My girlfriend and I had a great stay at the Palm House Inn. We booked our reservations on the hotel’s website, which had the best deal. The hotel has a better look than the pictures at the web site. The staff there was very helpful with everything, from helping book our tours from the hotel (a bus came every morning to pick us up), to suggesting other things we might do in San Jose, to helping with our spanish.

The hotel itself is about 30 min away from the airport (don’t pay more than $15 for a cab ride from the airport or to San Jose, by the way). Rooms are pretty reasonable. We stayed there a total of 4 nights, 3 of them being at the beginning of our trip, and the other being the night before we left.

There’s a free breakfast every morning, with delicious coffee to boot. They let us pay at the end of the trip too, which was an interesting concept. I’d definitely reccomend this place to anybody, it doesn’t cater to any specific crowd or age group. My only suggestion for staying here is that you be prepared for long journeys to your destination tours. Some took as long as 3 1/2 hours each way. But this was only a slight drawback to the wonderful things we saw and did.

I have visited the Mirador twice and will be going back in September with my family. I have always greatly enjoyed the hotel. The place is situated on a hill to catch the breezes and to provide a great view of Samara.

The rooms were clean and the kitchens were one of the reasons we chose this hotel. It was a definite plus to be able to take advantage of the abundant fruits, vegetables and seafood and cook our own meals. The hotel even provided a charcoal grill for cooking some of the fish we caught.

We also greatly enjoyed touring with Max, the owner. He makes sure you see the native Costa Rica and is careful to use the locals who can use the business. I highly recommend the Mirador. I have never left there not wishing I could stay longer.