle service with Barcelo as they don have to wait in the line for the ferry. His general manager, Raul Aranzs definitely cares about the customer experience and is very approachable if there's anything you need to bring up while in Tambor. 100% recomended.

I was recently in Costa Rica looking for a place to have my destination wedding. I hadn't planned on looking at Barcelo, but there was a problem with our hotels.com reservation at a different hotel, so they rebooked us at the nearby Barcelo Tambor. I was excited to stay there because although I didn't have time to check it out on my trip, it was an all inclusive resort with decent reviews, so i thought that maybe it might be worth it.

The room:
Bed was okay-they gave tons of pillows, but none of them were particularly comfy for me. There was a fruit tray and opened bottled of wine in the room when we got there. We weren't sure if it was for us or leftover from a previous guest because 1) the wine was open and 2) the fruit tray looked all old. The phone did not work at all. The shower head in the bathroom weighed so much that it would tip down and spray the wall or the curtain, but not in a way that you could get wet. You have to hold it the entire time, and the water pressure is horrible. It took like four hundred years to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.

Service:
Mediocre at best

Food:
Snack bar was okay. Buffet was terrible. flies everywhere, lack of choices in food, food was weird. I am an American who has lived in costa rica for many years, and the american food was yuck and so was the costa rican food. very salty. Lack of options for non-alcoholic drinks. The sushi place was actually pretty good, but I didn't expect much from it. You have to pay extra for it though.

The Beach:
HORRIBLE! It was covered in softball sized rocks that looked as if they had been placed there on purpose, and they hurt your feet like crazy. Then, when we were finally able to hobble out to the water, which had good waves, the water was full of wood. It was as if someone had dumped a truckload of mulch into a swimming pool. I was rinsing wood out of my everywhere in the shower for ever afterwards.

There was a lot of stuff to do, but the staff wasn't helpful at all. There was a live band/music/activities until LATE at night. I asked the receptionist how long the music would last because it was so loud in our room we couldn't even talk to each other (and our room was FAR from the main area) and she told me no later than 8 pm, but at midnight we could still feel the base vibrating our bed.

Everything needed a good scrubbing....looked dirty.

The place was packed, couldn´t get a single chair/ lounge at the pool. Long lines for eating. Food was TERRIBLE!!
The walls between rooms are paper thin, could hear everything neighbors spoke, even follow entire TV program. Woke up with their alarm!
Service at front desk was bad. Had a problem opening our room and had to wait more than 1 hour to get into our room.