I planned a very special evening here to celebrate a big birthday and was extremely let down by the Four Seasons staff. So much so, that I would seriously hesitate to stay at this property despite loving several other Four Seasons locations. Typically, one of the best things about the Four Seasons is the service. I’d had a dinner reservations booked for months when two weeks before the reservation, I received an email that the restaurant would be closed on the day of my reservation (I assume due to a private event). Super bummed, I emailed and went back and forth with a woman named Ana Ortiz who offered to still make the menu available at one of the resort’s other restaurants and promised to still make the celebration special. I was thrilled! But night of, we arrived, and no one knew seemed to know anything about my prior conversations — not the host, not the server, and evidently not anyone in the kitchen either after the chef presumably left for the evening. We were offered a choice of three mains from the other menu, but all the sides were from the Mediterranean restaurant we were dining at. It didn’t go. It was weird. And then the dessert we’d discussed from the beginning didn’t come, and in its place was a super dry piece of chocolate cake. Surprised, I tried to get up to discretely talk to the server in case it was a mistake and he was super rude. Best of all, they charged me for the dessert is neither asked for nor wanted. I had other options for the evening, but I chose the Four Seasons and it was such a mistake. When you’re paying over $350 for dinner for two people (with only two glasses of wine), these things really shouldn’t happen. And when I emailed Ana afterwards trying to understand what had gone wrong, I got no response. Beyond disappointed. This Peninsula Papagayo location is a far cry from the normal Four Seasons standard.

We took a mother/ daughter trip to Costa Rica while my daughter was on a gap year. We loved the facilities: our room was beautiful, the bar and restaurants had a great selection of food, cocktails and wines, the pools were relaxing, and the spa was wonderful! We would definitely go back! We found Gabriel who is super helpful in organizing planning your tours. Nomadtourscr He recommended us to do waterfall hike to La Leona Waterfall,Rain forest see sloth It was Nice experince the Driver and guides were super friendly We plan to return sometime later in the future.

This resort is perfect for families or couples looking for a quiet place to relax and reconnect! We travelled as a family of 4 . Our kids are 21 and 18. We had a canopy 2 bedroom villa. Totally worth it! Private plunge pool and the amazing view topped off the luxury accommodations! We felt like we were on our own private island. We ate at all the restaurants and they were all good. Highly recommend the half day boat excursión with nomadtourscr. We enjoyed that so much we asked him to book a private Leona Waterfall Tour, buena vista adventure, rain forest which was awesome as well. It was such a great family trip at a beautiful resort. I definitely would return to the four season for another family vacation!

