Los Lagos Hotel, Spa & Resort — Hotel in La Fortuna

The highlight of our trip was the hot springs here and the wet bar! Not to mention the gorgeous views. Upon checking in, you’ll get a map with a list of amenities, map of tour/adventure activities you can book through the hotel (some are a bit pricey), on-site spa services brochure (definitely do the massage + facial if you have time), and towel key cards to exchange for fresh towels for your hot springs/pool time.

Depending on where your room is located, you and your luggage will be shuttled to the room. We were lucky enough to be placed in room 117 that was within walking distance to the horse stables, hot springs/pool changing rooms, gift shop, restaurant and reception area. Unfortunately, there are farther out rooms (some up in the hills) where you’ll mainly rely on the resort shuttle to get you back which may be convenient. The room itself is vast, but not as glamorous considering how highly rated this resort is. The bed is super firm and uncomfortable and walls are super thin (you can hear your neighbors and whatever is going on outside). Also, the door into your room has a small gap that can easily let small critters into your room… This was self explanatory to us and the paranoia in me enforced this very strictly to my group, but do NOT leave out food or trash food waste in your room or you’ll definitely have a surprise guest. There’s a fridge in the room so just put all food and snacks that you have in there! My biggest complaint about the room is the bathroom…in a super humid location like La Fortuna, the bathroom doesn’t have a humidifier/fan inside… we had to shower and use the restroom with the door open as we couldn’t open the bathroom window… there was also a really strong chemical smell that was akin to Nair hair removal. Not sure if it’s cleaner that CR uses or if that is what they use to clear the shower drain, but it’s so potent :(

A breakfast buffet is offered to all guests every morning and they tend to switch up the menu as much as they can. 3 of the 4 days we had something different every morning! Dinner at the restaurant is set in a super romantic atmosphere and the service is incredible!

Now the hot springs is absolutely a dream. Invest in flip flops that are waterproof and have great floor traction. The stone steps here are very slippery (especially considering the on and off sprinkling rain showers). There’s a pool temperature for everyone!! Our favorites is the jet spring massage hot spring pods and the mushroom alcove (specially the middle pool). We mainly spent most of the day out exploring and returned to enjoy the hot springs from 7-10pm (closing) and there isn’t too big of a crowd. I don’t know how busy it gets during the day, but definitely plan ahead if you want your favorite pool spot for yourself since people from other hotels tend to buy day passes! As mentioned earlier, you will get towel cards to exchange at the changing rooms. The towel exchange personnel will only be present from 9am to 9:30pm. Once you exchange your wet towel, you can ask for a new fresh towel or for your towel let back. The smart move would be to just ask for a new towel before leaving for the night since hot springs open at 8am. There are also lockers set up in front and be sure to bring a change of clothes (especially if you need to take the shuttle back to your room). The shower includes what I assume is a shower gel, so maybe bring shampoo if you’d rather shower once!

PLEASE VISIT THE WET BAR. Gosh I will forever dream about the cocktail I had with watermelon vodka. If you see it (I think it was the Dias drink), order it! My responsible friend loved their mango smoothies and pina coladas (served in a coconut), so if you’re a sober trooper - there’s options for you!

Overall, the grounds is gorgeous, but it’s one of the farthest resorts from Downtown La Fortuna. There is no shuttle into town, so your only option is to have reception call you a red taxi. Average fare cost to and from the hotel should be around 4000-6000 each way, depending on your taxi...

Update: the first day the French toast was dry with no egg and no flavor. I gave some polite suggestions and on our last morning the French toast became the best I’ve ever had with lots of egg and cinnamon.

Still Here, But Here’s What I Think So Far…

I don’t usually leave reviews before finishing my stay, but after our first night, I already have a pretty good idea of what to expect. I still have two nights left, and if anything changes—for better or worse—I’ll update this review.

To start with the positives: the hotel staff were friendly and welcoming at check-in, which I appreciated. Then came some information I wasn’t thrilled about. The room keys are actually wristbands—which is fine—but we were told that if we lose them, it’s $20 each. As a single mom on a packed vacation, that added pressure I wasn’t expecting. I wouldn’t have chosen a place with that kind of stress if I had known ahead of time.

