Sandy Toes Hostel — Hotel in Sámara

Let's start with some positives. The town is a must visit if you want something more relaxed than the party scenes of Tamarindo and Santa Teresa. It has a great vibe, vriendly locals and some great eating options. There's also a couple of places for a good night out. The waves are great for beginners.||||The hostel itself has wifi (though not terribly fast), air-conditioning and I stayed in quite a spacious dorm room (though the bathroom was tiny) with comfy beds. It was a few minutes walk from the beach, but so is every other hostel, it's a small town. There's a shared kitchen and tea/coffee all day as well as a pool table.||||There's also nightly loud parties outside - so if you like your sleep you may want to stay further away - you can still attend the parties.||||My main problem came with the service, from one lady in particular - the Spanish/Costa Rican receptionist who had some serious trust issues.||||It should have clicked on arrival when she spoke badly of other highly rated hostels nearby. I should have left at that point, it's never a good sign, but it was late, I was tired and so I stayed.||||She asked me to fill in the check-in form, which I duly did however she didn't believe I could write my passport number down without looking at it, so asked me to get it so she could check. It's for security, I get it.||||Next I was handed a folder with the hostel rules in it and asked to read it. She said she didn't believe I had read it and began quizzing me on the rules...again minor, not terribly annoying.||||The bigger concern was when I told her that the dorm room was locked but that I could still open it - she insisted I was wrong, stating that if it was locked it was totally locked and couldn't be opened. I had to ask her 3 times before she eventually would go to look and see that yes, in fact it couldn't be locked. No apology was ever received.||||Instead, in what I feel was a move of spite, she shut off the ac and took the control - it was 6pm. She did not return it at 9pm (when technically it is supposed to be switched on, though some members of staff allow you to have it on if there are people in the room), nor did she return it at the end of her shift, instead she left 8 people sweating in the room until finally at midnight we were able to obtain the control from another member of staff - who I believe might have been the owner/manager - either way he was very friendly and apologetic for what happened. ||||This particular lady's service was far from what would be expected when you are paying a premium for a dorm bed ($18), worse when a chunk of that is because of the ac which was switched off.||||My last gripe, prices are quoted in USD and when paying in USD, the exchange rate they give you is the worst I've seen in a hostel, 500 colones to the dollar (while the official at the time was 562). The simply take the money downstairs to the bank and exchange it at the higher rate, making an extra 10+% in the process - yes I'm aware many business use the 500 to 1 rate but when the prices are as high as they are, I don't think they really need to be taking advantage of their guests in this way - the least the could do is suggest the guest might want to exchange it themselves. Most hostels I've stayed at exchange at 540 or 550, some even at 560. Not here.||||Look, the hostel is set up great, and a couple of tweaks to service and exchange rates and everything would...

Nice AC, but really inkompetent staff. While stay there was an exterminator who cleaned the kitchen from cockroaches. Without no warning the complete Hostel was smoked out with toxic chemicals. Another thing about About the incompetent staff is that they didn’t even gave a key to an old lady who had to go to the beach to find some personal. We also asked about the time of the bus directions to San Jose . The lady behind the reception said that the first one is going at 3 AM, but it wasn’t we had to wait two hours and the bus was booked out. and sometimes they lock the kitchen up sometimes not in our case it’s meant that we have no food on...

Not really the best hostel I’ve stayed at… we stayed here for 6 nights and not once did the cleaning staff come to wash our bathroom or mop the floor, even tho multiple people came in and out of the room during that time. The kitchen and its tools are dirty, the pots and pans are decomposing themselves in the food, there even was a rat one night!! We only stayed for the A/C at night, that isn’t working half of the time but still is better than nothing. At least the...