Luksushoteller i Vara Blanca

"Absolute horror. No room was available even though we had a reservation. Awful service. Cannot recommend this hotel."

"We asked in advance if we could store our luggage at the hotel while we’re driving around in other parts of Costa Rica, and we were told we could so we booked a stay at Barceló for the start and end of our one week trip. When we got to the hotel however they refused to store our luggage, and were very unhelpful and not very friendly, and we ended up having to ask a local guy to store our gear instead since we wouldn’t be able to fit it all in our rental car. The hotel in general seems like it was super nice several decades ago, but now seems worn and has an out of date standard, and the average age at the hotel residents seems to be around 75. When we checked into our room it obviously wasn’t ready, there were now pillow cases, no soaps and they had removed the fridge, so no minibar or any possibility of storing cold drinks. After asking about this several times we finally got pillow cases and soaps, but no fridge or any effort to compensate this or figure out another solution. Of course it’s not horrible to lay by a pool in this awesome climate, and they seem to do their best to keep the pool area clean, even though it seems to be impossible due to the vegetation around, but the pool area was definitely the best part about our stay. Not looking forward to coming back for the last night of our Costa Rica stay, since it feels like we were tricked into booking the two nights, without getting the service we thought we would."