Me and my brother travelled here in January 2021 (during COVID). Basically, to get here all you need to do is get the travel insurance (~$80) and fill out the pase de salud form. Super easy. When we arrived, the staff upgraded our room for free. All of the restaurants were really delicious and the service was good. The service by the pool bar and people walking around the pool was really good. The bartenders can make any drink for you. There's a few restaurants here, so it can be a wait if you don't reserve a time slot for dinner. The resort has beachfront access, with hotel only beach chairs. The beach is a public beach, so the local Costa Rica people are there, some will try to sell you many things. The two people I can reccomend is Erik Garcia (tour coordinator) and the massage table directly along the beachfront path. Erik Garcia was awesome, he greeted us right away when we walked down the beach (he wears the blue shirt with his name on it as well as his hat). We spoke with him for 30 min, he speaks fluent English. We scheduled the atv tour and the horseback riding tour through him, these were amazing tours for a really good price. The hotel also offers excursions, but you will pay more. Erik knows a lot of people here and can get you doing whatever you want to do for a reasonable price. The atv tour at Robles was amazing and the horseback riding was awesome, even for a first time rider. …
My family stayed at the Westin and had an amazing time. The hotel staff, room and atmosphere were excellent. The food at the many different restaurants within the hotel were great and they made you feel safe during covid. We used Erik G who wears a shirt and hat that says Erik for our tours. We booked the hot spring and two different waterfalls. It was an amazing time and one of the best tours we have taken. We have traveled to many different countries and these experiences will definitely bring us back soon.
Having been to both properties many times, this review may help in making your choice between the Westin and the JW Marriott in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This opinion is based on a recent visit during the Covid Pandemc in January, 2021, so all things are considered. I stayed at both properties during this visit. Both properties are wonderful and each has its own pluses and minuses. Both have excellent staff who are kind and sincere. The JW seems to have cut back too much on staff and so the service has really suffered. Only one restaurant open with limited menu, slow service all around and a kind of abandoned feeling about the place. It's a pity because it seems that they were cutting back on expenses while losing many guests due to reviews. Sadly it's true. On the other hand, the Westin is practically back to normal, with restaurants open, great service and of course Covid precautions in place. There were a lot of national Tico families visiting, a few Europeans and maybe more North Americans. At this time in 2021, I would put my money on the Westin rather than the JW. Maybe the JW will rebound soon because it is a lovely property.…
The resort itself is a wonderful, beautiful place, just like paradise. Its gardens are well maintained, lots of flowers and green, create a nice landscape of a luxury resort. We felt like in middle of an amazing jungle. Around the resort there is a golf resort. All territory is huge and really impressing. One thing is, we felt all resort is too dark, there are not enough lights, specially around the pool in night was dark, so some people walked in evening with their torch through the resort. The pool itself is a dream, so big, so spacious, also here in night it could be more lights also inside the pool, maybe with different colours, to make the pool look as awesome as it is. Just one problem was, when in weekend the resort was packed, people left their drinks all round the pool, some unfinished, some cups were swimming in the pool. Through the day it wasnt cleaned, just in night or early morning. That was a bit disgusting. The suite we had was nice, clean and spacious, however the lock was giving us a bad time. Our keys continously didnt work, we had to go to reception to get new ones. They asked us for ID to get new ones, but hey, who bring his ID to pool or beach? Even stuff we asked to help us open our room tried to do do with their general key and had some trouble. The food was during our stay quite good, but not excellent. Of course, everybody has a different taste. The buffets we didn´t like so much. Breakfast and lunch was everyday same. Besides that they packed all people into same room instead of using other empty spaces, for faster service maybe better, but in corona times, not very smart. On the weekends there was a huge cue to get into the breakfast buffet as you can see on my photo. In evening you could choose from some speciality restaurtants. The italian and bistro were not our favorites. The asian and faissanella international restaurant were both amazing. Also we used the in room dining service, which worked great and was very tasty food, lots of choices as well. Through the day we ordered some drinks at the pool bar, they do some really great fresh cocktails. Our favorite ones were mojitos and margharitas. However, some other you expect fresh made, like Pina Colada, came as frozen Colada, not fresh mixed. If you do some cocktails fresh, then why not all of them? What was little bit dissapointing, that we felt that local customers or other spanish speaking guests, as well as americans who are best in giving tips, were served first. Also be aware to come to the pool bar just 30 seconds after closing time, there is no exeption, you will get no more drinks. The beach was also very nice, however ocean is very rough and not good for families with small kids. They just has yellow, red and black flag, so we know why there is no green flag at all 😊. What disturbed little bit our relexation was this big amount of jet ski´s, who made lot of noise and produced some not very pleasent smell of fuel. Few less of them, that would be better. There were not too many activities offered due to Corona, they did some aqua gymnastics, you could rent jet ski at beach or do some kayaking or you could rent a bike (but only allowed you to drive inside resort, that was a bit sad). The service, not everyone of the staff was high motivated, of course thats a problem most all inclusive resorts face, people except some americans leave no tips, so why to work harder? Some staff however did extraordinary work and gave us a very welcome feeling. Our favourite employee was Norman, from the bistro/ocean restaurant, he was great, always trying to give us excellent service. Most of the staff unfortunatly has problems with the english language, so communication was sometimes hard. But we loved our stay and can recommend this resort. We had a 1, 2 meetings with the resort manager and he offered to us a fair solution to some of the points we were little but upset about, so after all, all was good!…
We stayed for a 5 night getaway and couldn’t have had a better time. We were upgraded to Royal Beach Club through Platinum status and highly recommend booking - adults only, dedicated service, less crowded, private pool, pool bar, and hot tub. Weather was perfect, hotel is situated on a beautiful property on the beach, and the wildlife is so fun to see and interact with! Monkeys, coates, lizards, etc Some restaurants are closed for COVID but we enjoyed everything we had access to and didn’t feel we were missing out. “Bars” on property do close at 10pm and there is no evening entertainment. *restaurants may change with covid as months go on* Recommend room service breakfast and Manglar (restaurant by beach), lunch by pool is nice but a small menu- recommend Caracola for lunch (nachos & fish tacos were both great), dinner we did Caracola one night, Spirula (good gluten free options with pizza and pasta), Faisenella (beef tenderloin, enchiladas, and salmon appetizer were favorites), and Bamboo (good gluten free modifications here as well). Buffet is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner but we mostly did the a la carte restaurants. Go to Erik Garcia or activity desk for excursions. We did sunset jet skis (I wouldn’t recommend unless you enjoy jet skis- really long ride), went scuba diving (amazing to see manta rays, current was strong though), and some in our group did massages on the beach which they enjoyed Overall wonderful trip/visit!! …
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