El Silencio Lodge & Spa

We stayed here four nights and it was perfect. The staff is incredible. I have never met such genuinely nice and incredible people. The food was perfect, literally everything we ate was the best thing we had ever eaten. There is a lot of downtime especially at night when the tours are over so be sure to bring books to read or download Netflix movies on your phone.

My husband and I stayed at El Silencio for three nights at the tail end of our week long trip to Costa Rica. The hotel is truly an escape from the rest of the world - high up in the cloud forest with no access to wifi (unless you're at the main lodge), it was a great place for us to relax and unwind before heading home. With that being said, we didn't realize until we were there how far removed the hotel was from everything else. We walked to the nearby "town" one afternoon, about a 20ish minute walk, but found it to be scarcely populated with only two open stores (a small market and a soda). Thus, you were pretty much confined to the hotel for all activities and dining. Not a problem, just something we hadn't anticipated. To their credit, the hotel did offer numerous activities both on and off property. We took two tours with Daniel (horseback riding and the Hidden Treasure hike), had a great time and would highly recommend both of them. We hiked to all three waterfalls on the property and walked all the available trails. At the time we went, there were two restaurants. The main restaurant, Las Ventanas, and the newly opened Hierbabuena. Of the two, Las Ventanas is more formal, serving prix fixe menus for lunch and dinner (I think it was $30/person for lunch and $50/person for dinner). We had dinner at Las Ventanas one evening and found it to be horrible. I was so disappointed because I had read such great things about the food but we just didn't find it up to par. The mushroom ceviche had thick slices of raw mushroom (incredibly unappetizing because it was not sauced), the trout ceviche had large salt crystals throughout rendering each bite a surprise between edible and non-edible, the pasta was so undercooked that some parts were actually crunchy, and the steak had a coffee sauce so sickly sweet that I requested a separate plate where I could scrape it off so that it wouldn't ruin the steak itself. We didn't bother to order dessert and spent the rest of our lunches and dinners at Hierbabuena. We found the food there to be much better, in fact, one of our favorite meals of the entire trip was the Chifrijo (a rice dish with beans, pico, avocado, tortilla chips and fried pork or fried cheese balls) that was recommended to us by the server. Hierbabuena had separate menus for lunch and dinner - lunch was Costa Rican food, dinner was Italian food - so we were never bored. As to the service, we found it to be impeccable except for one glaring incident. Our first breakfast, we were completely forgotten about! There was a miscommunication between the servers (I think each thought the other was responsible for our table) which basically meant that we weren't served. We kept asking for things - to see a menu, to get water, to get coffees, to get our order taken, etc. and I think each server thought he was doing the other a favor by answering us. We saw five (!!!) separate tables sit down, order, get served and leave before we had our entrees. Once the servers realized their mistake, they were very apologetic, but the fact that it took them over an hour to realize nobody was serving us was incredibly annoying. Overall, those two instances (one bad dinner and one bad breakfast) did not dampen our otherwise wonderful stay. El Silencio is a special property, an escape away from the rest of the world, and a great way to end our first trip to Costa Rica.

We stayed here for three nights, using the Lodge's official honeymoon package. It is well worth the money. This was our favorite part of our honeymoon, and we also stayed at the Andaz in Papagayo which is an ultra fancy resort. Our room was beautiful and everything is as described. The hiking trails were great and not too difficult. The food is very good (and expensive), although portion sizes are huge, so we never came close to getting the multi-course pre-fixe meals that they often pushed. At dinner, we usually split an appetizer and 2 entrees. Breakfasts are great. Activities: We loved the cultural experience and would highly recommend it. We hope we are remembering his name right, but we think Roberto lead this tour and our horseback ride. He was great. One thing to note, and I wish the hotel had been clearer about this. You will get a decent sized meals worth of food during the cultural experience. We ate a proper lunch right before and wished that we had not. Horseback ride: Overall its fun and easy. One thing to note: there will be some trotting which I would have preferred to avoid due to back problems. They might tell you it's just walking (this happened to us), but we trotted. Private Dinner: Overall, this was an amazing experience. Very romanitic. One thing that might have made it more fun is if it was set up more like a private dinner at the Chef's table. You get a private chef, but your back is turned to him. At times, it felt a bit awkward, because you lacked the anonymity of being a restaurant with lots going on. That being said, I would highly recommend it. Driving to the hotel: If you are driving yourself, it would be best to have four-wheel drive. I really enjoyed the challenge of driving on narrow, harrowing, and pot-holed roads in our rented SUV, but I would not have enjoyed it as much without four-wheel drive. One more odd detail: the hotel overall does a great job at a difficult task in the open air culture of Costa Rica: dealing with bugs and keeping the facilities clean. That being said there was one little corner of the restaurant with a lot of dead bugs on the floor. It was still very clean overall, and this is a big-time five star review.

Lovely property! The staff is wonderful and helpful! We hiked to the 3 waterfalls on the property the first morning we were there. A great hike, not too strenuous and worth every step. From there on out it rained for most of the duration of our 2 1/2 day stay. We didn't mind. We welcomed a few days to curl up around the fireplace and rest. Our villa was quite comfortable! A hot tub on the back porch. Lounge furniture surrounding a fire pit and a fireplace in the living room.

This was quite an adventure. The road in was breath-taking in its beauty. The mountain roads gave us the most glorious scenery to behold at all times. The first day and night was absolutely amazing. The service and amenities were absolutely perfect. The rooms were amazing and the private hot-tub was divine. My wife and I were excited for the following days, filled with adventure. The packages would have kept us very busy, if not for the a powerful storm. The zip-lining and repelling were replaced by wine tasting and chatting by the fire. There was a great selection of books to choose from. We, also, made use of the spa and massages offered. The overall experience was one to remember, though not what we had planned. By no fault of the lodge, the last days spent here were below our expectations. Still, this is a perfect destination for rest and relaxation.