Leyenda Boutique Hotel & Spa

Amazing hotel in Samara and Playa Carrillo was our favourite beach. Hotel Leyanda helped us so much when we reached out in advance to ask if two of their staff members would be a witness to our wedding. They responded quickly and were so helpful in the entire process. Thank you so much - we appreciate it so much. The witnesses were lovely and brought us a bottle of champagne to the beach to celebrate, and gave us a ride back. THANK YOU BOTH. The check-in experience was smooth and the member of staff on reception was very friendly. The hotel grounds were clean and pool was large with plenty of beds. Our room was nice and modern and was constantly kept very clean by housekeeping. The restaurant in the hotel was good, the food was good and it was reasonably priced, the service was also very good in the restaurant. The only issue we had with this hotel was that it was a little bit out of the way of Samara town itself and the closest beach which was Playa Carrillo Beach. However, the hotel provided a free shuttle (5 minute drive) to and from the beach and it had its own sunbeds etc. The driver was really prompt and explained where to meet etc. As for getting to Samara town (local town with shops, restaurants, bars etc - 15 minute drive away) the receptionist gave us the number of a local taxi driver, Javier. This taxi driver was AWESOME. So friendly and talkative and loved talking about Costa Rica with us. He was like a tour guide showing us around whilst driving us to Samara. We relied on Javier everyday we were in samara for a ride to and from the hotel which was £12 per time which was very reasonable. He was very reliable and one of the nicest people we met on our holiday. Great recommendation from the hotel. We would definitely stay at this hotel again as it was unique, clean, great pool area, lovely restaurant and great shuttle service to the beach and lovely staff. I would just recommend finding a reliable taxi service to and from Samara to make the most of your visit here.

Leyenda is a hotel which has many great attributes and a lovely setting, but unfortunately, we didn't see the best of it, and this made our stay less pleasant than we would have liked.  We (2 adults, 2 kids) booked a superior 3-queen bedroom for a 3-night stay nearly 4 months in advance using Leyenda's website, and we received the e-mail confirmation from Leyenda of the booking. When we showed up to check in, however, they didn't have our reservation in their system. After I showed them my e-mail confirmation, they were able to find the e-mail with our reservation, but it never made it into their reservation system, so they didn't have the room available any longer. They had one standard 2-queen bedroom left, which we accepted as a replacement room (since we had just driven 6 hours in a foreign country, and we had no idea if other hotels in the area were good or even available). They also offered us a separate 1-queen room across the hall from the 2-queen room, which was very small -- nearly the size of the queen bed itself. Being that we had kids, it wasn't feasible for one of our kids to sleep in a separate room by themselves, and it wasn't practical to store our suitcases in a room down the hall.  Changing from a 3-queen to a 2-queen wasn't a big deal for us, but the problem was the new room felt like the oldest room in the hotel, which is only used in emergencies. The curtains were torn, the beds were extremely firm, the shower tiles were stained, the bathroom door had a 1/2 inch crack in it, there were bad smells from the drains in the bathroom, etc. Was it passable for a few days? Sure. We've stayed in worse rooms driving through Pennsylvania or Ohio. Was it what someone wants to stay in for a tropical beach vacation at a 4-star hotel? Definitely not. The room itself felt more like a hostel room. Our backs hurt each morning after waking up, and we opted to use the public bathroom downstairs in place of our room bathroom when possible.  We thought the hotel might provide some gesture for their reservation mistake. Upon check-in, the front desk attendee (who was very nice), mentioned adjusting the price to match the new room. The superior 3-queen bedroom in the original was $780, and they charged $680 for the standard 2-queen room. I guess it's a price that matches the standard room, but it seemed like more could have been done on their part to reflect their reservation mistake. Charging the standard rate for the new room felt like the bare minimum of what could be done. Spending $225/night for a room which feels like average at a 2-star hotel is far too much.    Beyond the booking/arrival situation, we had a mix of some great experiences and some poor experiences.  CONS:  (1) The hotel limits guests to only 1 beach/pool towel per day per person, which you can switch out at the front desk once a day, anytime. When we went to change in the towel at 9:30 one morning as we were heading to the beach, they didn't have any new beach towels ava