We're going in May too, so I've also wondered about good restaurants nearby, and Trip Advisor seems to have the most reviews for restaurants in the area.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...uanacaste.html

The best I can tell, it looks like everything will be a bit of a drive since the Andaz is fairly isolated (other than the Four Seasons which probably wouldn't be much of a help on price!)

Just got back from the hotel. Was there for 5 nights on points. A few thoughts:

1) The grounds are beautiful. The hotel is cut into the hillside facing the bay, so you can see the ocean from just about everywhere on the property. I think just about every room has an ocean-facing balcony.

2) As a result of being cut into a steep hillside, there's a fair bit of climbing up and down stairs. From the beach itself to the top level of the property (where our room was) is a fairly steep several-minute climb, easily the equivalent of several flights of stairs. This has the result of making the view more spectacular, but it is a lot of up-and-down. We are both reasonably fit adults and so didn't mind it, but I could see this being a big issue for small children/elderly/people with bad knees or mobility issues. They have golf carts that will drive you around if you want it, but those don't go down to the beach itself (since the path to the beach is not paved). It would make a big difference if your room is on the middle level (where the pools and restaurants are) instead of the upper level (which is mostly just guest rooms except for the spa/gym).

3) The service at the hotel was generally excellent but occasionally erratic. The problem was never attitude -- everyone was extremely warm and friendly. Sometimes though they were a bit slow, or you would call the front desk and it would ring for minutes without answering, or we would call to ask for something and would have to call again to remind them. We had no issues with getting the minibar refilled every day, and on our last evening they brought us a plate of cookies to enjoy. Every room comes with hats, a beach bag, and flip-flops to use while you're there (you can take the hats home with you).

4) The concierge service is very unhelpful. For airport transfers, they recommend a car service that costs $140; 30 seconds of googling found a private transfer that costs $59 and that worked very smoothly. Similarly, we asked about scuba diving, and the hotel quoted us $450 per person for a two-tank dive, which is a ridiculous price. I did my own research and found three local operators who all charged approx $125-$150 pp.

5) The food is pretty expensive but not outrageously so. At Rio Bhongo, breakfast a la carte entrees range from $9-$15, sandwiches/salads at lunch are $15-$20, dinner entrees $25-$35. At the tapas place, dishes were between $10-$20, and we found you needed about 5 dishes for two people. At Ostra, the fancy restaurant, food was about $100 pp. The food at Rio Bhongo and the tapas place was good; Ostra was ok but overly fussy and not worth the money. Drinks run about $6 for a soda (obv. a big rip-off), $6-$8 for a beer, $12-$14 for a cocktail. The food was actually quite good, quality ingredients, fish was fresh, no cut corners, just about everything is made to order. We had no problems with the restaurants being slow, but the restaurants were also mostly empty while we were there.

Overall we very much enjoyed our stay and thought it was a good use of points (especially since on points you don't have to pay the obnoxious resort fee).

Here's a question for anyone who has stayed at the Andaz in Costa Rica - can I get away without renting a car? Is there a grocery store that is someplace close by? Are there restaurants nearby other than the Four Seasons? I understand that the hotel provides transportation on the peninsula, so it sounds theoretically possible to get away without renting a car. But I'd like someone to please weigh in who has been there. Thanks.

You can, but it depends on what you want to do. There are no restaurants nearby other than the Four Seasons -- I looked into it while I was there and IIRC the closest restaurants are in Playa del Coco, which is a 30-40 minute drive. There's supposed to be a grocery store nearby at the Marina (http://www.marinapapagayo.com/marina...s/provisioning), but I didn't check it out personally.

We were there five nights and got away without renting a car, but we ate every meal at the hotel and weren't that interested in exploring the area. If you want to get out of the hotel more, you will probably need a car.

Based on what I've read on TA, it seems that a lot of the activity groups will pick you at the hotel (transportation may or may not be additional). I'm inclined to say that you can get by without a rental, but you can also find many rentals in the $10/day range (especially the manual shift autos). I will do a little more digging over the next few days and see if I can come to my own decision about a rental. I actually wanted to get a Jeep, but we may decide to have one day of excursions and the other three to relax. The hotel has rentals available for $99/day, so keep in mind that you have that as an option (although you could get your own from an agency for a week for that amount).

We're heading here in May and have thought about renting a car as well.

We are there for a total of five nights, and for that week, we've found rentals at Budget and such for about $110 including taxes/fees. We're doing an all day excursion one day, which they are picking us up from the hotel complimentary; however, I'm wondering about the other days.

I, too, was hoping to be able to find a grocery store or convenience store that we could load up on some water/drinks to keep the costs down. It doesn't look like this is going to be the case though.

Another thing leading me to rent a car is transportation to and from the hotel-airport. Many organizations are offering ~$145 RT fares to the Andaz and back to LIR; however, I can easily cover that with a rental car. Then again if we don't use the car at all, the $145 RT fare would be worth it.

I have heard a ton of horror stories about the liability insurance that you have to buy in CR. My understanding is that the liability insurance is like $100 per day. If that's the case, then we're talking about close to $800 for a week.

Does this include the mandatory liability insurance? My understanding is that it is really really expensive.

I don't think it's quite $100/day, but more like a mandatory $10-$20/day.

It seems the CDW is about $10-15 daily. However, if your credit card covers it, which Visa Signature (Hyatt Chase, Chase Sapphire Preferred, etc.) does, you simply need confirmation from the credit card company in some cases. Here is a good FT thread on the subject:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/17557781-post3.html

I checked out AMEX and they do not list Costa Rica as a non-covered country. Needless to say, book the car on your Visa Signature and you'll be covered with it as primary insurance (as opposed to supplemental) as it is out of your country of residence. Here's the information you'll need regarding the CDW benefit of a Visa Signature card:

http://usa.visa.com/personal/card-be...ion-waiver.jsp

Also, here is some information regarding LDW/CDW from Avis Costa Rica:

http://www.avis.cr/protections.htm

Oh great, thanks for this. We plan to book using CSP, so this will work perfectly.

Andaz Peninsula Papagayo (Costa Rica) REVIEW - MASTER THREAD
 

CDW is collision damage waiver. I was talkimg about liability - the kind of coverage you get if there is a personal injury, not if you scratch, dent or wreck the rental.

Gotcha. Dollar charges $13/day for SLI. Thrifty charges $20/day. Most others are in the same range.

I may head over the rental car forums for this, but if anyone is familiar with Costa Rica specifically, maybe they can answer... Chase is sending me the coverage that comes with CSP (VS) and stated that it is solely secondary liability. Does anyone know if, and if so how much, this will take care of the additional liability fees?

$15-20/day doesn't add much to the total, but I want to know what I'm getting into so I'm not stunned at Avis and can somewhat know what I'm talking about. :)

From what I understand, for Avis, is that I will still have to pay for ALI protection, but my CSP will cover the rest. Correct or way off?