This is a very nice hotel with one restaurant and a very nice infinity pool with a million dollar view. It is built on a steep slope which requires considerable physical activity. There are shuttles that transport all over the resort. This hotel has a meal plan $45 per day or all inclusive $75 per day. You should use Liberia Airport. There are many tours that are available from this hotel. Our accommodations were clean and staff very friendly.

My wife, myself and our two grown "kids" just got back from Thanksgiving in Costa Rica. We stayed at Condovac La Costa resort in the 500s. The resort itself was comfortable and had some great scenery. We only ate there a couple of times because we found better. You have to keep up on them with the inventory that you must keep track of, or they will charge you. We finally got everything on our last night there. We had setup our transport from the airport to the hotel with Mardigi tours. We had been in contact with them before our trip so they knew what we would like to do. A week or two before our trip Marvin called to introduce himself, and we almost felt we had known him forever. We did three adventures with Mardigi tours. Each one had at least one additional pleasent suprise. The staff of Mardigi are very professional also. The first day part of our adventure included a horseback ride and Carlos our Guide noticed that the horse our daughter was on looked like more than she could handle and had the horse changed to a calmer one for her. This was our first trip to Costa Rica and it will not be our last. The scenery here is awesome, I grew up in the Adirondacks but this country blew me away. Our kids both thought this was our best trip ever.

The hotel is at the end of the beach, spread out over the side of a steep hill. The pool area and restaurant are at the top. Our unit was at the bottom facing the parking lot, not a great view, but nice and close to come and go. The room was spacious and clean. Pool is awesome, as is the restaurant. The chef is very artistic with his plating, and the food is delicious. The activity staff were great too. They seemed to go out of their way to befriend us. There was a ping pong table and dart board that we were excited about; but there were no ping pong balls or darts available! Unfortunately, the beach had lost a lot of sand due to backlash of hurricanes, so we were pretty disappointed in the appearance; but what can you do about acts of God? Had a great massage on the beach right by the hotel gate for a very reasonable price. I recommend dining at La Bolero, just a short walk down the beach. It had a great view and the Mahi Mahi fish was superb. We were really glad we had a rental car, as it's pretty far to go places. We were able to do day trips to Tamarindo and Playa Grande. It also enabled us to drive to the Supermercado and a cool little outdoor restobar called "Jay's Hole in the Wall". He has the cheapest beer and great hamburgs. He's also very informative about local culture and is a nice guy. We took the Tempisque Riverboat tour, which was interesting and included a typical CR lunch--rice, beans, plantains, and chicken or fish. We saw lots of birds and iguanas; but if you're looking for crocs, the one near Jaco is absolutely incredible and much better. Our best tour was deep sea fishing right out front of the hotel. We saw a mother humpback nursing her baby within the first 10 minutes! We caught a huge tuna which we cooked up for dinner, and gave all the leftovers to some of the staff--who really appreciated it! Make sure you get them to write down exactly what is included and how long, or you'll be sorry. Our alleged five hour ride with snacks and beer turned out to be 3 hours with only 8 beers for 4 people and no snacks. It was still amazing though!

We exchanged our timeshare through RCI to stay at Condovac La Costa from October 6th - 13th (Rainy season). Having heard that Costa Rica is such an amazing vacation destination and reading reviews of the resort and Mardigi Tours, www.mardigitours.com ,I knew it would be a great time. My wife and I were celebrating our 5 year anniversary and we had a 2 bedroom villa that we were able to share with our friend that we invited with us.
First off, being rainy season, some might think that it is a bad time of year. I would say that for this region of Costa Rica, that it was a great time of year to go. It can pour rain, but was mostly at night and when it did rain on us, it is still not freezing cold. This region is "usually" yellow and brown due to the dry season where most other parts of CR are green and lush. The rainy season brought us beautiful scenery. It was all green and tropical, very beautiful. It got really humid on a couple of days, but was not too hot. The humidity is to be expected.

Mardigi Tours (Marvin and Digi) and their drivers were so incredible. Easy to arrange our meeting by emails. Digi came to pick us up at Liberia airport, and was waiting for us with a sign with our names. Liberia was a bit more expensive from Los Angeles, but was so much closer to get to. Coming from San Jose would have been about a 6 hour really bumpy ride and the scheduling would have been crazy. Right away, she was so friendly and offered us beverages in their air conditioned van/bus. We learned about the region just on our way to the airport. She had to pick up more passengers after taking us to Condovac La Costa, but she came back shortly after and took us to the grocery store to get things to cook and drink. She was able to make lots of suggestions on what types of things to buy also.

