Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort Member of the Cayuga Collection

Beautiful location and for the most part the service was great. First the pluses ....beach is super and the staff down by the beach was friendly and welcoming and they do a great job of creating safety (lots of lifeguard drills it appeared!) and overall the sense of a lovely vacation feel. There are golf carts to take you everywhere on the property, which is pretty necessary as the property is steep and quite spread out. You just give a call and someone shows up in minutes. Many of the drivers have a great personality, just made it surprising when a few of them seemed not friendly--and for us there was no need to speak English--I was always happy to try my Spanish! Ditto for the staff in the main restaurant--some were friendly and welcoming and a few others were all business and not very welcoming or patient. On with the plus items...the beds are very comfortable, rooms are private and quiet, and the policy of free mini bar snacks (with free restocking) is wonderful! The monkeys and iguanas --and sloths--on the property are terrific. There is a dinner in the beach restaurant on Wednesdays, Sats and Suns and since we were only there for the Wed dinner, I wish that the staff at breakfast had reminded us of it and also, there could be a small guide in the room that would include the beach dinner evening schedule as well as a map of the nature trail --with distances. We wanted to walk it ourselves, without their guide, but didn't have a good sense of the overall length of the trail. There was a little sense that they wanted to encourage us to sign up for their guided (for a fee) walk. The food in the main restaurant was good, but not exceptional and the dinners are quite expensive. The breakfast has many choices and again, it's good but not exceptional--but nice that it's included in the room price. Overall, however, it's a lovely place, clearly the nicest place to stay in Manuel Antonio, but also quite pricey, which you know if you're reading this! Trip.com had the best price by far, at least for November.

A real mixed bag. Beautiful location with wonderful facilities and great staff with a good service mentality. However, bedrooms have a 3-4 star feel ; more like a Spanish holiday resort on the Costa Brava than Costa Rica. Housekeeping was a little hit and miss. On occasions the hotel served brilliant food but often it was disappointing e.g 3 breakfasts out of 4 had to be returned as hot food was served cold.

My family had a great time at this resort for 4 nights. It is perfectly situated on a private beach with plenty of chairs, towels, boogie boards, and service for food/drink. Breakfast included every morning was amazing - especially the (French press!) coffee. We had a blast seeing monkeys, iguanas, and sloths on the property. Only thing I’d forewarn is that the property is very hilly with a lot of steps; although they will golf cart you everywhere I’d think you have to be reasonably mobile to get around to all the different areas. The staff are extremely friendly and helpful - shoutout to Alex, Randall, and Christian!