I’d like to share my thoughts, tips, recommendations and photos regarding our Feb 2024 stay at Dreams Las Mareas in Costa Rica. I’ve tried to limit this post to things I’ve seen and experienced personally – no hearsay. Please note that things like contacts, prices and procedures may have changed by the time you read this!
Getting there
If you’re flying in, it will most likely be to Liberia airport. It’s about a 90 minute drive to the resort, typically in a mini bus. Outside the airport building there are crowds of people with name signs. In our case our name was on none of them. Eventually we did make contact, but that was a bad time to realize we were in a foreign country with no way of contacting the person we had made an arrangement with. Be sure to have contact information with you. The cost was $140 USD for four of us. It’s not particularly scenic; once you get through Liberia, there is only one other town, La Cruz. In between there are individual properties here and there and many tantalizing views of mountains in the distance, seen through gaps in the trees. Our driver stopped in one spot where there was a clear view for us to stretch and take a photo or two. From La Cruz to the resort the road gets a bit bumpy. At the resort the security folk do a thorough job of vetting the vehicle and driver before letting it in, I have to say that this journey was my least favourite part of the trip, especially after Air Canada changed our plane to a Rouge flight, lost our pre-arranged seats with extra space and put the four of us in separate rows, with 10mm of knee room. We were very glad to get checked in and room service was a life saver.
Hard Sells
The dreaded invitation to breakfast with people on commission selling vacation plans was nowhere near as bad as we’ve seen in other places. We were only approached once and very gently. However, we were told that a meeting with the Air Canada (they have another name, but they’re associated) rep was mandatory the next morning, and that turned out to be an attempt to sign us up for tours.
The only other sales pitches were very pleasant approaches from third-party organisers out on the public beach. Usually they would ask what our plans were and inform us of tours available. Often they were very helpful, telling me where yoga would be, pointing out monkeys in a tree when they saw my camera, that sort of thing. I got to say hello to “Teo” several days in a row! About the worst I encountered was one fellow who wanted to give the impression that he was in charge of all the activities on the beach.
So, not a problem at all.
Eating
Room service was decent quality (the salmon I had on day 1 was great – maybe I was extra hungry!), The only place I visited more than once was the World Café, for buffet breakfast. I’d say this was great if you want an eggs and bacon style breakfast (except for the one time I waited at an omelette station for several minutes before I found out it wasn’t open – no sign saying it was closed. Also good if you wanted a fruit and yoghurt breakfast. I’d have liked a choice of cereals. The preferred lounge had a few cereals, but mostly sugary ones. The other places I experienced were the Barefoot Grill for very quick service of fast food, Oceana, Himitsu, Portofina, Seaside grill, and the French restaurant (which is sort of secret, not appearing on the app, so far as I can see. It’s behind the Desires nightclub when it’s open.) Nothing really bad to say about any of these. I’m not a foodie; I’m sure there are lots of reviews that will provide all kinds of food for thought!
Dress code is confusing and not enforced evenly. To be safe I wore long pants in the resort for dinners, but in Portofina we were only offered a table outside because one of our party had shorts on. Breakfast and lunch did not seem to be a problem.
There are no reservations anywhere on the resort except the “performances” at Himitsu.
Offsite, there is the Naked Indian restaurant, which will send a golf cart vehicle to the resort to take you there and bring you back. Don’t expect your hair-do to be intact when you get there though. Nice food, great people, with some menu items on the expensive side. Tell the concierge/bellman that you’ve booked a ride, and they’ll let you know when it arrives.
If you want to sit at the performance tables at Himitsu (you know, juggling the cooking tools and fancy knife work) you need to book early. Arriving on Saturday night, we couldn’t book, because bookings for the week start on Sunday. Got tickets from the concierge. Maybe that’s different if you did not go “Preferred”.
One thing to watch out for, if there’s a picky eater in your group and the idea is you can always get something for them at the World Café Buffet – it’s not always open. I think it closes when there is a wedding or other reception going on, but it’s a bit frustrating walking up the hill to find it closed. Not sure if the app updates each day. At this minute, the opening hours on the app say it’s open every day seven days, breakfast, lunch and dinner. It certainly wasn’t when we were there!
Except for Barefoot Grill, Oceana, and Seaside grill (which are near the beach), all the restaurants are at the top of the hill. The preferred club bar really only has hot and cold snacks. It’s behind the preferred check-in desks. (If the outside door doesn’t open, try your room card.)
Getting around
At the beginning of the week it all seemed very confusing – I could see where I wanted to get to but there didn’t seem to be a straightforward path to do so. It does get better though. Watch out for the island in the lower pool complex. Once you cross the bridge, there’s no exit, unless you swim, so the only option is to go back the way you came.
