Review – Hyatt Andaz Papayago Costa Rica

Introduction

We spent a week here at the end of January 2018.  I also booked my family and my inlaws, so 3 rooms total.  We were staying as Guests of Honor.  I was upgraded to a bay view suite while the parents got bay view rooms.  One room was on the 2nd floor and one was on the 1st floor.  I forgot who mentioned this, but they were right – the 1st floor view was better due to the lack of tree canopy blocking your view.  So if you don’t get a suite, you may want to ask for a lower floor room to get a better view of the bay.

 

Best time to visit

There are 2 seasons – rainy and dry.  The dry season goes from December to May.  Our tour guide said December is probably the best although you may still get showers.  January and February will still have winds which cools it a bit.  After that, it’s a dry heat.  We didn’t have any mosquitoes at the end of January although the hotel had complimentary mosquito repellent cans all throughout the resort.

 

Getting to hotel

There’s a private person that is on the blogs (I think TPG.)  I emailed him and he wanted $150 for RT transfer.  All the other companies were charging about $120 for RT transfer.  More on this later.

 

Rent a car or shuttle

This depends on how long you are staying.  If you’re only doing 3-4 days, then a shuttle is fine.  If you’re staying longer, you may want to get a rental.  I was leaning rental, but I was uncertain how driving would be in Costa Rica; plus I had read about the “flat tire scam” and how the car rental companies charge an arm and leg for “mandatory” insurance (why prices look cheap online.)  All that uncertainty made me switch to a shuttle.  Looking back, I could have gone with a rental car.  They drive on the same side as the US and there’s only like 2 main streets.  I’ve driven in worse places.

 

Wifi

We were at the end of our building so only had 1 wifi bar.  It was spotty but adequate.  The wifi reached all the way down to the beach by the way.  It was open by the way.

 

 

 

Excursions

We did do the much hyped barista class with Luis, and while I’m not a big coffee drinker, we all enjoyed the class and found him to be a great teacher.  The class lasted over an hour.  This is the only excursion we did at the hotel.  We did outside tours (more on that later.)

 

Breakfast

Breakfast was good, but after day 3, it got repetitive.  The best thing were the tamales and that was only served every other day or so.  The menu didn’t change that often – you had bacon, scrambled eggs, pinto gallo, oatmeal, and potatoes served daily.  If you didn’t get tamales, you either got vegetable stew or plantains.  The omelette station was solid.  The fruit changed hourly; I kid you not.  We ate a few times at 6:30 in the morning and it was mangoes, pineapple, papaya, watermelon, and cantaloupe.  One day, the parents ate at 6:30 and we ate at 9.  We had some exotic tropical fruit like guava and mangosteen that they didn’t have earlier in the morning.  Sadly, there wasn’t any passion fruit on the buffet all week.  The frappuccinos on the other hand were ON POINT; they aren’t as sweet as the ones at Starbucks.  I usually drank 2 every morning.  I saw a table who had green coconuts that weren’t on the menu on our first morning.  I asked for them, but it turns out they were $8 each (not sure if they knew I was Globalist or even if Globalists would get them for free.)

One thing you’ll notice that the straws are paper.  I appreciated that minor detail from the Andaz and the country as a whole.

 

Eating

We ate at the tapas restaurant one night.  It was okay.  Food was good and mirrored US prices (think around $15 per entree.)

We ate twice at the Dive Bar at the Marina.  This says a lot since old Asian parents are picky with their food.  The food there was actually good.  The pizza is a wood fired pizza with lots of toppings.  The parents love the fried red snapper.  The seafood pasta and arroz mariscada were solid.  I’d stay away from the catch of the day (small filet and bad value) as well as the fish and chips and ‘mountain of nachos.’    They have happy hour daily from 5-7pm with half priced beer and cocktails with a different half-off appetizer every day.

