I'll start by the positives which unfortunately aren't many. We were looking for a hotel to stay and from the outside this hotel seemed perfect. It had a guard which offered us some safety, it sat right on the beach (which is rare for Samara) and the Villas looked really cute. Due to the location, we expected to pay a little more but felt we were charged an outrageous rate for what we actually got. Now the negatives. ... At first glance the pool looks very inviting but on a closer look it was very very cloudy and dirty. Once we were brought to our Villa, I was extremely disappointed with how filthy it was. The bathroom is usually where I go first to check for cleanliness and it was awful - to the point that I told my family that they had to wear their sandals to take a shower! I tried cleaning up a bit and finally was so frustrated I went in search of a local market to buy Clorox and a scrub brush to at least clean the bathroom because I could not stand it. At some point, sanity set back in and I went to speak to the girl at the Reception area. I told her I was extremely unhappy and even showed her a towel I used to clean the bathroom that was needless to say very dirty. I was given a very dirty look and security was then called to my Villa. "Security" apparently was sent to investigate whether or not I was telling the truth. Security listened to me and agreed that for the price - we were indeed been shafted! He then called to maids to clean my room again. They lasted all of 5 min and left. I gave up on cleaning my room. Now the next part of our stay was nice as well..... apparently there must have been a sewer back up somewhere because we had a very nice young man going back and forth with a wheelbarrel in front of our villa (which was facing the ocean) carrying sewage. The smell was unbearable Yes, I am sure that at some point this Villa and this property had once been absolutely gorgeous but unfortunately both were under very serious neglect. Suffice it to say, we left very early the next morning after finding a beautiful hotel at Playa Carillo right up the coast.

The villas are right on the beach. The vary large pool is great if you have kids who would rather the pool than the ocean. The rooms are not luxury. The seating includes concrete slabs that double as extra beds (there mattrresses). The bedrooms are Motel 6 quality. The nice part is the tropical vegetation. There is also an open air restaurant and poolside bar. The food is good.

This area is being developed like everything else in Costa Rica. A stream exits down the beach carrying results of this excavation, so the sand isn't really white anymore.

There is a nice island if you can swim for an hour. This beach is small and very nice. Next to the beach are fish you can see if you bring some snorkeling gear.

I seems to me this resourt used to be very nice, but now is a little neglected. I will go back if the price is right because when I want a high rise hotel and room service I stay in Miami.

Rather than give my opinion of this hotel, I will just state the facts of our experience, and let you be the judge. This hotel is an attractively laid out collection of villas. The garden areas are well maintained, and the whole complex sits right on the beach, though not all of the rooms have an ocean view. Our villa had a living area with an L-shaped concrete bed (two "twins" ) topped with aged cushions, and a small table with four chairs. No TV, no phone, no sofa. The small kitchen area was in very rough shape. The wooden trim around the counter was detached. The drawers were broken at every seam, and practically fell apart when I tried to open them. The fridge did not fit into its allotted space, and so was sitting in the middle of the kitchen. The cabinet drawers were all hanging loosely from their hinges. In the bedroom, there was a queen bed and an old folding metal cot . There were side tables with two small lamps that had lampshades that were so filthy that I took them off and hid them in the closet. There were vertical blinds on all of the windows that didn't work--we did our best to open and close them manually every day. In the bathroom, the drawers were in the same shape as the ones in the kitchen. The shower was fine. Other misc. things: My husband was stung by a scorpion in the bathroom. The pool was cloudy. The beach was nice for walking, but the water is darkened by silty sand near the wave break--it improves a few yards out. The restaurant was very good, and reasonably priced. The staff offered to transfer us to a new room, but it wasn't really any better, so we stayed put. We ended up staying three of our planned nights because we had already paid for them, and there aren't that many choices in the area. The fourth night we transfered to a hotel on Playa Carillo right up the road. It is really too bad that the inside of these rooms have not been maintained, because the set up and location are nice. I bet some of the villas are in better shape, because I think some are privately owned. If you are looking for a place to stay in Samara, keep on looking! If you have already booked here, I hope you get a better room.

I vacationed in Costa Rica for 14 nights in July/August 2006 for my honeymoon. I stayed in three different resorts and one hotel while in Costa Rica.

I have mixed feelings about Hotel Villas Playa Samara. First the good: The hotel is on a beautiful part of Playa Samara (beach) and was by far the best beach I went to while in Costa Rica. The beach is about 3 kilometers away from the main part of town so it is far enough away to be fairly isolated and peaceful. There is also another beach about a 20 minute walk (further away from town) (or just a few minutes driving) that is also incredibly beautiful. So the location is excellent—far enough from the town to be peaceful but close enough to go into town easily when needed.

Other positives are that the hotel also has a nice pool area for relaxing (with a wet bar), the food at the restaurant is decent, and villas are either right on the beach or a short walk away.

Now the negative:

After reading the reviews about Villas Playa Samara I did not come with high expectations. And I came expecting some bug problems. But overall I do have some issues with this hotel.

Pretty dirty rooms: The hotel rooms are far from clean. In fact, the floors of the villas are pretty disgusting. I understand that this is an eco-friendly facility, but that doesn’t mean they can’t mop the floors. The floors were so dirty that I had to walk around with sandals in the room at all times. The few times I didn’t the bottom of my feet would be black with dirt.

The rooms are old: The villas are visibly old looking. The shower has poor water pressure. The water temperature is fickle. The air conditioning is a window unit in the bedroom with the temperature adjustment knob broken off. No matter how high the A/C was, the living room could not get cold.

Unpredictable meal plan: I purchased the meal plan that includes a free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at their restaurant. The problem is that their definition of what is covered for those meals was different each day depending on who was the waitress. It is clearly marked which entrees are covered, but everything is up in the air after that. The first breakfast we went to the waitress told us the bottled water and side items (fruit and extra eggs) were covered. The next day a different waitress told us the bottle water was not covered but the eggs were. The third day none of the extra items were covered. The same happened with lunch. At first we could get any sides, dessert, and water/soda for free. But on the third day a different waitress told us only one free bottled water or soda and no free desserts. Needless to say the ever-changing meal plan was confusing and frustrating. Overall though, the food was pretty decent tasting.

And one note one the service at the restaurant. I found the service here to be on par with much of the rest of Costa Rican restaurants. You won’t get anything too quickly for sure! My wife and I started bringing playing cards to the meals to help kill the time while we waited for the meals to come. But they were not any worse than most of the other restaurants we went to in Costa Rica.

Bugs: I came expecting bugs and was I was not let down! There are ants and flies all over the outside areas of the facility. The restaurant tables would sometimes be teeming with ants busy at work looking for food. And the flies were always coming around to check things out. This was not too terribly annoying to me but might bother some people. Inside our villa there were a lot of flies but I didn’t see any ants. But I can imagine if we left any food in the open they would be out pretty quickly.

Conclusion: I would recommend this resort area if you are a beach bum looking for a nice beach at a “not so fancy” resort/villa. Just be warned that this place is anything but fancy and the service is sometimes very frustrating. The rooms are nicely located but pretty dirty and old looking. I found the price to be pretty reasonable compared to some of the other places I stayed at.

One final warning: I reserved my room about six weeks in advance. I was surprised to see that they charged me for the entire stay right when I reserved the rooms with them. This was the only hotel I stayed at in Costa Rica that did that. I can see that being a problem with people how end up changing their plans after reserving the rooms. So just be warned that they will likely do the same to you.