The resort is built on a hillside, so anyone with mobility issues could have problems on foot. However, you can get a restaurant or bar to phone for a golf cart for a ride to where you want to go. It’s quick and efficient.
Chaises, Bali beds and towels
There are several places where you can pick up towels, and they will want your room number, and will restrict how many towels you can take away. Do I think they enter all the data and cross check if you have already got a towel from another supply, or you’re back twice? No. But they make an effort to control towel waste.
Around 7:30am there are still lots of beds available. Later in the day they are scarce, but I’ve seen the attendants dragging plastic beds from some secret location and setting them up in empty spots, presumably when someone asks..
The Bali beds are a two (three in a pinch) person canopy bed with two chaises under an umbrella next to them. These rent for $70 per day and your name is written on a black board to proclaim your ownership. We found this to be an excellent remedy for a family whose members all get up at different times of the day! You can book these ahead of time, before your vacation starts. Subject to availability, you can choose which location you prefer. I believe there are one or two locations on the beach.
The beach and ocean
After hearing that the beach was very rocky, I came prepared with water shoes. What I found out was there are two entrances to the beach. As you face the ocean, the right hand one has a large exposed rock surface, and this side is not recommended for bare feet until you get closer to the water. The left side is sand right up to the paved steps, so really the only issue there is stepping on an occasional twig from the trees.
The water is shallow for quite a way. I didn’t find deep water on my short exploration. Staying maybe 20m from the shore swimming was fine, but felt pretty cold at first! No signs of jellyfish, but without my glasses, I doubt I’d see them anyway! There is a lot of fine silt in the water where the waves break, which makes the water look brown. I found just walking on the beach my feet became quite dirty because of the silt mixed with sand. This stuff went straight through my water shoes! Not a big issue, it washes off.
From the resort, the beach to the right looks like a great place to explore for rock pools etc. To the left it’s a wide expanse of clean sand. Hardly anyone was in the water when I was trying it out.
In the evening, there are dozens of tiny crabs scuttling around doing their thing. I didn’t notice any annoying insects when I was walking around, but laying on a yoga mat there were a few tentative bites, just enough to be a slight annoyance. (This was February – other times will differ, I’m sure.)
This may be a good time to mention the sun is very hot and fresh white skin can burn very quickly. Bring suntan lotion. There is some SPF 15 supplied by the hotel in your bathroom. (May be only in “Preferred”.) Buying it in the hotel is apparently $45 USD.
Room maintenance
This was about what I’d expect from a decent hotel. When something was an issue and was reported, it got fixed. Supplies were replaced. The drinks in the fridge were a slight issue – they didn’t seem to catch on to what we were using (essentially water and diet coke) or maybe they didn’t have enough on the cart some days. However room service fixed that on one occasion when the diet coke reached critical status!
The lighting was not arranged the way I would have done it. There was only one chair with enough light for my old eyes to be able to read a book, and only one bedside light, useless for reading in bed and on the side which did NOT have the phone, so reading the phone buttons was a problem. They need a geriatric consultant to help design the rooms. I’d be glad to help if someone wants to pay my way down there.
The only thing that didn’t work for me was the turn-down service, where they take the giant pillows off the bed and fold the blanket back. The maids don’t appear at a fixed time, so sometimes they arrived at a time when we had things spread on the bed. If you pass on the service, they don’t come back, but once we’d discovered where they stash the pillows (on top of the wardrobe) we did it ourselves on our schedule.
Things I’d recommend
Download the Hyatt Inclusive Collection app to stay on top of schedules, check menus etc.. Use your favourite messaging app and the resort wi-fi to stay in contact with your group.
Yoga on the beach (9am each day when I was there). I suspect there is a different leader each week. Kelly (from California) was there my week and the only time I missed it was when I took the Nature hike.
While a bit strenuous, the Morning hike was great for seeing the resort from the nearby hill, and seeing animals and birds in a natural environment. I have a post devoted to this hike with photos.
Ask someone local where to find wildlife if you don’t take a tour, and you want to get good photos. I didn’t. We didn’t want to take any tours because it would involve a long trip each way. Maybe that was a mistake, but 4 hours on a bus (to and from) was not what I wanted from a vacation. In other places, I’ve been able to just walk the grounds (especially early am) and find enough to photograph, but this time I came up short. There’s a post showing what I did find here.
Reserve a Bali bed – a good investment.
Support the local businesses. We used Ulf Halbgebauer Briceño Real Tours (Real Tours Costa Rica) for our airport transfers, I enjoyed a massage from Angie Zapata on the beach, and my son thoroughly enjoyed a fishing trip arranged through Pablo Bonilla
Check sunset times on your phone and find a good silhouette to give your sunset photos some punch. Get in position a little while before sunset and stick around for the after glow. Some of my favourites in this post.
More pictures from the resort
You’ll enjoy these photos more if you view them on a big screen; start off by clicking on any image.
