Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo — Hotel in Jalisco

I don’t write too many reviews, but we just spent a week at Four Seasons Tamarindo and it warranted a write up as we hadn’t heard much about this new property and it is now one of our favorites! It is best for a warm, relaxing, luxury beach vacation – for couples or family. We love Mexico overall and now prefer the west coast without all of the unsightly seaweed issues between Cancun and Tulum on the east side. ||Tamarindo is an almost brand-new gorgeous property with stunning new rooms/views and great amenities. The plunge pools at the cliff rooms are spectacular. However, the biggest thing that made the week so special was the exceptional service. For a property that has only been open for about a year and a half, they have it dialed in nicely to the FS standard. ||If you like the One & Only Mandarina north of Punta Mita (another favorite), you will love this resort. Like Mandarina, the property is huge – the lone resort on a 3,000 acre reserve. Thus, the beaches are super private, and you feel a ‘world away from it all.’ And, like O&O, if you opt for the cliff rooms, you will often call for golf carts to take you around as the uphill walk can be more than you want after a day of relaxing by the pool. We found them to be even more responsive here, generally arriving in a few minutes after you call. ||The rooms are modern, sleek, and comfortable – most with plunge pools and some with outdoor showers. All of the architecture and design is beautiful and everything is new and clean. We opted for a cliffside villa – preferring a dramatic view and huge plunge pool – but people with whom we spoke raved about the rooms on the beach as well and the ability to walk right out to the ocean. You almost feel like you are in a movie when brushing your teeth and seeing the dramatic beach reflection in the mirror (with the rock formations coming out of the water)! ||The food across the three restaurants is quite good. We enjoyed the view at Sal (by the ocean), but preferred the menu and overall experience at Coyul (the only non-Mexico city outpost of Michelin Star Chef Elena Reygadas). The Coyul breakfast buffet is over-the-top – don’t miss the rosemary pastries… We did the Taco Tasting at the casual lunch place, Nacho, and Leo made the whole thing really fun. And, while we don’t usually order room service, the Tamarindo room service menu is extensive and dining on the patio for one dinner and one breakfast was special. Note: prices here were at least 35% to 40% less for drinks and dining than other luxury Mexico resorts, which was a pleasant surprise (and prices are still listed in pesos – not US $$s – unlike so many menus in Cabo and elsewhere). ||This resort offers more of a chill, relaxing vacation, but there was plenty to do: |• Spa is new and nice – like most FS, not cheap but very professional and pampering. Great spaces to relax before and after treatments and you can use the spa even if not doing treatments, which I appreciate. They have a nice sauna, steam room, and hot tub. Note: no cold plunge, which I wish they had. ||• Gym is brand new, huge and has great windows. All the free weights and machines needed for most anybody. Also has big Pilates room and several great trainers (thanks Diego and Alexandra!). ||• Both of the main beaches were large, clean, and had great service – more watersports at Tamarindo beach (short golf cart ride over the hill) and more food offered at the beach by the rooms. Our dog loved running up and down the beaches, chasing the little sand crabs each morning. BTW, the hotel is extremely dog friendly and a great place to bring well-behaved furry companions (they even have a dog food menu at the restaurants!). ||• Golf: While we are not golfers, we did an e-biking tour one morning (recommend) and I can say that the golf course is gorgeous, carved into the jungle and with several holes that have epic views.||• Pools: they have 3 main pools, including separate adult and family pools (and one with cabanas). All of them have great service and stunning views. Olga was great, regularly bringing waters, drinks, and snacks for both us and our dog. ||Again, however, what differentiates this resort from many of the other luxury resorts we have been to (other FS, O&O, Mandarin, Auberge, etc.) is the incredible service. They made us feel so welcome and special – engaging informally in the great FS style, while professionally attending to our every need. One time, housekeeping didn’t replace our bath robes and – when we called – brought them to the room in less than three minutes. Amazing. ||Also, the ‘no tipping’ policy across the resort was refreshing as you never had to bring cash or add tips to any bills (car service, tips for golf cart rides, boat tour, restaurants, pool service, etc.). I haven’t minded tipping at other places, but it is just another level of relaxing when you don’t even have to think even it. ||Sergio, who runs guest services/ activities is fantastic and helped us plan several great activities. Everyone at the front desk is super friendly and accommodating (Camila is a delight). The bellmen are all attentive. Angel, made our dog feel like a VIP each day. ||The only ‘minus’ for us is that getting to Manzanillo airport from much of the U.S. requires a connecting flight and some offered only on certain days of the week (vs. PVR which has more non-stop flights). However, the upside is that this resort is more private and feels more authentic once you arrive. MZO has only four gates and is super easy to navigate. I recommend the FS car service from the airport –seamless. You can also fly to PVR and FS will work with you to take a small, private flight to an airstrip very close to the property. We will likely try that in the future. ||In any event, a little longer travel day is well worth the fantastic experience once you arrive. I suspect this will become one of the 'flagship' resorts for FS over the next couple of years. We recommend FS Tamarindo strongly and look forwards...

