Hotel El Manglar y Cantarana - Playa Grande Guanacaste Costa Rica

This was a very beautiful area in Guanacaste. The hotel is located in a very beautiful area in Playa Grande and has a gorgeous entrance to the beach. My family enjoyed the pool very much, but the room lacked luster. The pictures they advertise are beautiful, but the rooms lacked much needed renovation. We stayed at the villa and I wouldn’t say it was rustic, but it needed a lot of upkeep. There were a lot of creepy crawlies! Expected because of you look at the windows and doors they had large gaps in between that allowed everything to enter. So if you aren’t a lover of all things in nature I would avoid it unless you like to really embed yourself with your natural surroundings hahaha. I have to say that in day 2 our rain like shower head popped and broke! But they did replace it immediately with a much smaller generic shower head. The front desk staff were very kind and friendly which I appreciated.

We really wanted to stay at this property because it looked so lovely online and it did look lovely in real life as well! We were unable to book for the three consecutive nights that we were staying in the area, so we booked one night in Cantarana and 2 nights in the Hotel Manglar. Andrea and Dylan were there to check us in and get us situated both times as we checked in. We had booked the king room in Cantarana last minute and it was a lovely space. You have access to both spaces no matter what hotel you stay at. The room had a hammock and the pool was very relaxing. The beach was steps away and we spent the whole day there. I am not sure why the beach was so empty, but we didn't mind! It was great for us. The restaurant had a nice happy hour and the food was pretty tasty when we ate there. The little coffee shop was act perfect for what we needed. Andrea pointed out all the other restaurants nearby since they all take their turn with days off. She also pointed us to the crafts markets in town as well. We moved over to Hotel Manglar the next day. We dropped our bags with Andrea in the morning and when we came back from the beach, she had had them moved up to our room for us. This room was a little smaller, but it was also quite cute! We enjoyed getting to see both of the hotels. There are definitely more people in the Manglar, but it didn't bug us. I think the only thing that was 100% was the fact that there were no hooks for towels in that whole room. It is a bit challenging especially for a beach hotel when you have 2 sets of towels. It looks like a hook might have fallen from the wall and not been replaced, but we just used the outside railing for our towels.

Beautiful place to stay. The grounds are lovely with lots of places to sit an enjoy and it's right by the beach. We stayed in an apartment upstairs with our three teenagers and felt very comfortable. The kids did surfing lessons and we enjoyed early strolls on the beach. Highly recommend.