Hotel Lavas Tacotal — Hotel in La Fortuna

As with most places, this hotel has good and bad things. It's a nice setting with beautiful gardens, the staff are generally friendly, Michi the cat is a great host and, with a little extra work, the rooms could be comfortable. This is quite important during rainy spells (ours lasted from beginning to end of our 4-day stay...). The rooms are quite spartan at present (maybe there are some that are better but more expensive). A tv and fan, no safe, no fridge, no bedside tables, quite a strange bathroom set-up leading to flooding into the room, decent bed, seating area outside which could use a power point. Some parts of the cabin looked new, others looked like they needed a bit of attention: the door in the toilet, no door frame, bits broken off at the bottom. Our cabin was not marked leading us to a pointless search trying to find number 44, eventually having to trek back all the way to the front desk. Breakfast was a tad underwhelming, fresh fruit ok, the hot options were the same every day, fried plaintains, some sliced fried sausage, rice with beans and overcooked scrambled egg. Bad coffee, a fil rouge throughout the whole holiday, very strange in a country with such a coffee heritage. After a few days, we started eating breakfast outside, having to pay for what we'd already paid for. Our choice, of course. The lunch/dinner menu looked ok, but far too small for eating in every day/night. A few careful adjustments could make this place earn quite a...

We loved our stay at Hotel Lavas Tacotal. A small, quiet hotel in the most beautiful setting, close enough to get into La Fortuna easily (around 15 mins in a taxi/uber) and very nearby to the other attractions such as hanging bridges, free natural hot springs, and hiking trails for the arenal volcano.

Our room was basic but clean and very spacious. Two HUGE beds for two people which were so comfortable. The rooms weren’t very sound proof though and we could hear other guests up really early in the morning and up late at night even though they weren’t being particularly loud we could hear everything. We also would have appreciated a fridge in the room but other than that no complaints with the facilities.

The hotel staff were friendly and always willing to help. As we stayed for 5 days, our laundry was free which we took full advantage of and really appreciated.

Breakfast was nice enough, though repetitive and a little limited for choice. There were also a lot of flies which was a little off putting but guess can’t be helped! However you could always count on some eggs on toast, fresh fruit and yummy banana bread to get you started ahead of a day of exploring.

We found Hotel Lavas Tacotal to be value for money and had a very enjoyable stay, would recommend as a good option for exploring La Fortuna and...

Pros: There is a beautiful view to Arenal volcano from the hotel (it's important to clarify that we didn't have this view from the room nor the balcony, and that it seems this is the same from most of the rooms). The breakfast was excellent, very complete, with a variety of choices. There was a bad smell in our room when we arrived and the staff kindly offered us another one.

Cons: Having a bad smell in the room was not very welcoming in the first place, and it was probably because the room was not cleaned properly. At 08:30 in the morning, the first day, the cleaning ladies were knocking at every single door, asking to enter the room for cleaning purposes. The second day, they didn't even knock at the door. They opened it directly! When we reported this situation to the hotel, we only received a laconic apology. This killed a bit the overall experience we had there. There were also Middle School students everywhere, making the hotel noisy. If you are willing to have some privacy or just want to rest, this is probably not the good place. There are not a lot of equipment in the rooms. Adding bedside lamps, liquid soap and a trash can lid in the bathroom would be some...