Tamarindo

"My family of 8 visited Costa Rica in July 2016 and stayed at Casa Marbella. It is a beautiful, spacious house and well-appointed. The beds were great and I slept like a baby. Plenty of restrooms for my wife and three daughters. There are two masters with huge bathrooms. Our large family never felt cramped. Overall a great house to spend your vacation. I was anticipating the house being located more in the jungle but it is actually in a subdivision and you had to go through 2 guard gates. Although the backyard does have some trees and vegetation it was not as dense as I thought it would be. We did see the fruit bats that camped each day on the front porch awning. Also saw a tarantula. Neither the bats nor the tarantula paid us any attention and I thought it was actually a cool experience. Didn't see any monkeys at the house. The pool was a lot of fun but we only used it 3 or 4 times and never for any length of time. It is a bit narrower than the pictures looked to me. But we spent a lot of time at Playa Avellana and the Beach Club. Playa Avellana is so sandy and soft. The Beach Club beach is a bit rocky and I stumped my toes a few times under water. The Beach Club and Playa Avellana are about a five minute walk from each other. The water temperature is enjoyable and when I had enough of the ocean, I never really got too hot sitting on the beach either. Maybe that explains why we were at the beach for almost 10 hours one day. We loved the beaches. Sunsets are beautiful. I recommend eating at Lola's at Playa Avellana also. Sooo good. We ate at home most nights and the kitchen was more than adequate. Food prices are bit expensive, more than the US I thought. But it is a tourist area. The golf cart came in handy when going to the JW Marriott and the Beach Club. I'm also a runner so running inside the property was no problem and I found some cool routes. All in all, this house is great. A cell phone was provided which was a nice touch. Cyn, the property manager, was great and booked a lot of excursions for us and plugged the routes into the phone so we wouldn't get lost. I highly recommend Pura Aventura for ziplines. We also went scuba diving at Catalina Island and saw 3 bull sharks and a group of manta rays. What a great thrill. We used Aqua Rica and Billy was great to dive with but they did have to reschedule us. Small inconvenience. But if you visit Costa Rica, be aware the roads are really bad. Recommend a SUV is you rent a car."