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Old Dec 19, 2016 | 11:49 am
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mike_la_jolla
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: La Jolla, California
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About Kura Design Villas in Uvita ...

Originally Posted by FlyingDoctorwu
Any experience with this property? Is it about 3 hrs from San Jose?
Yes. We were just there over 4th of July 2016 for 5 nights.

Pros:
- Small boutique hotel. Very good soft and hard product. Food average to above average. Terrific panoramic view to the west highlighted by the Whaletail.
- Internet was free and very crisp.
- Decent excursions once you got down the mountain. Reasonably priced.

Cons
- Brutal location. Very very hard to get to. It is a moderately rough 3-hour drive to/from SJO. We had to stay over in San Jose on the way back. My memories of SJ are of razor wire. You don't get the impression that it is a safe and prosperous city. I got blistered by my SO over the location issue. I'm still getting it actually. But I had to lie to her about this to get her to go that far.

- Brutal location (part II). The resort is perched *high* up a mountain. It *requires* a 4-wheel drive vehicle. As a southern CAL boy, I have to admit this is literally the only place in the world I have ever gone that required this capability. Don't do this on your own with a rented Ford Focus -- you won't make it. The difficulty of the commute to/from the resort to the town limits the options. Even the hotel driver tensed up at certain sections of the road.

- Wildlife in the vicinity of the resort was much less than I expected. Other than a
after a thunderstorm, there was nothing beyond a few colorful frogs and *lots* of spiders.

- The resort is on complete lockdown, so we weren't able to hike around.

- 'Eco' resort. This means that there isn't any plastic. No bottled water (just tap-in-a-jug) et al. Poor, unappetizing options in mini bar.

- The shower is a fish bowl seemingly designed for newlyweds. Don't go to this place with someone that you are not intimately familiar. Much worse than Amangiri in this regard.

- Limited drink options at the bar. For example - they couldn't make a martini of any variation. I found this puzzling and very sloppy for a resort of this caliber. It isn't that hard to stock a bar.

For excursions, we took a guided tour of Marino Ballena National Park. We didn't see much wildlife other than some monkeys. We also did a zip line thing and we saw several sloths.
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