Best Hotels near Manuel Antonio Park in Costa Rica

During my 10-day trip to Costa Rica, I was able to stop in Puntarenas for a few days. Puntarenas is about a 2.5-hour drive from San Jose and is widely popular due to the nearby national park. Manuel Antonio National Park is the smallest of any Costa Rican national park, but it has the most attendance based on ticket sales. Forbes also listed it as one of the world’s top 12 most beautiful national parks in 2011!

The park has white sandy beaches, tropical forests with a vast array of biodiversity, and friendly but wild animals that aren’t afraid of humans. When I first booked the guided tour through my hotel, I initially thought I could have just booked the park reservation on my own. But once we got to the park, I soon realized I made the right decision. The park opens at 7 am, and we got to the park a little before 8 am. There were already really long lines to get into the park, and as part of the tour we were able to skip most of the line and head towards the front.

The benefit of having a tour guide was that he was able to spot all the live animals and insects in park. In fact, all the guides alert each other whenever they spot an animal, so it felt like you had more than one guide with you. If you were to walk in the park by yourself, you might be able to spot bigger animals like monkeys and deer. Having a guide allowed us to see interesting insects and even sloths we wouldn’t have spotted on our own. Our guide also carried around floor standing binoculars, which let us see the animals up close and in greater detail than the naked eye. He even took amazing pictures for us with my phone using the binoculars he had!

There is a rest break in the middle of the tour for about 20 minutes at the beach where you can swim or lay out on the sand, so prepare your attire accordingly if you want to swim or lie down as the beach itself was beautiful and I noticed families even visited for a picnic day. The tour overall lasted about 4 hours, including travel time to and from the hotel.

I stayed at La Mariposa while I was in Putarenas. This hotel is very close to the main town, which made it so easy to explore the town. Whereas other hotels and resorts were spread out too far making walking difficult, La Mariposa’s location made travelling by foot convenient and comfortable. The aesthetics at La Mariposa were spectacular! Whether I was in my hotel room or out at the restaurant for breakfast, I really don’t think there was any bad view at any part of the hotel. Regarding amenities, if you love lounging by an infinity pool, there were three (the main pool, a swim up bar, and an adults-only pool)! The rooms at La Mariposa are huge and air conditioned, which is a godsend as it’s very humid in Puntarenas, even during the dry season (mid-November to April). The only downside of the room was the open aired bathroom that had no ceiling. I reserved a Partial Ocean View Room because it was advertised as a room that was often visited by capuchin monkeys, sloths, and birds. That sounded so cool; to have monkeys roaming around on your balcony! In reality, I ended up with a room on the first floor that didn’t have any animal visitors during my stay. Knowing this now, I would recommend asking for a higher floor room so that you have a better chance of this animal encounter. Regardless of that, out of all the hotels we stayed at in Costa Rica, this hotel stood out as the best for me and will be my go-to hotel when I come back to Costa Rica!

Another hotel that was on Patricia’s List was the Arenas Del Mar. Unfortunately, I was not able to stay here during my first visit to Costa Rica, but I was able to get a reservation at their restaurant, El Mirador. I would recommend using Waze to locate this spot as it’s quite difficult to traverse on Google Maps. When you arrive, you have to park at the bottom parking lot and then be shuttled up to the hotel in a golf cart.

As the book mentioned, the El Mirador at Arenas Del Mar is a restaurant situated right on the beach. The setting itself was romantically beautiful and I highly recommend visiting the restaurant at night: they had string lights up, tiki lanterns all around, and even a local DJ for New Years Eve. I opted for the all-you-can-eat buffet, a special option during my visit instead of the a la carte recommendations Patricia noted. What made this buffet unique and worthwhile was that all the food, minus the dessert cart, was made to order. I was impressed by the commitment and efficiency the staff worked to make the night very memorable for guests. It was fun watching the chefs in front of you plate and present the food so carefully for guests, and the servers were attentive and responsive. The menu and food items were definitely catering to a traveller’s palate, and I wish they opted for local cuisine for us to try. Otherwise, the experience itself was especially lovely as you could hear and see the waves crashing in the background and the nice, cooling ocean breeze.

If your plan is to stay in San Jose, I’d highly recommend the Finca Rosa Blanca, an 18-room hotel. I stayed in the Las Aves room (also called the Bird Room), which is considered a Junior Garden Suite and had a jacuzzi in the room. Unfortunately, the jacuzzi was out of order when we stayed.

This was the first hotel on Patricia’s list that I stayed in Costa Rica, and it set the bar high for me in terms of sustainability. I have never been to a hotel that was more eco-friendly and eco-conscious than this one (so far!). They grow most of their vegetables and fruits in-house, have hens to lay fresh eggs for your breakfast, they create their own fertilizer, recycle and reuse their building tiles, use natural plants for irrigation, use only solar energy or gas for heating, and have fans instead of air conditioning. If you take their free Sustainability Tour (available with reservations at 4 pm everyday), you will know what I mean! I would have loved to see options to keep guests hydrated; they don’t provide water bottles and while there were hydration stations, reusable bottles would be a cool gift that works alongside their mission of sustainability.

During the stay, I signed up for the Coffee Plantation Tour & Tasting ($45/pp at the time of writing) to get a more in-depth look at their coffee plantation. Though they give you a chance to sample the in-house coffee and cookies from the hotel restaurant, I realized they provide free coffee and freshly-backed cookies each day between 2-4 pm anyways. If you’re interested in learning more about their specific coffee operations, the tour would be an interesting addition. Otherwise, I recommend stopping by their complimentary coffee and cookie event in the afternoon instead.