Occidental Tamarindo - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

5404 reviews

• 

  Don't stay here

  I have no idea how this has a five-star rating on Expedia but this hotel was not what I was expecting. The rooms were dirty, the staff is rude (Stephanie at the front desk was very passive and annoyed when I asked where our room was when we first arrived and was clear she just wanted to move on to the next person) and two of the 14 people we went with got food poisoning from something they ate or drank. We came here for spring break and it was so packed. They ran out of plates and cups constantly. We requested towels several times to come to a room as they only gave us two and we were a family of four. The towels never came. When inquiring if we could check out early and get any sort of refund they just smile and nodded and said we could check out at any time but they would not be a refund. This was on day one of 4 days we were there. The only redeeming quality was that the kids club staff was very nice and the kids were happy about that and there were a lot of things that were kid-friendly to do as far as the facility had. The beach in front had tons of shells and tide pools. However the current was far too strong for the kids to swim in. I do not recommend staying here. If you're able to go to the Marriott just 30 minutes away I would highly suggest going there instead. For the difference in price it is well worth it.

  Apr 19, 2025
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  Stay #3

  This was our 3rd stay here and once again they did not disappoint. Staff was friendly and accommodating. Food was good with a wide variety of choices. Room was well appointed and the grounds were well maintained. Our time at the pool and beach walking across the estuary was great. A special thanks to Argery for her attentiveness to our needs.

  Apr 17, 2025
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  Disgusting - 1-star resort

  Wish I could give a zero - this is not for international travelers - book somewhere else... Negatives: - dirty, everywhere/ smells bad - disgusting food - bad/ weak drinks - terrible service - run down facilities and rooms - bad entertainment - terrible checkin experience - loud - encourages smoking/ smells like cigarettes - feces on everything/ never clean - chairs in the main dining area are soaking wet and dirty If you still want to go: - definitely book directly or you cannot access dining other than buffet - access to the beach is on site - town is close and inexpensive to get to - cleanliness of the rooms is better than the main areas and are air conditioned - if you can upgrade you should But .... This is NOT a 5-star resort ... it is at best 2-stars/ think Howard Johnson or Motel 8 with a pool and a Golden Corral (that is actually giving the food too much credit) on site. (honestly don't book here ... I am serious) - some of the staff is friendly (most are not especially the female staff)

  Apr 17, 2025
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  Vacation

  Weather great- over 30 degrees each day Poor service at pool and in buffet, lack of entertainment at the pool and in the evening. Bar operating hours lacking and bar runs out of alcohol a lot.

  Apr 15, 2025
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  Not a Five Star

