JW Marriott Guanacaste Resort & Spa — Hotel in Tamarindo

JW review Read this before booking!

Overall, the JW Marriott does not meet the same high standards of the JW brand—so don’t choose this hotel based on the JW name. Overall this hotel was a huge disappointment and I can not in good conscience recommend it. Details below to help you decide for yourself.

Front desk: They are not vey accommodating and do not give Marriott Elite status any consideration for room upgrades or other perks. In fact, upon check in, there is not even a distinct Bonvoy line - like most other Marriotts. The perks of having an Elite status at this hotel are overlooked/ ignored ( see example below).

The food: The food is really NOT good—despite its high price. I would never go back to any of the restaurants. Not only does it taste bad, the dishes are not what they say on the menu. For example the pasta dishes are more like soup with some noodles, than pasta with sauce. The Pad Thai is more like spaghetti with red sauce. Even their steak was ill-prepared. Some of the servers are wonderfully kind and helpful, but too many others are indignant to serving or delivering what you ordered.

Also, be VERY careful if you have any food allergies. The server may write it down, but it doesn’t translate to the kitchen or back to your table. Ask what’s in everything and double check. Numerous times they brought me food and when I asked if it was what I ordered ( no dairy, gluten free) they said yes. Then I would double check with my server to confirm and she would go back to the kitchen to verify and come back to take the plate away telling me it contained ingredients that I was allergic to. Even items on the breakfast buffet that were labeled gluten free turned out not to be and were mislabeled. I am not sure if it’s a language issue or lack of training on food allergies, but they could make someone very, very sick.

In contrast the food in Tamarindo was excellent, friendly and allergy conscious. Bamboo Bistro had excellent sushi and their spicy edamame rivaled some of the best in Los Angeles. They even accommodated each item to be gluten free. Green Papaya was fun and yummy. NOI had great breakfast! There are so many more that deserve mentioning but this review is about JW. :)

Upon arrival at the JW, we were asked what option we want for our Bonvoy gift ( this is standard Marriott Bonvoy protocol). We always choose free breakfast rather than get more points, but this JW said it would only be for 2 people—despite that we had 3 people registered to our room. I mentioned this was not in line with the other Marriott’s we stayed at. They just shrugged and said two and dismissed us. So I didn’t have breakfast out of principle (as well as I can’t eat gluten, diary, or eggs, so breakfast is hard)— maybe it was a blessing since the food was terrible!

(We left the JW early to stay at the W. Upon arrival at the W, the front desk asked what gift we wanted and we said breakfast. Guess what!?!? It was breakfast for all 3 and the breakfast was awesome! )

The JW bar / pool staff were friendly and went out of their way to deliver service with joy. I think they were the only service staff that seemed to enjoy being here and made it fun to interact with.

Another positive is the room service staff. When you need extra pillows, towels or anything for the room, they were very attentive. The rooms are clean and comfortable. They are not large, but they use the space well.

The pool is beautiful.

This property does not meet the JW Marriott standard that its know for. We are loyal Titanium Elite Marriott members. We usually love our experiences at Marriotts all over the world. I would think some better training for both management and staff and a complete overhaul on the restaurants, chefs, offerings, and waitstaff could turn this property around to be on-par with a JW property. We will not be returning again to...