We stayed at this Four Seasons in April of 2024 with my wife, nanny, and our youngest kiddo (2 yo). We are fans of the company; I insist staff read Isadore Sharp’s book on customer service when I hire them, and we have stayed at a dozen or so of their properties. We also have a family friend who worked in the head office, and she tells the story of how Sharp threatened to drop the staff health insurance provider if they didn’t cover her “experimental” treatment. I have deep affection for him and the brand; it’s my kind of place - usually. Despite this, I will not choose to go back to this particular Four Seasons (but note: my wife liked it and would like to go back, see below for personal preference details). First, the good: the staff are typically Four Seasons fabulous. They made our 2 year old feel like a celebrity, with team members I’m sure he hadn’t met calling him out by name. Our nanny reported that the children’s centre was great, and they went back repeatedly. The only exception are the folks who greet at the restaurants - I don’t know what it is about that job that invariably attracts (or converts to?) snooty people who are less about customer service and more about status. Here too, more than once we had to go looking for someone to seat us, and I had one unfortunate conversation with a young woman who was making it very clear I was not the right person to be at that venue (in fairness, I agreed with her - see below). The concierge was able to do some unusual planning for us, securing us a charter flight out of the jungle later in our trip to Costa Rica, and convincing the car rental company to collect the car at the air strip if we left the keys in it - note that this is several days after our FS stay ended. They were often slow to respond to email, but otherwise awesome. About the hotel: the property is immaculate. We rented a “residence” for us and the nanny, and it was fairly well appointed, with B- furniture in terms of physical comfort. That’s about as good as it gets in my experience - in my entire life, at dozens of hotels, only the Four Seasons Silicon Valley has had comfortable chairs in the rooms. I’ve always assumed it’s like McDonald’s where they design it that way intentionally to get you out quickly (it’s probably more that they buy furniture which looks good in photos, but they don’t spend the extra for the actual designer brand that is both attractive AND comfortable). At least in our “residence” there wasn’t anywhere comfy to sit down for an extended period, but hey, get out to the beach, right? Despite this, the mattresses were fabulous (as always at FS), great night’s sleep. Could definitely have used some more lighting throughout, but that’s true at nearly all hotels, and I’d recommend adding some instructions (never did find the button to close the shades in the living room), and they messed up several items in our grocery order (residence includes a kitchen), but these are minor quibbles. I’d definitely go back if not for the below. Not to my taste: every hotel has a target market, and tailors their experience to that market. I normally find myself right in the Four Seasons bullseye, and back when I travelled for business I would go to a couple so often that I knew all the staff by name. The only FS resort property I have experience with is the one on the Big Island in Hawaii, which is rated as one of the best in the world for families, and that describes our experience there. This one is very different. Two problems were encountered: Peace and quiet: Outside of your room, there is nowhere on the property that is not inundated with loud music. It’s so loud at the beaches that I gave up and didn’t sit out. Same for the restaurants - I confirmed this by asking several staff members if there was anywhere on the property I could go to eat lunch without loud music thumping in my head; the answer was “no”. Note that this led to a manager calling me that night to follow up, despite me never having asked to talk to a manager - man I wish more businesses would teach Sharp’s approach to customer service! Nothing she could do to help, but it was sweet of her to call. It gets even worse after sundown, when they complete the “night club” vibe by cranking the music even louder and lowering the lights so low I needed to use the light on my phone to read the menu (I’m in my 40’s, 20 year old me would probably have been fine, if uncomfortable). We went to the sushi restaurant, and I couldn’t hear my wife trying to talk to me, and our 2 year old was clearly very uncomfortable. I found it so overwhelming that I didn’t eat anything, though my wife reported it was very good sashimi (way too much sauce/mayo on the maki, but that’s common). I went back to the room hoping to order room service, but the app we were told to use at check in was so slow to answer questions I gave up and went to bed hungry. Good breakfast though :) In my limited experience with these brands, this matches what I expect at a “W” hotel or “Virgin Airlines” - a night club feel (I’ve only been to the W’s in DC and Seattle, it may not be a universal attribute - my experience is also more than 10 years old, so the branding may have evolved). It left me feeling the same way I did when we stayed at a Sandals resort on our honeymoon (couldn’t afford a FS back then!), where we’d need to go so far down the beach to get away from the “party” that I thought about chartering a boat each morning. Sadly the beaches at this FS are much, much smaller - there’s no escaping the THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP here. Sometimes I still hear it in my sleep ;) If that’s what you’re excited for, great. But it’s nothing like the welcoming, peaceful atmosphere of the Four Seasons in Hawaii, where you can step out just about anywhere and enjoy a good book with a quiet seabreeze. I hope that this is not a change to the brand all-up (I haven’t stayed in a hotel since the pandemic). If so it would chase me off, just like the Fairmont did when they added perfume in all their hotel common spaces (I guess it’s cheaper than thoroughly cleaning?). The second thing, and this is totally minor: it turned out the room rate my EA booked us included breakfast, which I thought was a nice touch. The way they do this is that they give a credit on the bill for $48 pp for two people (in a suite designed for 6, there were 4 of us). But breakfast costs more than $48pp: it was usually $150 or so with gratuity for me and my wife, and she ate at the buffet and I don’t eat solid food at breakfast, just coffee and smoothies. Obviously, when we paid more than $20k for a 2 night stay, a few extra bucks for breakfast isn’t even a drop in the bucket. But it creates an atypical letdown of expectations being unmet. It would have been better if they’d just charged us the same room rate but not told us breakfast was included- it’s not the money, it’s the needless letdown. Relatedly: there is a lack of consistent food access for families. I don’t know about other families, but sushi isn’t going to work for all of my kids. But this was the only restaurant serving dinner at the time my kids eat (the place by the pool with the more general menu was closed - I don’t know how often this happens, it was a short stay). To the extent management want to attract families, I would recommend an hour-by-hour audit of “where could a kid eat a meal right now?”. Don’t just do it for “meal times”, kids with jet lag need to eat when they’re hungry, so we went hunting for dinner at 5pm. At every other FS this has never been a problem, here we had to wait until 6 or introduce the toddler to sushi (we opted for the latter - they did have fries and rice so he was happy if not nutritionally balanced). This is the first time I have ever left a Four Seasons thinking “man, I feel like I overspent”, despite no doubt having cumulatively spent well into the six figures at their properties over the years. If you go expecting a quiet beach vacation, I suspect you will feel the same way. If you go wanting a “Sandals Resort” type party atmosphere, then this is fabulously executed, as FS always is. Long review, but I offer it because Sharp’s book has given me incredible value in my career, and I feel like I owe him some thorough and honest feedback.

You cannot go wrong with a Four Seasons Hotel- the level of service is impeccable. You pay a premium for it and this hotel was absolutely no exception. Perhaps the friendliest staff we have ever encountered. (a special shout out to Cindy at the adults pool- what a lovely time we had with her!) I wanted to give this property 5 stars as it truly is a wonderful property, but for the price, I had to take off a star. We decided to stay in a plunge pool room which was lovely- but these rooms were far from the hub of the hotel, which meant we had to rely on golf carts all day. And while the response on the app was quite quick there was times it wasnt and it was a bit frustrating (between the heat and hills of the property, much of the day it was out of the question to walk back and forth to our room) The property is very isolated- which is lovely but you're really stuck there. And since it's not a all inclusive, you're pay $$$$ for food and amenities all day. One thing that we found to be frustrating was that there was no quick grab food location. They had one in the morning till 11am but there needed to be a place to grab some food that don't require you sitting at a restaurant, pool or ordering in room. Fresh food like a sandwich, salad, etc would have been so lovely to have the option of. I know a small complaint but we found ourselves waiting long times for food service throughout the day. The spa left a lot to be desired. I got to the spa with plenty of time before my appt to use facilities but it was tiny, and very lacking. (Though the post spa food spread was lovely!) My spa treatment was fantastic (the volcanic scrub and massage) so no complaints. As for the room- it was huge and overall a wonderful stay. The bathroom could use some updating. Especially the toilet room- after staying at the Lanai property, and having the most magical bathroom experience, this was quite a let down. Felt like a 90s bathroom. The housekeeping was impeccable and so thorough. Overall we had a great time- but it's $$$$ from the food, to reserving a chair at the adult pool is $75 (and $750 for a cabana which is bananas.) But if you're looking for a wonderful property to relax and be pampered, this is a great option!