The resort is a bit older (about 30 years), but the rooms are very nicely remodeled and stocked with everything we needed in the bathrooms and kitchen. The pools were beautiful and warm. We stayed in the 500 rooms in a 2 br villas. The master bedroom upstairs had an awesome view of the beach and the hills. The air conditioning worked well once they were turned on. You are in the tropics, so expect bugs to be about everywhere. We left a light on when it was dark out and it attracted tons of nats. We had to do a bit of clean up, but we learned to turn off the lights when we were not there. We would still have some ants and other little critters around, but when you are in the jungle, we are in their home. The maid staff was very nice and did a great job of cleaning when we had them come into the room. I had read some reviews from previous people about the resort and restaurant that did not like the food, but we actually all really liked some of the food we had. The pizza was not bad at all, and this region is really great for fresh fish. The even had an optional buffet one night that was pretty nice. There were a couple local cats that would hang out at the restuarant and come up and were friendly. I like animals, so this was not a problem. One restaurant that I wanted to try, Ginger's, was closed due to the season, but there were some other really good restaurants walking distance just down the beach. There were some great animal sightings around the resort also, iguanas, another large animal that I didn't know the name of, and a smaller one that I actually hand fed, but was probably related to a racoon. Squirls, birds and I heard howler monkeys in the morning in the distance but wasn't able to see them from the hotel.
We went to Coco Beach one day to get in some shopping and eat. Really nice town. The cab was about $30 round trip for the 3 of us, but the driver was there quickly and was there to meet us when we were finished. Great food at these little restaurants. The people are super nice and the food and fruit is fresh. They don't get fruit from cans. When you order a smoothie, they cut the fruit fresh for you right there. We did not eat in 1 restaurant that was fully indoors. No windows and was all open.

We ended up doing 3 tours with Mardigi tours and all were so amazing and made the vacation one to remember for the rest of our lives. The other days were stayed local and enjoyed the beach and resort to relax a bit. First we took the riverboat tour in Palo Verde Nat. Park. Just the drive there was an adventure. I would have not known where to go. Just on the way there, they get excited to see animals and we saw iguanas, lots of howler monkeys and bats. They would stop the van and let us out to take pictures and take our time and not rush to get anywhere. We stopped for a restroom and snack break at the restaurant that we would later come back to eat at for lunch, fresh juice, coffee and cake was given to us. Once we got to the river boat, we were able to see lots of exotic birds, crocodiles and we got up close to a whole family of huge iguanas. Close enough to pet, but not recommended because they could whip their tail. Then we got to hand feed Capuchin monkeys. They were so cool. Also held a GIANT catapillar. The boat was small but safe. Kinda like a real life version of the jungle cruise at Disneyland. The boat captain was so nice and knew exactly where to go see the animals. Getting to see any animals is never a guarantee, but just luck of the draw and knowing where to look based on experience. Oh - there are no zoos in CR. We went back to get lunch and was all fantastic. They kept bringing us food, chicken, meat, plantains, beans, rice, salad and fried cheese. Everyone was enjoying it.
The second tour was to Ricon De La Vieja (the old ladies corner). This was a full day adventure. This had everything. A good group of people on the trips also joined on most of the 3 tours also. The drive to this volcano was beautiful and got to see more of the land and other animals on the way. Marvin did not join on this trip, but Digi was with us as well as another guide that was the best as he was canopy tour expert. We got to this beautiful resort called Borinquen Resort and spa. All set up on a partially active volcano, but so beautiful and safe. It did not look like a typical volcano, but had the hot springs. We were greeted with a nice beverage and then taken to the horse stables and strapped on the harness and gear for the zip lining. It had been some time since I was on a horse, and never on a mountainous terain. They gave us a quick lesson and instructions and off we went on about an hour long horseback ride up the mountain to get to the zip lining. It was rough terrain, but the horses were really nice. It started to rain lightly, but we knew it would rain more. We got to the top and let the horses go, then we got our lesson on zip lining. My wife was not originally going to zip line, but the guide offered her to do tandem so that she didn't have to do the work. She was very brave and accepted and did not regret it at all. It started to rain really hard, but it was warm rain and was fun. We just had to break a bit sooner as we were sliding on the lines. It was 10 huge zip lines, each one at least 1/4 mile long and probably like 1000 feet or more from the ground. There was a beautiful waterfall. We learned really quick on what to do and was so extreme and fun. We were soking wet, but the met us at the end with towls and then we went to eat a fantastic lunch. Then off to change and head to the volcanic steam room for 10 minutes of sweating then to cover ourselves head to toe in the natural hot mud, then sit in a natural sauna to relax. It was so nice. We got back to the hotel later and went for a swim.
We were convinced by another resort guest to take the trip to Nicaragua with Mardigi. Saying it was the best. We went and it was a really great day even though it was raining hard. It is a long bus ride, and had to through the border both ways. We got to see more of that part of the world and meet more people. Do shopping. We went to a huge volcano there that we could look down the crater. Did some duty free shopping. We went to the city of Granada which is considered to the the oldest city built in the new country back in the 1500's, before anyone came to the United States. We went to a cigar making house and then an old church. Most buildings are from the 1700's, did shopping and had another fantastic lunch. We also went to Lake Nicaragua, it was still raining a bit, but the boat had a cover. There were tons of tiny islands with houses on them, and also monkey island that had spider monkey there to come and greet us for some photo ops. It was great to see another country with so much history and had a great time.
On our day of departure. Marvin and his driver came to pick us up to get to the airport on time. They were so nice. We highly recommend contacting mardigi tours when you plan to come to this area of CR.