If the air conditioners at Xandari actually worked, it might qualify as a three-star hotel. But the four-stars they claim and the five-star price at this sweat farm would not be justified if the room came with its own snow machine and a lifetime supply of Freon.
When my wife and I arrived at our glass-walled villa, we simultaneously broke out in an immediate, but persistent sweat, such that we spent the first half hour trying to find the magic A/C “on switch” that would take the room’s climate to a level at least commensurate with the weather outdoors. But no dice. We had to go outside, where it was more than 90 degrees, to cool off.
When I asked the hotel reception for help, the manager, immediately let me know that, “It’s never been a problem. Nobody has ever complained,” a not-so-service conscious reply to a guest asking about anything in a four-star hotel, but highly dubious in this case (nobody has ever complained it was hot in your glass walled beach hotel in Costa Rica?)
I bit my tongue because who wants to spend their honeymoon arguing with a combative hotel manager? But in the name of posterity: when we entered the room, we found the thermostat control redlined at its 50 degree minimum with the plastic cover wrenched halfway off its hinges. It looked like generations of prior tenants had been clawing at it, pleading for it to just cool the hothouse off, even for a minute. Maybe they passed out before they could call. Or maybe the phones didn’t work either.
The manager put some people to work on the air conditioner, and welcomed us to “upgrade” to what she called the Maxima Villa. She said Maxima was thirty percent bigger than the beachfront ultra plus we had reserved. It was a little hard to believe the room she called Maxima was bigger because it lacked the separate bedroom of its predecessor and, well, it just felt a lot smaller. Of course I might have been suffering a heat-induced breakdown in my capacity to judge big versus small. But even now ,days after I’ve cooled off, I cannot help but notice that our version of the Maxima Villa was somehow missing the giant personal pool advertised on the hotel website beside the caption “Maxima Villa.” In fact, it looked exactly like picture of the room one step down from ours. Hmm.
But enough about the weak facilities and scary service. In terms of amenities, the hotel was also an a par with those normally associated with hourly rates. The kiddy sized “plunge pool” in our first room was filled with leaves, the beach was grayish black, the water muddy, and warnings abounded: Don’t swim alone, don’t swim when the tide is going out, don’t swim without a good pair of shoes (the stingrays will get you) and don’t venture into the riptide zone beyond ankle depth (unless, I suppose, you’ve got a life raft, a flare gun and no plans for the next 5 years).
If you are married to the Playa Esterillos area, there are more comfortable and affordable hotels within a half mile of Xandari that feature real air conditioning and even in-room color television sets. I took a walk to one, and on the way a local expat actually laughed at me when I said I was staying at Xandari. That hurt.
But if you are actually looking to spend a Xandari-load of money (or a little less, actually) you can stay at a kingdom of luxuriant excess like Gaia or Villas Caletas. They may not be on a beach, but the friendly, professional staff in both those places will happily shuttle you to a beach where you can actually swim, shoelessly and without fear of spending the rest of your life talking to a volleyball named Wilson. And they’ll even pick you up when you’re ready to head back to your well-appointed, air conditioned palace of a room.
