Andaz Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo

Great guest rooms, excellent food, outstanding customer service! Amazing breakfast with plentiful options. The views is outstanding. The shower with ocean view and outdoor lounging is the best!!! No expense was spared for our respite!

My husband and I booked a trip to the Andaz on a whim. We booked our flights and stay at 6pm the night before we left for Costa Rica. Needless to say we had little time to do our research. Fortunately we had been to Costa Rica several times and knew that the Papagayo area was convenient to the airport and also home to the Four Seasons Resort so we figured we would give Andaz a try. Andaz definitely exceeded our expectations. If you are fairly fit, you can easily walk the entire resort. I wore tennis shoes everywhere and carried flip flops in a small backpack. If you aren’t fit, don’t worry, the front desk will call you a shuttle to get around. There are 3 beaches at the resort. You can walk to two and need a shuttle ride or boat ride to the beach they call Casa de Playa. Two of the beaches have WiFi so I was able to work from the beach and have drinks and food when needed. All 3 beaches are beautiful but you will probably want to spend most of your time at Casa de Playa. There were lots of families during our stay. This surprised me at first but it makes sense because the beach waters are very calm. This could get a little boring for some people but there are plenty of water sport options around. We rented a jet ski for an hour and it was great. You can also take out kayaks and snorkel. Every single place we ate at was amazing. One of the best breakfasts we had ever had. Our favorite restaurant was actually the tapas bar, Chau Pescao. They have the best drinks and amazing tapas. So if you prefer to eat several smaller portions to try more things, it’s a great option. Service was friendly and thoughtful. We used the gym 3 nights and it was well equipped. The room was beautiful as we had a view of the bay. The bed was super comfy. I loved the laundry service. Rather than pay per item, it was $40 to fill the whole bag. Overall we were able to work in a beautiful setting and enjoy our evenings with the great dining options. We are not pool people so can’t comment on the pool. We would definitely recommend to others and return.

unparalleled beauty, this hotel, the setting, the service and staff is unmatched. it was very hard to leave, and we cannot wait to return! Imagine eating an outstanding breakfast buffet with monkeys overhead eyeing your plate! there is no wrong turn at the Andaz!

The purpose of my review is not to knock down the hotel, but to rather make future travelers aware of what they can expect. Based on all the five star reviews and the price of the hotel, I expected an experience that would be closer to the four seasons, which is approximately 15 minutes away. Unfortunately, this hotel does not compare for multiple reasons. I did not find the property to be kid friendly as the main family pool is not one way you can't actually throw a ball, football or do much splashing around with children. It has a feel of an adult pool and is not really appropriate for children between the ages of four and 12 to play in as any floatable device, ball, frisbee, etc is easily lost given pool shape and "infinity" type gutters. The beach is un impressive as it is small, very sun exposed with a very small swim area. No rocks to explore, crabs to hunt, not particularly visually appealing. On top of that, it's a bit of a hike to get to. As such, it did not surprise me that it was essentially empty. There is also limited amount of shade in the overall quality of the shade and the chairs is not what I would expect for a five star hotel. The property is very hilly and is such, requires quite a bit of walking up and down to get places. This can be mitigated by taking a golf cart, however, it just doesn't make for a fantastic experience. At breakfast, it did not seem there were enough people to properly seat you, explain the buffet vs a la carte options. definitely not enough attention when it came to coffee, refills, and being checked up on. Again, at a three star resort, I can live with that. At a resort where it is touted as a 4.5–5 star resort, this is subpar service. Getting a coffee refill was next to impossible and required repeatedly trying to get someone's attention. In summary, I would simply say that this is not a 5 Star property or anything close to that. I would give it 3 stars. If the cost for 1/3 of what was being charged, that would be fine, but again, compared to expectations this fell short and I am glad I only spent a very short period of time here.

I lovely retreat in the Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica. The rooms were excellent and the staff were all top notch. The rooms were meticulously cleaned each day, the wait staff were courteous and friendly and remembered my name each day. The gym was tremendous for a resort, and the spa was wonderful.