Margaritaville Beach Resort Playa Flamingo

Small hotel with massive rooms (approx. 2.5 or 3 times as large as Riu Guanacaste), with lots of seating area, good bedding. King beds with mediocre pillows. Excellent air conditioning.
The hotel's food variety is not nearly what one finds at a large all-inclusive, but the hotel is well-located, with several good restaurants right across the street and more within a 5-10 minute drive. The hotel is also an easy 30 minutes from Playa Grande and (surfing, beautiful beach) and Tamarindo.
Hotel staff were all very friendly
The beach is steep with nice sand, and beautiful sunsets over the ocean directly opposite. [Details]

This hotel is the best place to stay in
Friendly staff, reception was very helpful
The food was delicious
We really enjoyed our vacation there
Thank you [Details]

We had a breakfast only plan and ate at local restaurants. The hotel was quiet with few guests.The focus of our trip was to SCUBA dive. We went with Aquacenter and had an enthusiastic dive master "Risky" who was very safe and helpful. The crew and boat were excellent and took care of cleaning and drying all our equipment every day. [Details]

The hotel was nice. location 5 star. front desk not as helpful as conceirge, the gal was really helpful!We really enjoyed our stay and plan on returning!! [Details]

the hotel is quite adequate for a relaxing holiday. The room was clean, well maintained and serviced well by the staff.
As others have said the pool is quite nice and we generally didn't have an issue getting a lounge and the pool lounges are quite comfortable.
They also have a beach lounge service, where you just have to ask and they set one up for you wherever you want no charge but maybe a tip. They don't have beach Palapas buit will rent you a beach umbrella for $9 per day. we generally tucked in under the trees for shade.
We only went for the breakfast plan and that was a good choice for us as we then ate at the local restaurants for lunch and supper, which is quite easy and handy. If you want to go to a restaurant a little further away, just have the concierge make a reservation and generally the restaurants will have a shuttle car pick you up and take you back. We did this with the Mar Y Sol restaurant no probelm.
The all inclusive is offered at approx $65US per day perperson extra at the hotel.
Overall a great little hotel with great staff. [Details]

We enjoyed ourselves in this hotel. The staff are very gracious and friendly. It is rated as a 3 star but it should be rated as a 4 star. Pool area is lovely. Food is good. Our room was very spacious and bed was very comfortable I would go back in a heartbeat. [Details]

Very accommodating and friendly staff. Room was clean and well maintained. We liked the small size and location of hotel as well as the beach that is directly across from the hotel over a quiet dirt road. We had one small problem with the room safe and it was dealt with quickly and efficiently. Breakfast buffet suited us well, however, being vegetarian, we found it difficult to get good lunch and dinner meals at the hotel and the surrounding areas. Omnivores and carnivores should have no problems in ths regard. Most of the paid excursions out of the area involve long bus rides since the location of the hotel is not close to the areas visted. For this reason,we were not keen on the activities offered by the represetatives. Lot's of interesting walks and hikes in and around the Flamingo Beach area. Local bus service available but not always dependable service times. [Details]

Great for walking along the beach, playing in the surf, lounging by the pool. Fun activities were available, although most involved some travel to other locations. Good food, excellent friendly staff. Special thanks to Oscar in the bar for making our visit specially memorable. [Details]

Considering this resort is only rated as 3 stars, we were pleasantly surprised with how nice it was. If you are looking for a nice relaxing vacation this is the resort for you. If you are looking for nightlife and a party atmosphere this is definately not the spot; most nights both bars and the restaurant are closed by about 10pm. The rooms and the hotel itself, are very clean and well maintained. The food exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, that being said the variety could be improved, especially at the breakfast buffet. The beach is beautiful, and not very busy. At the beach and the pool there was never a problem getting a lounge chair, or towels etc. The staff were amazing (Oscar, Elias, Grevin, Lulu, Orlando) and made our stay very enjoyable. Overall, I would definately recommend this resort, to anyone who can leave crazy, unrealistic expectations at home. [Details]

Hotel itself was decent - clean, well-kept - a solid 3.5 star. Breakfast didn't vary much, but was well prepared and plentiful. Staff were generally very nice and helpful, and always smiling. Pool was spotless and generally enough lounge chairs to go around. Only complaint was a consistent lack of beach towels, and drinks were expensive (we weren't on a full all-inclusive, which cost an extra $60/day/person). Where the hotel really shone was in location - right on the beach and walking distance of other restaurants, bars, grocery, car rental etc.
Make sure you head to the top of the steeeeep hill for $2 mojitos at sunset.
I also recommend renting a car, leaving at dawn and driving to Monteverde for a hike, then to Arenal for the incredible volcano and Tabacon hot springs at night. [Details]