Our room might have a nice volcano view—I’ll find out when the sun comes up—but right now, I can say it’s been really difficult to find our room on the property. There are signs around, but they aren’t clear. There’s no indication of where the reception or pools are from certain points, which is confusing when you’re just trying to enjoy your stay. A few directional arrows on existing signs could fix this and really help guests who are tired and unfamiliar with the layout.

Once we finally found the pool, we learned that guests have to turn in two plastic cards to get pool towels—big blue ones. If you lose the cards, it’s $10. Room towels aren’t allowed at the pool, and you have to use the cards to get towels (which you can exchange twice a day for fresh ones). You then have to put your towel in a locker while swimming. They give you a locker key that you also wear on your wrist—so between that and the room key, you’re stacked with wrist accessories. It just feels like a lot to keep up with, especially on vacation.

From what I understand, the hotel rents out its hot springs to non-guests, which may be why they have so many rules. Personally, I think it would make more sense to raise the price of the day pass slightly to cover towel access for everyone. That way, hotel guests don’t have to juggle towel cards and locker keys just to enjoy the pool.

We had dinner at the swim-up bar—but you can’t actually order food from the water. You have to get out of the pool and walk around to the other side. Drinks are available while you’re in the pool, though.

The food was a pleasant surprise! My son loved the pizza—it had the perfect balance of chewy and crispy crust, with melty cheese and flavorful toppings. I had the ceviche, which had a mildly sweet and spicy flavor with generous chunks of fish and thick, crunchy tortilla chips. After that meal, I’m genuinely looking forward to breakfast.

The hot springs were nice, though a little crowded. The regular swimming pools were fun, and the waterslides were fast and exciting—my son especially loved them.

I think I’d enjoy this place more if we hadn’t stayed at Arno Manoa the night before. That hotel had a similar setup, but with clearer signage, no towel confusion, and a more relaxed vibe overall. I guess I got a little spoiled.

This review reflects our first night. I sincerely hope someone from the hotel sees this and considers putting up better signage—especially for rooms at the back of the property. Guests should be able to find reception or the pool without stopping in the middle of the road to open a paper map.

More to come if anything changes. Fingers crossed for...

Let's start with the good part:

The resort is situated in a perfect location at the base of Arenal. The gardens and the pools (both the cold and the thermal ones) are well maintained and taken care of, so the view is overall beautiful, from that perspective, it was better than expected and this could have been a 5* review. Whilst the rooms are spacious, they do feel bit dated but for us this is not necessarily an issue.

We did like the breakfast, even though they need some improvements at pastry/dessert station. The breakfast staff was friendly and welcoming.

Now, the annoying parts:

First comment is around the DND sing that we left outside the door as we didn't want our room to be cleaned on the first day; it went missing and our room was cleaned. We thought might have been a mistake and maybe the wind took it away or something, nothing weird at that time but when the next couple of days (when we wanted our rooms to be actually cleaned), reappeared on random occasions, just so that our room was not cleaned anymore, made us wonder what's going on and if someone is playing with it intentionally.

The second annoying thing is actually something that is getting ridiculous: the tipping culture. I know there are many American tourists coming here and their culture can influence sometimes, but I've been to hundreds of hotels all over the world and never seen so many tipping jars in a single place in my life. There's a tipping jar at the towels desk, one in the room, one at the egg station at breakfast, and so on. It makes me feel like the staff is not looked after and they're doing some kind of community service and it's our duty to look after them, which I hope is not the case.

The worst part, that could have been avoided:

This is the story about how the staff at reception needs some serious customer service training.

I was queuing at the reception and it was starting to get quite busy and there were two queues forming. I was waiting in the second queue for quite a while as someone in front was checking in, and while both queues where getting bigger and bigger, the receptionist that was serving my queue decided to say that this queue is now for checkin only, even if there were people in that queue, me amongst them, waiting to check out.

Because of this, I asked that, if they wanted separate queues, they should serve people in the order they arrived at reception, which is only normal to respect the order as there were mixed queues, and in that moment an American couple started to become aggressive and verbally harass me, as well as physically threatening me, only because they thought I want to skip line and they were frustrated and in a hurry. The reception staff did not react and they did nothing to calm things out, which is even worst, because it all started out of their bad decision making. Clearly this could have been avoided or dealt with much better if the reception staff was...