My husband and I recently visited Costa Rica for our first time. We wanted to see both coasts, so we first headed to Hotel Playa Bonita for two nights. Getting there from San Jose Airport was a bit of an adventure due to major road construction on highway 32 (Nov 2021). The hotel was easy to find. Don't get discouraged as you're driving through construction and past the shipping harbor. It's great once you arrive! Check-in at the hotel was a breeze. We had a great room! Third (top) floor with a window facing the beach. The room was clean and the AC worked great. The room reminded us of many of the properties we stay at when visiting Baja California, Mexico. We're from San Diego, CA and drive down to Baja quite frequently. The room has little quirks that are familiar to us and our style of travel, but may seem a bit ”rough around the edges” for other travelers. Overall, the room was GREAT! Loved our stay! Would recommend to most friends and family. The hotel restaurant and bar have a great open view of Playa Bonita. We loved the breakfast that was included with our stay. We also ate dinner both nights at the hotel restaurant. We watched surfers while eating breakfast and enjoyed the sunset while eating dinner. There are rocks and tidepools just below the hotel. We spotted striped eels and red sea stars in the pools. To get to the beach you can either walk along the road for 5 minutes, or carefully walk on the rocks to get to the sandy beach. The water is warm and great for swimming. Keep an eye on your stuff, or just leave everything in your room at the hotel. The hotel doesn't have a store/market, but there's a large market at the beach just 0.2 miles from the hotel. The hotel has a pool, which we did not use, but saw people swimming in it during our stay. All-in-all: We loved our stay at Hotel Playa Bonita. We loved that there we hardly any Americans there (we may have been the only ones). Playa Bonita is a great hub for visiting Cahuita National Park where we saw monkeys, racoons, sloth and iguana.
