December 2019 | Guanacaste, Costa Rica
(Originally posted March 28, 2020)
Hey guys! Sorry for being on a hiatus for a minute there, but I’m back–I’m taking this quarantine and all this free time as an opportunity to catch back up on this blog and hopefully provide some travel inspiration while we’re all stuck at home :/ Today I’m going to give my thoughts and opinions on the Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica Resort in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. My family stayed there in December over our winter break (a while ago, I know! Fortunately I took notes so I promise my info will be as accurate as I can get it)!
↳ Location
In all honesty, I think that the location of this resort was one of the best parts about staying here. it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere, so the drive from the Liberia/Guanacaste airport was pretty long (1.5 hours on very bumpy roads) but getting to stay so far away from the bustle of everything else was pretty worth it. There is barely any light pollution, so you can see the stars incredibly well at night (we recommend the Skyview app to find constellations!). Thanks to being situated in the middle of the forest, we were also able to see racoons, monkeys, owls, squirrels, and iguanas at the resort. There’s also a beach right next to the property, but the lagoon itself is not on the resort property. We didn’t spend much time there because we had heard stories of people getting stung by jellyfish while swimming in the ocean (which is probably why the lagoon isn’t on the property). However, we did stop by the beach for fresh coconut water!
↳ Accomodation
On this trip, we stayed in two connecting rooms with a swim-out pool (pictured in the slideshow above). The swim-out pool was fun and it was super nice to have a pretty private place to be able to play, but it was relatively small and we didn’t really have a view as we were on the first floor. If you’re planning a trip here, make sure to prioritize either having a view or the pool! I believe that the rooms in some of the other buildings have hot tubs so that’s a plus too 🙂 Staying in the swim-out suites also gave us access to the preferred club and the bar there, which was very convenient. Another thing to note is the location of the buildings themselves. The resort property is very expansive and you may have to walk a bit to get to the pools or restaurants. This didn’t really bother us (we just saw it as a way to burn off our buffet calories, haha) but it may be more of an issue if you are traveling with little kids!
↳ Food
Being an all inclusive resort, we of course had to take advantage of the restaurants that the resort had to offer. They have a ton of different cuisines and restaurant styles, from sit down to Hibachi to buffet style settings. My favorite was probably El Patio, which served great Mexican cuisine. We also loved the buffets at the world café for breakfast–perfect for picky kids–and also the Coco Café for coffee. If we had had more time there, we definitely would have tried the Hibachi dinner at Himitsu, their Asian cuisine restaurant (make sure to reserve in advance)!
↳ Entertainment
The resort had a different show every night, each with a fun theme (such as decade and holiday inspired themes). Though the shows weren’t exactly our thing, I did love the fire shows they had (so fun to watch)! We were in Costa Rica over Christmas, so they had Christmas themed shows as well as Santa Claus and the Grinch walking around the pools talking to kids :’) Other than their nightly shows, there wasn’t much else to do on the resort except swim in the tons of pools on the property (including the largest pool in the Guanacaste resort region). Unfortunately, due to its location, there aren’t very many things to do near the resort, but my family did end up doing a day trip to Diamante Eco Adventure Park, which was a two hour drive away but a lot of fun.
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at the Dreams Las Mareas Resort in December! Though the resort is situated pretty far away from everything else in Guanacaste, it was well worth being able to stay away from all of the tourist hotspots. I would much rather be sunbathing by the largest pool in Guanacaste than stuck at home right now 🙁