My daughter and I stayed at JW Marriot from April 11-16. We loved the resort! We were both looking for downtime and this resort provided that. The resort property is huge and it’s beautiful. It’s also gated and fenced. The grounds are well kept and beautiful day or night. The pool is the biggest I’ve seen at a resort. There were always plenty of available chairs around the pool. The beach is good, but I’d say the beach at the beach club next door is better. We ate poolside only once, but the food and service were good. My daughter booked the rain forest/sloth tour from the resort (be warned, bus ride is 3 hours each way for this tour). We also did the river tour (Palo Verde Jungle and Cultural Tour) that we booked through Tico Tours Guanacaste and I highly recommend that tour and if you can get Hansel as your guide that’s a big bonus. He was educational and engaging. And because we booked through them it’s considered a private tour, we had the guide and boat to ourselves. We only had the two of us, but if you had 10 people, it would just be those 10 people. We saw another boat that was packed full, and we were very glad we went this route. This tour includes the sugar cane tour and a delicious lunch. Do go to the Beach Club next door. The resort provides shuttle transportation. The beach there is amazing, the pool….not so much. The pool is much smaller, and it was also very cloudy and dirty. We did have lunch at the café there and it was good. Also keep your receipt when you first check into the beach club ($10/person) as they will credit that amount back to you if you dine there. Didn’t know that until I was cashing out, and the hostess asked me for my receipt and told me about the credit. We booked massage appointments one morning. One of the best back massages I’ve had (Natalia was great). We also made use of the sauna, steam room, soaking pool and outdoor showers. Really great staff and area. Our room (#528) had the most beautiful view! Book this room if you can, you won’t regret it (unless the elevator breaks, which it did, with us on it!!) I had read reviews about the elevator issues. Didn’t expect to be caught between floors one evening. The maintenance men did get us out fairly quick, and they kept asking our room number so I kind of expected management to call and off apologizes or something in the way of compensation for that incident, but nothing. It was disappointing to me that someone from the resort didn’t bother to call and ask if we were ok. We stayed at a resort in Hawaii a few years back and my granddaughter fell and smacked her head, she was ok, nothing serious. But the resort called EMT’s, management called several times that day and the next day as well, as did the EMT’s just to make sure she was still doing fine. The food at the resort was good, nothing exceptional. We found the resort staff to be very friendly and helpful. The resort was clean. Our room was cleaned each day. We loved the coffee shop, but wished it opened earlier. The snack/souvenir shop was very convenient and the staff there was very pleasant and helpful. We took a few hours to explore Tamarindo. We booked the shuttle at the resort. We stopped and had lunch at Pico Bistro, and the food was good. Nicely shaded spot on the beach to enjoy the views. We did a bit of shopping and spent 3 hours total there which was...

Spent 7 nights at the JW Marriott Guanacaste and we had an excellent time. We've never stayed at a Marriott Bonvoy hotel, so I can't speak to any comparisons of the brand, but in general we had a wonderful time.

The staff are all friendly, helpful, and accommodating. The resort itself is very nice. The flora and fauna are beautiful. The buildings are all in very good condition, but there are signs of wear and tear in certain places. If that's something that's going to bother you, then be aware of it, but our party of 6 had no issues with it and overall loved the entire experience.

The hotel has an event calendar - definitely recommend morning stretching, the nature walk, group bike ride, cooking class, and mixology class.

If you're looking for relaxation, an awesome pool, and just a nice and quiet place to experience "Pura Vida" this is a great location.

A couple things to note:

You can use USD for everything. Almost everything that we paid for was quoted in both the colon and the dollar

The resort is remote. If you plan on just hanging out at the resort, you'll be fine (the pool and view are great!). If you plan on going anywhere, I would highly recommend renting a car. The resort has a shuttle service via their destination services partner, but the shuttle with tax is $24 round trip per person. For our party of 6, it was $140 to just get off the resort for an outing. Absolutely rent a car if you want to do multiple self-planned day trips.

Dining is expensive. If you live in the US in a high cost of living area, you'll probably be used to spending $10 - $18 per item for take out. Expect this and higher at the resort. The pool bar is great, but expect to pay $22 for a cheeseburger or $20 for a quesadilla. Alcoholic drinks are $10 or more; beer starts at $7 - $8 each and goes up depending on the type. The restaurants are good, but they're not 'fine dining.' We had the best meal at Sabaneros (the steak house), and the actual steak prices were very good compared to our hometown. But dining is definitely expensive, and if you're on a budget, this is not the place to be.

The beach at the resort is pretty rocky - if you're looking at the ocean, head to the left down the beach. You'll have some rocks to traverse (not difficult at all, but if you have balance issues, you may need a steady hand to assist) -- it will get you to Hacienda Pinilla's beach club (10 minute walk on the sand), and you can hang out there for $10. You can saunter down the coastline even more to Playa Avellana where you'll find local restaurants, lots of swimmable beach, and tons of surfing. Highly recommend doing this - the walk is beautiful and there are more affordable dining options. Lola's is great!

The resort has bikes you can use - as avid bikers, the bikes need some major TLC. We used 6 of them and found all of them to have issues with gears, worn out brakes, low tires, and overall they just did not feel safe. We did not use them again after our initial bike tour (if they had been in better shape, we probably would have used them multiple times).

Overall, we had...