 

 

Room

Besides the minor ant issues, we didn’t have much gripe about the room.  Our fridge was refilled daily – they would give you 4 bags of chips, a Coke, a Diet Coke, a Fanta, a tonic water, 4 bottled still waters, and 2 bottled carbonated waters.

 

Hotel Shuttle Service

We made pretty good use of the free hotel shuttle service.  They will take you to the Andaz beach house, Four Seasons beach, marina, and the golf course (same place as beach house.)  The shuttle for the beach house runs every 30 minutes.  For the marina and Four Seasons, it runs at the top of every hour and stops running at a certain time.  For the last 2 locations, the location will call the Andaz to come pick you up, and it takes them about 30 minutes to come get you, so plan accordingly.

 

Golf

Apparently Tiger has played on this golf course.  We couldn’t find any one who knew a round was, but I think it was close to $200.

 

Andaz beach house

Apparently in mid to late 2017, the Andaz built their own beach house.  I guess they were shuttling people to someplace else before.  The reason for that is because the on-site beach is pretty small.  The new beach house is nicer than the hotel’s beach.  There’s a lot more places to sit and you can also snorkel or book excursions.  The extra bonus is that there is a huge tamarind tree there and you can pick fresh tamarind off the ground.  My mom ate a handful there and grabbed a handful to take back to the hotel.  The beach house is the same shuttle stop as the golf course, which is about a 15 minute drive from the Andaz.

 

Four Seasons beach

The Four Seasons was just remodeled last year.  It has 3 non-infinity pools but also 2 beaches.  We checked it out for an hour and wished we spent a day there.  Just the whole property is so much nicer than the Andaz.  I sat at the bar and got a pint of draft beer, and it ended up costing me $15 all in.  NUTS.  I hear if you get Bavaria on the beach, it may only end up at $6-$8.  Very expensive!  That’s when I pulled up the prices on my phone and realized room rates were $1600+ a night in random dates in February.

They also have the Four Seasons residences there.  Our tour guide told us that’s where Tiger Woods, Beyonce, the Kardashians, etc stay at.  They are separate from the hotel and look like single family homes on hills.  Gorgeous looking residences.

 

External tours

We booked a tour to do the horseback riding, zip line, and volcano mud bath.  You’ll find many tour companies touting the exact same tour because they just shuttle you to the same place.  With that said, we enjoyed the horses and zip line.  The mud bath was a bit of a let-down though.

 

White water rafting

We also did the class 3/4 white water rafting excursion.  It went by pretty quick, but there is a big ~8 foot drop class 4 drop at the end, which was very fun.  We didn’t fall out, but another raft did.

 

Coco Beach

We went here one evening to check it out and eat around the area.  It was a pretty small area (maybe 5-6 blocks on a single road with restaurants and shops.)

 

Gripes

• Ants in the room; not a HUGE issue but I did have to kill 1 in bed on consecutive nights
• Bathroom is pebbled – I guess this is supposed to massage your feet, but quite frankly, it sorta hurts.  I personally could have done without them
• Other bloggers have mentioned the spotty service and that is an UNDERSTATEMENT.  A few things that happened to us:
  • 30 minute wait to order my frappucino at breakfast the first day
  • 20 minute wait to wait for a buggy (this was our first night so weren’t sure how long the walk would have been.)
  • 35 minute wait for a cork screw
  • Messed up our barista class scheduling
  • We asked for ice for 2 rooms and only 1 room got ice
  • Then there was the time we called about a missing robe and got 2 robes brought to our door ASAP for no reason

 

Conclusion

Besides the spotty service, we really enjoyed our time at the Andaz.  As you can see, we did a lot of excursions and I suggest you do the same as well, especially if you’re staying that long.  If it’s for a couple of days, I’d eat breakfast and then take the shuttle to the beach house or the Four Seasons.  Then eat at the Dive Bar at night.  Rinse and repeat.

If you need airport transfer or a tour guide, contact this guy in the picture.  Young guy who spent time in the US; speaks English very well.  Tell him Vinh sent ya so he hooks you up.