This hotel is located in a busy tourist area with lots of shopping, restaurants, museums, and historic landmarks to visit. Great people watching. Great location, though several employees hinted it lies in a heavy crime area (though honestly, we had no problems)...... The lobby, bar, and restaurant/cafe are really nice and are very well-appointed. However, the rooms do not compare to the rest of this luxury hotel. There's no a/c in their 'superior' rooms, plus there seems to have been little updating over the last 20-30 years.... it's also one of the noisiest hotels I've stayed in. I'd opt for a suite and atleast you'll get a/c. Though, after staying at the Marriott Hotel San Jose shortly afterwards, I would never stay at the Gran Hotel again.

Such a good surprise after driving in the city. the location is amazing right in the center of everything. very beautiful building, and nice room. The staff is very friendly, and i dont see anything bad to say. maybe the fact that there is no ac in the room can be anoying. Beside that it looks pefect, seurised parking at 20 meter of the hotel, free safety box in the room, tv, sealling fan, huge bed...
defenetly a good place to go

Just returned from our short trip to COSTA RICA which was
wonderful.

The hotel however, was not. We always try to book into the
downtown areas and in an historical building if possible.

THE GRAN HOTEL COSTA RICA, surely was in an
excellent location, within walking to everything we wanted
to see. (The Gold Museum, The National Theatre, the
Market, shops, etc.

The Hotel looked nice on the outside and the lobby was fine,
but the room smelled like sewage, the drains were extremely
sluggish, etc. Overall it had a BIG plumbing problem, which
you might think would be the case for such an old building,
but we have not encountered this problem anywhere else.

Also, the Hotel says they renovated (probably several years
ago, which would be okay, but) they laid very blah brown wall
to wall carpet (not in keeping with historical) over what was probably a nice floor which could have been refinished to
keep the original look and feel of the Hotel.

The breakfast buffet was included and was quite nice, with
a nice variety and exotic fruits almost daily.

Overall, the Hotel was fine, but just have to check the room for
smell and working plumbing before moving in.

kmiami

Our first room was on the second floor, directly across from the stairs, with nothing separating it from the lobby noise. The elevator shaft was cut out of this room, so we also heard the elevator. The floor was dirty and the finishes were very worn. The bed was too uncomfortable to even sit on, so we asked for another room.

Our second room was a little nicer, but this room had 2 double beds rather than a king. The beds were so small we each had our own. I am 5'4" and my feet were hanging off the end. This room got a lot of noise from the street below, including the chirping every 30 seconds from a pedestrian crosswalk a block away. I suppose this would be the case in any hotel in the area, although if you got something with AC, you could keep the windows closed.

We also had the pleasure of crank phone calls at 1am.

The free breakfast is a plate of fruit in the smoking section. If you want the buffet advertised, and the freedom to choose where you sit, that costs an extra $15.

They even ripped us off on the airport transfer. There is an official airport taxi that's supposed to cost $12. The hotel denied this existed and ordered us a private car for $20 instead. We arrived in San Jose at the domestic airport, where there were no taxis waiting, so we didn't know any better. But the airport taxis were dropping other people off when we arrived at the international airport.

The lobby is beautiful, and the location is great. But the rooms are a dump, and I got the feeling from the staff that they felt they were doing us a favour letting us stay there for $90/night.

It was a bad final impression of Costa Rica.