Hotel El Tirol

My wife and I had a really bad experience here. Our room was dirty, the bed and pillows smelled terrible. It was freezing and there was only a thin blanket to provide warmth. The bathroom was falling apart (shower doors and towel racks fell off ) and to cap it off - no hot water. It’s a beautiful property high in the mountains but the rooms are old and uncared for. Unfortunately, we will never stay here again and would not recommend to anyone. I should also mention that I stayed here once before - about 13 years ago. I have good memories of my stay then. But it seems they’ve done nothing to maintain or update the rooms.

Staff did not attend to the remediation of the WiFi network and TV network. The gentleman took a look saw the problem said he would come back and never did. Also my wife had the staff turn in the fireplace only to have the room full of smoke due to the fact that they left the damper closed. we had to switch rooms due to the smell. Dangerous.

They weren’t expecting our arrival and gave us a dirty room with no towels and no hair dryer, we requested a dryer multiple times before they gave us one. The trash can was dirty. It had dead bugs in the floor, and a living cockroach was in the shower, they offered us another room that also had bugs in the shower, then gave us another one that was also dirty (not as much as the other two)

We went today for lunch to celebrate mother’s day, the food was okay nothing great for the price however that was not a big issue. Afterwards we went for a walk with our daughter and out of the sudden we saw a Black German Shepherd running our way, he went directly to my daughter. He went direct to her face, we started screaming to the security guy that was at 20 meters from us and he did nothing. I pulled the dog and my husband carry her and the dog started to pulled her leg. Not sure how I pulled the dog again and the bite my hand and run away. No one from the hotel came to see how we were, not even a concern. The security guard screamed at us saying the dog was not theirs and pull the dog with a leash. I called later and talked to the receptionist and again, no concerns. A lot of indolence around the situation. Thank god this ended well but could have ended in tragedy. We definitely not recommend the place

As you can see from my previous reviews, I am generally a positive person. I do not give bad reviews. It’s a fault I know but I hate to be critical as I can generally sympathise. In this case I’m prepared to make an exception. Recommended by a friend who lived nearby we booked with high expectations. We landed in San Jose and encountered a luggage problem; someone had mistakenly taken my suitcase. Luckily I had an apple tag in it so we got in our hire car and followed them across San Jose. This meant that we were late checking in. No big deal you would think. It’s 9:30 pm. We drove into the hills to find the hotel gates barred, the security post unmanned and no reply on any of the hotel numbers. Unusual for a hotel in my experience. We had resigned ourself to a night on our friends couch after a very long day, but luckily a local whatsapp call eventually led to us returning and being given a key. The security people were very kind and didn’t need us to do any formalities, but simply directed us to our room. The room was interesting. A light sparkling of glitter on the floor, dimly illuminated by a ceiling fixture in which 2 of the 5 bulbs actually worked. The room is a good size as is the bathroom. The ceiling light in the bathroom was dimmed by the amount of waste in the fixture; dead insects I’m assuming. The loo seat was broken, there was no drain or plug in the basin. On to the positives. There was a huge jacuzzi bath which I made full use of in the morning and loads of hot water. The bed was also large and comfortable. In the morning we went to breakfast but we were too early as it didn’t start until 8:30. It was at this point that we realised that we might be the only guests. We didn’t see another guest in the three nights that we were there. Breakfast was good. Great coffee and Costa Rica’s favourite, gallo pinto with scrambled egg and fried plantain. A good fruit course as well. We left on a days jungle hike, and on our return showered (also good). We had decided to walk to our friends house for an early evening barbecue. On the way out we stopped and chatted with the security guard. “ What sort of time go you think you might close the gates tonight?” “Oh probably around 10 pm”. Excellent we thought until we returned at 8:30 pm to a padlocked gate. We jumped up and down in front of the security camera, we phoned, we yelled, all to no avail. Luckily my wife who is smaller than I, decided that a storm gulley to the left of the gate, was of a sufficient size to crawl under on her belly, commando style. She crawled under in the dark, walked down the road and roused the security guard. Obviously he didn’t see her at first as she was camouflaged by the leaves and twigs covering her clothes! It’s 8:30pm. It’s not really what I would expect of any decent accommodation, never mind a hotel where we might have been the only guests. You think that they might have cared. Save your money. I’ll try to affix some pictures. Mor

Please don’t visit this place. We had an Awful experience at the Restaurant. Por favor no visiten este lugar. Tuvimos una horrible experiencia en el restaurante. The meat, the chicken, the service terrible. We can’t eat but we pay an expensive check!!!

The worst meal ever. Expensive and awful lunch. We just go to the restaurant because my brother went on Christmas eve. There where just the tables occupied, so the cocker don't have any hurry for attent large crowd. Other couple next to us has the same opinion. Hope they write as swell their experience

No documents in english to read at check in , but the staff went out of their way to make it easy. Get their before dark as its is a low lit area high on the hill. Great signage getting to property. Check in by 8p thankfully they extended this to 9p for a friend. Friendly, quiet and spread-out property. Hot water and super clean room. Surprised little wood and no fire started stocked in "heated room" and no bottom bed sheet. Otherwise, everything was fabulous and out of their way to fix issues.