Chelsea's Postcards

Our Stay at the JW Marriott Guanacaste Resort & Spa Costa Rica

My boyfriend and I just returned from an amazing trip to Costa Rica! It was both of our first time to visit the country and we could not have loved it more. We are already dreaming of our next trip back.

We stayed at the JW Marriott Guanacaste. We loved this resort. The rooms were very nice and also spacious. We had a great balcony with a view of the resort and the ocean. All of the staff was very attentive. Overall we can’t say enough good things about the resort. It is the perfect place to go for a relaxing getaway.

The JW Marriott Guanacaste was about an hour drive from the Liberia airport. I had booked a driver through Guanacaste Traveler after finding out about them on Instagram. Our driver’s name was Jhonny and we thought he was GREAT, even if not at all what was promised. When I booked with them we were guaranteed an English speaking guide, and Jhonny spoke only a few words in English. He brought his daughter along to practice her English when he picked us up. I speak some Spanish so it was a good chance for me to practice my skills. We arrived late at night, and were so thankful we had a local pick us up. The roads are mostly unmarked, and the road into the hotel was a bit dodgy in the dark. If I’m being honest we hadn’t really gotten to know Jhonny yet are weren’t sure if the turn off for the hotel was the part where he kidnapped us or not.

It is about 6 miles down a mostly dirt road from the main road. There are some beautiful homes in this area, but you are most likely going to see cows in the road and think you made a wrong turn. Many of the reviews I read before we left were from people complaining about how far the resort was from other things. It’s true that you aren’t super close to much, but we LOVED this. We also found that it was much easier to leave the resort than many of the reviews we read had led us to believe. With an onsite Avis car rental, a daily shuttle to town, and local tour guides offering drivers for relatively inexpensive we left the property and explored quite a bit.

The pool at the JW Marriott Guanacaste is amazing. It is very large and was never crowded despite us being there during spring break. There were also plenty of chairs to go around, no need to wake up early and reserve a spot. We spent a lot of time just relaxing and drinking umbrella drinks. We had food brought to us poolside a couple times as well which was very good! The beach was very rocky in front of the hotel, so not much swimming was going on in the ocean.
We rented a car from the onsite Avis car rental, and took the agents advice and rented a GPS as well. The roads were not in the best shape, and the streets are not marked so I’m glad we took his advice. We rented the car on the first day of the trip so we could get out and explore Tamarindo, but also so we could find a grocery store. Like any large resort the prices for waters and other necessities can be expensive, so being able to buy our own at the store in town saved us a lot. There was also a small refrigerator in our room that we stored a few snacks in as well.

Because the resort is somewhat off the beaten path we did find that we ate a lot of meals at the onsite restaurants. Usually I am not a huge fan of hotel restaurants, but overall we were please with everything we ate on the property. We had dinner at the Sabanero Steakhouse twice, mostly because we thought it was that good. We loved the Pargo (grouper carpaccio), we also loved it so much we ordered it twice. The local Costa Rican beef was also amazing. We had room service a few times and everything we ordered was good. And as I mentioned we had lunch served by the pool several times.




One of our favorite things that we did was walk up the beach from the resort to Lola’s. It was about a 40 minute walk with lots of surfers to watch along the way. (If you’re facing the ocean turn left and keep walking down the beach until you get there & watch out for the timing of high tide.) When we got there we rented some chairs and decided to spend most of the day there. The food at Lola’s was really good and I loved the scene there. The tables were so neat, and it was just a cool vibe.
Watching the sunsets from the beach in front of the resort was just perfect. And at night because you are quite literally in the middle of nowhere you can see SO MANY stars. Overall, we loved staying at the JW Marriott Guanacaste.