Selina Santa Teresa North

I stayed here for six nights, and one of those nights, the air conditioning wasn't working. I asked the front desk, Claudia I believe her name was, if there was someone who could fix the issue. She responded mockingly, saying "oooh nooo," and assured me she would send someone to address it. However, nobody came to fix it, so I spent the entire night sweating and ended up getting sick the next day because the bed was soaked with my sweat. This sickness persisted for most of my trip in Costa Rica due to this problem. I wouldn't recommend staying at this Salinas, and even the other Salina front desk staff were not very friendly towards foreigners who speak little Spanish. However, the rest of the staff at Salinas were very nice and helpful.

So disappointed with this hotel and experience. Not at all what it was described as. We elected to leave on Day 1 of 5, and we were not able to get a refund.

We took two surf lessons with Andres, and he is hands down the best surf instructor we've ever had - out of many over the years!! We both stood up more times than we ever have before, and Andres took us to surf green waves on our second trip, which was a real treat. Andres has an amazing mix of tough love of a great coach, with tons of personalized correction on what to do when, foot placement, how fast to get up, where to hold our arms, how to stand, where to look, how to turn, how to paddle, how to stay safe in big waves, and more. He always knew exactly where the wave would be great, he knew most everyone out on the waves and helped make sure we had clear space to catch waves when people came close to us and made us feel so safe in new situations. His friends who were out in the water gave us high fives when we caught great waves. Andres' whistles, cheers, "Paddle with power!" "Lower lower!" and his total enthusiasm were all amazing and made our experience spectacular.

I stayed in one of the private rooms. It was very clean and it had everything I needed. The room was a little small, but comfortable. The hotel grounds are pretty and very clean. There is also a very nice small pool. The staff were friendly and answered any questions we had. I would definitely stay here again.

They didn't reimburse me for a $100 excursion that was canceled by the host. I have text receipts where they acknowledge that I deserve a refund, but they never actually processed the reimbursement and took my money. I reached out multiple times to empty promises ("I will talk to my manager and you will receive your refund today") but nothing happened and now they are ignoring me. My advice is not to book excursions through this Selina or any Selina really. The markup on them is crazy. For example, I saw a tour that charged $20 through the venue while Selina was charging $65 - $100.

I stayed at Selina North for a full month with 4 friends. I've never given a 1 star review before but here we go: FRONT DESK STAFF Anytime we asked for anything (fix our broken AC, get towels...), the front desk staff would say they'll take care of it, but no one did anything. Then the water broke in the hotel and there was no water anywhere for 2 days, and it was broken on our floor for another 10 days. I understand that things break, the problem was that the staff was unhelpful, rude and wouldn't provide updates (including managers not returning our emails) or any compensation. We were paying for a room with a private bathroom but had to use the shared bathrooms on another floor instead (last I checked, rooms with private bathrooms are 40% more expensive). CHARGED AFTER CHECKOUT I was told I didn't owe anything when checking out. They charged my credit card a few hours later. I've messaged them several times but I still don't know what they charged me for (it's been 10 days).  COWORKING The coworking space is tiny, only 8 people can sit at desks, everyone else sits on couches. It's always packed in the morning with people speaking loudly in meetings. We were told there were 2 individual booths we could take meetings from, but they had signs saying "staff only" on the doors. ACTIVITIES AND TRANSPORTATION  The front desk at Selina can book activities and shuttles for you, it's very convenient. I really enjoyed the Tortuga Island tour. However, do not book activities or transportation online from Selina's website, they will not actually book them nor respond to you even after emailing and sending them WhatsApp messages. LOCATION Just a 2 min walk to the beach, 5 min to the grocery store, many restaurants around. KITCHEN Clean with everything you need to cook. The 2 fridges are always completely full. There are individual bins to store your groceries in the kitchen, but people will steal your food. CLEANLINESS Everything was clean and the cleaning team is nice and helpful.  NOISE AT NIGHT  I would not recommend to light sleepers. By 6:30 am, you will hear loud noises from construction next door and coming from Selina's restaurant or reception, including Selina's staff blasting music for everyone to hear.  BREAKFAST The breakfast at Selina's restaurant is decent and was costing $7 USD the 1st week we were there, then they bumped the price to $10. For that price you can get a better breakfast somewhere else.