Volcano Lodge & Hot Springs — Hotel in La Fortuna

The review only asks about the room, service, and location- in terms of stars... The room is good for the price. The folks are very nice. They even came out fast to make the a/c work... it was broken. The hot water in the shower is only warm for 5ish minutes. We were okay with it... but just so you know, it doesn't last long.

Our problem was really only with the food. There's a restaurant here... the food is terrible. We thought we couldn't go wrong with a local beer and malbec, and the top mariscos dish.

The beer was terrible and does not "pair well with fish" do not order the Pajara Azul beer. The red wines are chilled... so that in its self was strange. Malbecs have alot of flavors in them... you cant taste those when the wine is cold. Reds are always served room temp. ...not here. I would've gotten atleast 2 glasses... I, instead, got 1.

Our appetizer came before anything (sounds normal, but they bring out bread too, so the idea that it took no time to make the app- was strange). The app we ordered was the eggplant. It was cooked perfectly, had a cheese, pecan, and tomato in it. But then, it was frozen... it came out 100% chilled. The pecans and candied, and it's eggplant... this should have been a warm dish.

Bread was brought out. It was 3 very wheat flour tasting... strange breads. Very small dinner rolls...its bread, not then end of the world that it wasnt good. Margarine was brought with that. And mashed potatoes and steamed veg was brought that would be paired with the seafood dish. The mashed potato's had lemon juice in them... very strange. And drawn butter was in a ramican... only, it was dark orange/brown. So... thats interesting.

The dish is $59. Definitely not a terrible price... but... the octopus wasn't boiled prior to cooking it (for its size, it shouldve been boiled for an hour)... so it was super tough and for some reason, had no flavor. As was the calamari. The fish (there are 5 bricks of it), I thought one piece was tofu... it was just the skin side up. The other 4 were hiding under the over cooked, but under boiled octopus. Those, 3 of them being a white fish, I genuinely thought were over cooked chicken. The consistency was that of a dry Thanksgiving day turkey. It was so over cooked that the chef had to have forgotten about it for a duration. One bit of salmon... also over cooked, but atleast it had some moisture still in it. There should've been 4 shrimp... there were 3 because one was on the servers tray as he walked away... no big deal, they were over cooked of course.

One interesting part was that they turned off the lights and lit the food on fire as they brought it out. Then they turned back on the lights in the restaurant. ...I'm sure that the food being lit on fire, didn't help how over cooked it all was. It wasn't edible... honestly. I have never sent food back and wasn't going to start now. We would've had a coffee and a dessert each, had the food just been edible... but we opted to pay and go.

Total bill was $89. We tipped 20%. It's not the servers fault the the food was cooked so poorly. But when they came and we asked for the bill, they asked how it was... they saw it sitting there. We said it's fine... we just wanted the bill. The lady brought the bill, and again she asked.... they knew it was bad. ... we paid and left.

There isn't even a good reason for the food to be cooked so poorly. We got there at 8pm. After the dinner rush. The chef wasn't in a pinch with a bunch of tickets on the line.

Just know, the reds are chilled and the seafood, in costa rica, where every chef should be able to cook seafood... wasn't cooked right. ...get...

Our first impression when we arrived was that we had been transported to Florida. This may be great if you intended to go to Florida or love that experience, but felt somewhat incongruous to us being in Costa Rica. The accommodation is fine, spacious and clean, although the lightening is odd, as other people have commented on. We enjoyed the small patio area behind the room and loved seeing the wildlife (for example, 5 toucans in the nearest tree and Guans wandering nonchalantly around the car park). The grounds are beautifully manicured, which again felt at a bit at odds with natural Costa Rica, which is wild, lush and abundant. We enjoyed the hot springs and the swim up bar was fun. We enjoyed the tours that we went on. We resented being asked to wear orange wrist bands for the duration of our stay. The main negative issue is the restaurant. It is a large open area by the swimming pool with large screens showing sport (mainly soccer and MMA), with a bar area serving both the restaurant and customers just wanting drinks. The morning self-service buffet was good, but our experience of lunch and dinner was not. The quality of service ranged from attentive (thank you, Fernando) to downright poor, with certain servers having definite attitude issues. Most of the servers were doing their best, but a couple of times someone introduced themselves as our server for the evening and we did not see them again. With multiple servers coming to the table during the same meal, on one occasion two lots of the same drinks turned up. At peak time, it took over an hour for food to arrive. The food was OK but with huge portions and we ended up agreeing to share one item, which some other people were doing too. Alcohol was expensive. We would have chosen early on to eat elsewhere, but the Lodge is located a fair distance from La Fortuna, which means taxis and additional expense if you are not driving. As a suggestion for what might have improved our experience, we would have appreciated a separate snack-bar area away from the restaurant, serving a limited selection of, for example, wraps or fries, and for there to be a bar area separate from the restaurant, either with more development of seats around the swim up bar or a...

I would have loved to give a higher review for this place, which was nice in a lot of ways, but the experience with the restaurant and subsequently the hotel management staff left me no choice. To be fair, our room was clean and had everything we needed, pools were fun for us and the kids and the grounds are beautiful. All that being said, if you’re staying at a hotel and then dine at their restaurant you expect the staff to be friendly and helpful!!! Our family of 4 decided to have dinner at the restaurant that night, ordered an appetizer, drinks and our 4 entrees. After about 15 minutes they brought out my son’s meal and the appetizer at the same time. Fine, no problem. 40 minutes later we were asked if we’d like anything else … I didn’t get mad and just said “we never received our meal in the first place.” The manage Jose came over and was immediately aggressive and rude! Right off the bat he was confrontational! Even the waiters were apologizing to me for his rude and unprofessional attitude!! I said just don’t worry about our food! We’ll pay for what we received and go. He insisted that our food was ready and we were paying for it either way! We said we didn’t want our food, it was almost an hour later and he said you’re paying for it anyway! Then he told people he brought it out to us and we refused it?!!! I have pictures AND video! My food NEVER came out! I never saw or received it! My daughter did get her burger finally and it was literally raw!!! They had to take it back and “re grill” it!! I didn’t allow her to eat it but still paid for it!!! He literally was acting like the rudest person you’d ever want to meet! He told me to pay and to go complain to the front office so I did! They told me the owner stands with Jose’s decision, doesn’t care that I never received our food and still charged me! I literally couldn’t sleep that night, honestly Jose was so aggressive my kids were scared and I felt nervous the whole night. I didn’t go out for breakfast and literally just waited for our car so we could leave that place! There are much better places to stay that have better customer service! Such a sad experience to have tarnish our otherwise...