  Occidental Tamarindo Costa Rica visited March 24th to April 4th, 2025 This review is very long but not exaggerated. It is truly what my partner and I experienced on this trip. This is not a 5 Star hotel, its a 2.5 to 3 max (Cuban style) at its best. I have travelled often to many resorts down south, Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica and I would say my first time experience in Costa Rica was a let down. And for this, I don’t recommend it nor plan to return to this specific hotel. When we arrived, we spent the first 3 days in the wrong room (very small, not to our standards, not clean and outdated) with no hot water ☹ After several follow up’s, we were finally moved in the afternoon of our 3rd day to a more acceptable room. We were lied to by the two ladies at the front desk (an older one with glasses and a younger girl with long dark hair), they told us the room we paid for did not exist and that we should be visiting the Barcelo.com website to see the right room. When we did verify the room on that site, it ended up being the identical image we had on our Air Transat app and website. When I asked questions, they began speaking in Spanish in front of us and they were delaying answering us which I found quite disrespectful and unprofessional. Finally, when we spoke to a younger male employee in charge (Alejandro) he told us the room did in fact exist and that he would plan arrangements for us to visit a new room the next day. He gave us excellence service and apologized several times for the inconveniences that we experienced, therefore we appreciate his help. The resort is very small with not a lot to do and only has 1 pool which was nice but definitely needs a good cleaning and some repair. The resort grounds were very nice and well taken care of by the gardeners working in extreme heat conditions. The pool staff were also great always going around picking up garbage that inconsiderate travelers left behind and or made a mess therefore staff was always cleaning up after them. The pool entertainment was also great and appreciated. And the live band on site that played during the day and evening were fantastic. Room service was very basic, floors washed, bed made and new towels added with dirty ones removed. I didn’t feel like any heavy-duty cleaning was done around the sinks, taps, toilet and shower. It was sometimes inconsistence, forgetting items like cream, coffee, the coffee pot not being cleaned, and the fire alarm was missing in our room 9203. And our shower was always clogged which felt like you were taking a bath while taking a shower because there was so much water in the bottom of the shower floor. We had a toilet issue in our room and took about 5-6 hours to get it fixed. No air conditioning anywhere on site accept in the rooms or in the store in the lobby area. I couldn’t tell if the air was on in the a la carte restaurants as it was so warm that you didn’t even want to eat your meal. The Italian restaurant had good food and better wine then anywhere on the resort but with the wood burning over and barely any air, it wasn’t that pleasant. The Japanese restaurant could have been better, was not my favorite and lacked choice, it was also very warm inside. Wi-Fi didn’t work half the time no matter where you were on the resort, I think the best was in the room but I'm not visiting Costa Rica to spend my time there. Everything was extremely overpriced in US funds. On our last day leaving, we bought 1 sandwich and a bag of chips at the airport to hold us over until we boarded our flight, and it costed $15 US dollars which is insane to me. Taxi prices were inconsistent day to day to go into town, always fluctuating. The food was not great, its similar to a Cuban 2-3 star at its best. The food was repetitive every single day and often platters were moved around in different locations to look as though it changed. The same bread, cheeses and meats get old fast over an 11 day vacation. I also understand and respect the fact that Costa Rican’s love and eat rice and beans everyday but not all traveler’s eat this on a regular basis. You need to provide food that appeals to tourists, not just the locals. The bread was not edible, very hard and stale, only the croissants and muffins were fresh. The food only started to improve the last 4 days we were there by adding a few new items (not sure why). I did enjoy the constant supply of fresh fruit especially mango, watermelon, apples and pineapples along with other great varieties. We had oranges, pears and kiwis a few times which was great. The coffee machines didn’t always work properly, and some were out of service. The snack bar food was disappointing, so I often just ate fruit until we could go to the buffet. The workers at the pancake and waffle counter were using old equipment (old waffles makers) they use metal utensils to grab the waffles but end of scraping all the Teflon off the pan (which is toxic if consumed) my waffles were loaded with a ton of black plastic particles. I asked the 2 workers what was in or on the waffles because at first I didn’t know till I realized what was happening and they both ignored me and wouldn’t answer. So, then a guest leaned over and told me that it was just something they put in the mix and that its not a problem. I was horrified that they just didn’t care and so I gave back the waffles and walked away. This is complete negligence and totally disgusting that they aren’t properly trained and serving harmful chemicals to guests. Please get new waffle machines and learn some common sense. The glassware used in the buffet (glasses for water or wine) were always dirty with handprints all over the top half of the glasses. When the sun was shining in the dining room you could see everyone’s glasses were dirty. Then I soon understood why, the staff goes around picking up the glasses that are not being used from some tables and putting them on others but put there hands all over them versus picking them up from the base. Maybe not a big deal to most people but I like drinking from a clean glass. Staff wasn’t very friendly, don’t smile much, and they were very understaffed as well so most of them did several different jobs. Most of them don’t speak English or pretend they don’t understand. Nobody served us in the restaurant for most of the trip, we had to go get your own drinks even coffee in the morning and beer/wine at night. The drinks were not the best nor were they consistent. The older gentleman at the beach bar looked overworked and exhausted therefore didn’t smile much. Apart from that, even though we had 40+ degree weather with no rain, the weather was nice. But the beach is very hard to walk on because of the heat and the water is dangerous to swim in but this is not the hotels fault. We did an excursion, it was very expensive, just over $500 Canadian for 2 people and it was a little blah and very far. The tour buses are not comfortable at all but at least they had air conditioning. We went to a water fall that wasn’t anything extraordinary and it had way too many people. Very steep and dangerous stairs going down to the falls, im not sure how older visitors even made it back up. But we saw some cute monkeys in the trees when we were leaving. Then we went to an animal sanctuary which was nice but didn’t get too see all the animals (however it was extremely hot out in the animals defence) so they hid in shaded areas that we could not see. My favorite part was later when we visited a restaurant called the Hummingbird café, the food and staff was great and we went into the forest for a walk and learned so many things from our two amazing guides and got to see live Tucans and sloths. Overall, I’m happy I did experience Costa Rica, but personally, I do not have any desire to go back. Had i known about these types of issues i had i would have never booked this place. The world is too big and when you pay a lot for travel, it needs to be great, not just ok or littered with issues.

  Apr 08, 2025