Roach Motel

Be careful where you stay while in La Fortuna!

Recently we took a trip through La Fortuna because the bridge was out going to Playa Coco on the Caldera Highway. We stopped for dinner in a place in La Fortuna next to one of those tourist booths and for some reason took a shine to go in and ask for a hotel recommendation. We knew several of the hotels in the area as we have stayed at many in the past and thought we would just stay with one that we knew to be good again. Since we weren’t looking for a resort atmosphere and only there for a nights stay we thought we would take a shot at whatever the tour guy recommended. This was our first mistake.

He recommended a place called “Pura Vida” How bad could that be with a name that had such a strong name right? Wrong! We went to this place that was just 300 mtrs down the road and part of a chinese restaurant. The owner was very loud and very rude upon check in. This was our second mistake. We should have known better at check in and run before checking in.

Once we got in the rooms it was bad!! We had to leave immediately as I would not stay in the hotel nor let me my kids sleep in these conditions. When we arrived in the rooms I turned down the beds to check out the beds and that was my third mistake.

When we went back to the front desk to get a refund and leave the woman charged us for messing up the towel that was on the bed, for turning down the bed and for turning on the water in the sink so we ended up paying for one room out of the two that we had paid for originally upon check in but at that point we would have paid for both I think just to get out of that horrid place.

Moral to the story, be careful what recommendations you take from the tour guides in those kiosks. No matter how great they make them sound (and he did) they are usually not so great!

Oh and another thing, come to find out, the tour guide was making 20.00 on our reservation. That is a lot of money in Costa Rica. As we were driving away we saw him walking up the street to gather his commission. Can’t say as I would have wanted to be in his shoes that evening for the way that woman was yelling and screaming at us. I can only imagine how she would have lit into him for referring us to her place 🙁