Playa Manuel Antonio — Attraction in Quepos

WRITING THIS REVIEW TO HELP OTHERS BEWARE OF SCAMS. This beach is crowded wlth people looking to scam you.

1. Parking is free. Don't stop for anyone (fake "parking agents") on the way in, they jump in front of your car to demand a fee for parking. Gas through, lock the car and don't break even if you hit them. At the very end of the road at the official entrance to Manuel Antonio National Park, there is free parking everywhere on the street. Once parked, people will offer you to "watch your car" in exchange for money. Ignore them.
2. If you want chairs and umbrella, shop around on the beach and pay no more than 5000 colones ($10) for 2 beds and 1 umbrella for a full day. There are endless local people offering this, so don't be afraid to negotiate hard.
3. DON'T TRUST SELLERS ON THE BEACH. A guy working with the people we bought sunbeds from, scammed us for 20 000 colones ($40). He showed us menus from several nearby restaurants and brought us 2 beers that we ordered. We only had large bills, and therefore gave him 20 000 colones. He said that he will come back with the exchange, but of course he never came back. The sunbed guys later said "he don't work for us" despite them clearly being friends and working together, and ignored our claims. Police also said they can't do anything, that it is normal and that there are no beach service from any of the nearby restaurants.

Super unfortunate that this is the case on such a...

If you're looking for a "great" beach, keep looking. It was pretty while we were there but two things...

The beach was clean but the water had loads of leaves and material which I get. Hey it's nature. Didn't bother me really, but other beaches we visited were superior. More rocks than other beaches. Smaller than other beaches. More "commercialized" than other beaches. Not saying it was bad. Just our worst beach experience in CR.

In the span of a couple of hours, we were "approached" by at least six vendors. Not super pushy, but pushier than any other beach we visited.

My recommendation for a visit is have a look, grab a meal at a nearby restaurant and head to another beach.

Edit: I forgot to add some dude trying to pass himself off as an official of some kind actually trying to prevent us from driving down to the beach! We explicitly intended to go eat first then visit the beach and I had to nearly close the window on the guy to even drive down to the beach. I can imagine there's lots of times there's no parking left closer to the beach. The day we visited there was no problem with parking directly across the street from the...

Just to clarify something, this is not the same as the Manuel Antonio Beach, which is located inside the national park. Manuel Antonio Beach is in a cove with much calmer and clearer water. Playa Manuel Antonio is a public beach. They don't comb the sands in the morning, so there are pebble stones everywhere.

If you are going to rent the canopy and lounge chairs, the guys under the shade tree will charge you $25. It's not too bad, but know they will upsell you with foods and drinks. So they are essentially middleman between you and the restaurants nearby. They will bring you a menu that does not include tax and service fees. If you order from them, you essentially pay them 23% to bring the foods and drinks directly to you on the beach and for cleaning up your mess. So 1 bottle of beer will cost you around $10 USD after tax and service fees. Judge for yourself if it's worthwhile to get up and do...