I write it on google as Trip Advisor seems not to publish average review about Four Seasons. The place is unique, in terms of location, environment, one of the best i saw in south America. The rooms a beautiful and well apointed. However, the food offer is not coherent. Prepare to eat 100% Mexican food, which is good for a short stay like we did, but long stay it could be annoying. They have 3 restaurant, 1 is a franchise of a well known Mexico City eatery called Roseta. The reproductio is 60% matching with the original, the service is DESASTROUS, the setting is horrible. This is a fine dining restaurant, their finest, but it is served in the Coffee Shop, that carry the same name: COYUL. It s a large place, confusing and very dark at night (Around the pools but pools had no lighting at the time of our visit). The furniture are roughly the same you would find in TOKS or VIP ( Mexican Cafeteria in commercial area), low quality large table. The restaurant is noisy. I don t get the idea behind and it is very surprising seeing a fine dining restaurant of a four seasons seated in the coffer shop...a TOTAL FAILURE. During our diner, we had no welcome, they had no hostess on standby. We wait 10 minutes to get a waiter at our table. First we received dishes of another table, after receiving our order 50% wrong, had to wait another 30 mins to get my main dish...seems the waiters were tired. There were missing some and at the end of the meal, came another one dressed like a painter or a construction worker, with a belly outside its shirt...to give an end: unbelievable! But that wasn t all, they have a good outlet called NACHO, a Taqueria, pretty nice. It is open for lunch only. The day we went, they had a private event and at first refused us...unbelievable again for a resort! Except this, you could only go to the all day dining ( Their coffee shop or fine dining restaurant...whatever it is!) Or another one called SALT. Very nice setting around the beach...but they should have callef it SAMPLE! The food is good for lunch but EXTREMELY limited, a d among this limitation, they were lacking the Squid...The portion are extremely small, hopefully we pass thru an OXXO on the way and purchased some Sabritas, as such we could eat when at 5 Pm we started starving! This is not serious, a coffee shop being a fine dining, a lunch restaurant closed for a private party, another one serving sample plates...In terms of food and beverage this place is managed by a bunch of amateurs. Of course they know how to cook, because it's very good, but in terms of concept and organization, it's zero. A guy came during our breakfast ( Which i saw as a disturbance) to apologize, and offered us the diner...which we don t care, we would have prefered a diner in a great fine dining environment with top notch service is phase with Rosete being World 50 best N49... The hard product is EXCELLENT, the soft is Mediocre. We had a Huge Bee Nest on our room terrace, that stung my son, while seated on the terrace...it was very big, how come they haven t removed? It was hanged to the roof of the terrace...Means they don t check the rooms.We didn t say a word as we didn t want the manager to come again to see us. They have a beach with very poor lay out...the sun bed are under the restaurant for the shade...or another magnificent beach called tamarindo...but with limited service, no food, surrounded by the ruin of the...

I just got home after spending a few days at the newly opened Four Seasons in Tamarindo, and wow. First of all, it’s now my favorite Four Seasons resort and one of my favorite beach resorts of all time. The resort is located in a private nature reserve and totally secluded. We arrived in the middle of the week, so we barely saw other guests around when we were there.

The location is spectacular and the views are absolutely breathtaking.

My partner and I were celebrating our 15 year anniversary, and booked the one bedroom cliff side pool suite with an ocean view and got upgraded to the suite with panoramic views. The views were insane, even better in person than in the photos. We had everything in our suite: an outdoor shower, hammock, pool, down to a hats at a beach tote.

The hotel has all the amenities you’ll ever need: spa with jacuzzi, steam room, and sauna. Gym with high end equipment including a pilates studio.

There are three restaurants on site: Coyul, Sal, Nacho. We had breakfast at Coyul every day, but they serve dinner as well. We had dinner at Sal, the first night, which satisfied our sushi cravings. And had an incredible late lunch / early dinner at Nacho one evening. The tacos at Nacho, the taqueria, were incredible. Even after spending a few days in Mexico City before Tamarindo, these tacos were still some of the best I’ve ever had. My favorite were the soft shell crab tacos, but you really can’t go wrong with anything here. Every single meal was excellent. For breakfast, my favorite item was the huevos rancheros, which I ordered twice. At Sal, I particularly loved the dumplings and the maki.

If I had a couple more days here, I would have scheduled some water sports and done a boat tour. The beach by the hotel is beautiful, but the waves are too rough for swimming. I recommend getting a ride to Tamarindo beach, with much calmer waves, if you want to go swimming in the ocean.

Bonus: there’s a doctor on site if you end up getting sick for whatever reason.

There were a few things they could improve upon: there’s a lot of back and forth if you try to use the app to schedule activities like spa appointments, so it’s not exactly the most efficient way to get things done. They quoted us $160 USD each way for the private car service to/from the airport, but it comes out to $220 with fees, taxes, service charges, etc. so add 37.5% on top of what you’ve been quoted. Not a huge deal but I was surprised. I recommend checking your invoice carefully when you check out. I found some mistakes on my invoice checking out of this FS and the FS in Mexico City. One last thing that was so annoying was that they kept asking for our last name and room number even if we were just hanging out by the pool and we didn’t order any drinks/food. I feel like people were always asking us to verify our name and room number. At many of the high end luxury resorts like Aman (Amangiri, Amankila) or Rosewood (Mayakoba), I think they know who you are, so we’re not constantly verifying our identity around the resort. I realize this is nit picky but it just seemed unnecessary if I’m just laying out by the pool after breakfast.

Overall, Four Seasons Tamarindo is literally heaven on earth, and I cannot...