Ryan Clark

Review of Hotel Tamarindo Diría Beach an...

This hotel is split by the main road through Tamar...

This hotel is split by the main road through Tamarindo. Part of the property is on the beach, the other part is across the street. My Wife and I stayed in an ocean view room on the beach side. The hotel grounds are beautiful. The beach is great.

Unfortunately, there is a place next door playing music loud enough to cause the windows and pictures on the walls to shake and rattle in every part of our room. It's just shy of 1 am. This is a problem. I'm paying for a hotel room primarily for the bed and bathroom. The bed is useless right now. The neighbors around me are equally annoyed. While this is not directly the hotel's fault, this is not what I signed up for. I contacted the front desk, and they gave me the impression that this is not uncommon, and that's just the way it is. Perhaps someone at the hotel will be motivated to do something about this if they receive enough complaints? The important thing is that if you are booking Tamarindo over a Saturday and don't plan on going to the party, you may want to book elsewhere. Other nights (other than Saturday) have not been this bad. Music still goes to 11pm or so, but that's understandable for this kind of town. Point is, it's not quiet here at night.

Anyway, enough of that. About the hotel... Check in was great. Parking is across the street. We are visiting during Christmas, which is a busy time, so the parking lot is a bit tight. Room is okay. Not too small, but definitely not large. King size bed though, so that's good. Bathroom is a bit small and is dated. Shower head has major calcium build up and needs cleaning. The shower curtain is really not enough to cover the stall opening and it's not very clean either. Tile work is a bit of a mess as well (the grout seriously needs cleaning). Otherwise, the room is generally kept clean (bedding, flooring, etc.).

The service at this hotel is often painfully slow. We had trouble getting silverware during breakfast, and service at the half empty bar was terrible. I was lucky and was able to get a drink ordered quickly, the check took about 10-15 minutes though, and the guy that showed up about a minute after me waited almost 10 minutes just to order. We spoke with some other guests, and they had similar experiences with the service in the bar area trying to order food. The only time I saw folks moving quickly around here was at 10am when breakfast was over. The entire buffet was clear by 10:02. Other than breakfast (which is included), we did not eat at the hotel.

The beach and the town are nice, though. A lot of great restaurants to choose from, and there is plenty to do in the area.

My biggest issue with Tamarindo Diria is the value. We paid a pretty high rate, but I don't feel like we got our money's worth. Service is slow. Showers are not very clean. Saturday night parties at neighboring properties make the bed obsolete. That said, the grounds are very pretty and well maintained, the pools are nice, and the beach location is awesome when the neighboring properties aren't ruining a nice night's sleep for an entire hotel wing. At a lower rate, I would consider this a great stay, but at the price we are paying, it's mediocre at best. For comparison, on this trip we also stayed at the Secrets resort North of Tamarindo in Papagayo, the all-inclusive price was about 20% more than what we are paying here (which included three meals, and well, pretty much everything). Tamarindo Diria could improve their value by reducing rates or by cleaning the shower heads, replacing the shower curtain with something substantial, giving the grout a sold scrubbing, and by improving service attentiveness. Also, by negotiating with the neighboring properties and working out reasonable hours to turn the volume down (2 am is not reasonable in a place where 7 am wake ups are common for daily excursions). The neighbors are hurting the value of this property, and that is a shame.