My husband and I stayed at the Resort Barcelo at Tambor Beach in Costa Rica for our honey moon, the place is beautiful, very green and lush. it has a cool nature park built in with various types of animals. The people are a little on the slow side, like Southern hospitality slow and all are very young.
The problem began with Breakfast, they served rice and beans, face plastic cheese cubes, uncooked omelets and fried eggs and whatever was left over from the night or even days before. The snack bar...I saw the gloveless young teenager pick up raw "hamburger Meat" then place it on the grill, wipe his sweaty forehead, then grab the hamburger buns, uncooked cheese, and whatever resembled ham to make me a sandwich. Never once did he put on gloves, wash his hands or think he was doing anything wrong. I yelled at him in Spanish, and in English he quickly ran washed his hands, put on a hairnet and gloves...
then there is the "steak" house el rancho. The seafood was Okay, the "steak" seemed to me what people describe as human meat, I am still disgusted by the thought of it. The Sushi restaurant was the only semi edible area but very little seafood to rice ratio. The buffet where the breakfast is served had the same food, and recycled food every morning noon and night.

I have stayed in resorts since I was 20 years old, I am 30 now. I even stayed at the Barcelo in Bavaro beach in Dominican republic which was a dream, this place at Tambor in Costa Rica was absolutely the most disgusting resort, food wise and Staff cleanliness, that I have ever experienced the health department would shut this place down.

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.