We stayed a total of 6 nights at Palma Real, 5nights during Easter week and on our last night in Costa Rica. The hotel is nice. The staff during Easter week were awesome. The bell boys and the concierge were very helpful. We also asked the lady who does the tours to book a reservation to the Aerial Tram. She was great (although, thinking back, we would have gotten a cheaper price (we paid full price) if we booked ourselves using the car rental discount or booking through our car rental). The hotel was a nice place to stay for day trips. San Jose was also very quiet during this time of our stay since everyone was at the beach. The breakfast buffet choices at the hotel were great; my family and I had different tastes so we had choices of continental, traditional, omelet, etc. THe hotel's in a quiet neighborhood. I found the male front desk staff a bit unfriendly but the women were otherwise. The hotel is clean but they may have a mold problem because my allergies were acting up whenever we were inside the room. Can't complain because most places I have seen in Costa Rica seem worse. It's a tropical country--mold and insects abound. However, no roaches on this hotel.
The walls are thin, we found out on our last night stay on the way back to the U.S. They were having karaoke, or some sort of singing, downstairs and it was pretty loud. We could also hear our next-room neighbors on our last night.
Otherwise, it's a good priced hotel when booked through Hotwire. The location is good. Beware of driving in CR though, signs are fading and Tico drivers can be reckless. Restaurant prices are expensive, comparable to U.S. It's actually cheaper to eat out in other 3rd world countries.