The location is the only major benefit. Hotel is tired and so are the staff. The breakfast is expensive and worse than any Hampton Inn. The place needs total update. Skip it and go somewhere else if you can. Monteverde is special and there are better places. More

Nice location but a dated hotel in need of updating. Rooms smelled and the staff was rude and unfriendly. Won't go back ever. More

Average rooms and food, but inconvenient location to center of town and 2.5 mile walk on a dusty rough road with uphill return. Birds sparse on our visit to Cloud Forest. Don Juan Coffee Plantation tour fantastic (for a coffee lover). Agree with review of "Meh". More

My husband and I went to Costa Rica the first week of December. We went to other areas of the country and had wonderful hotels. This was the exception. The rooms are clean, but in major need of updating. The chair/sofa in the room was impossible to sit on due to cushions and fabric that essentially made you fall off!... More

I stayed at this hotel during the last days of 2011. The Hotel is very nice, the scenery is espetacular, the surroundings are kept beautifully. One of the things that I think it lacks is service, in the pool area you almost do not have anyone serving, for example if you want something to drink or eat, or just ask... More

My family of five stayed here for two nights in late December. The accommodations were booked through a travel agent so we did not know anything about the hotel prior to our arrival. Some people might be put off by the rocky dirt pathways necessary to access the hotel restaurant or pool areas and the rooms were just average. However,... More

The Fonda Vela isn't a bad place, just be sure to know what you're walking into. It's quite a ways outside of the town of Santa Elena, but super close to the Monteverde Forest Reserve. So, it depends what your priorities are--what do you want the shorter drive to be? The rooms are pretty stodgy, how my grandmother would decorate,... More

This hotel was a great place to stay during our one day visit to Monteverde. However, this hotel is much further out of town than others--which equals more time in the car on their horrbile roads. As you will read about when looking into going to Monteverde, the roads are non-paved and it takes a long time to get to... More

We stopped by this hotel for an evening meal. We were taken through to a small seating area away from the main dining room. This area is very pleasantly presented, with lovely artworks on the walls. The food here was excellent, we were all delighted with our orders. We also had some cocktails here - absolutely great, but watch out... More