Hotel El Tirol

As you can see from my previous reviews, I am generally a positive person. I do not give bad reviews. It’s a fault I know but I hate to be critical as I can generally sympathise. In this case I’m prepared to make an exception. Recommended by a friend who lived nearby we booked with high expectations. We landed in San Jose and encountered a luggage problem; someone had mistakenly taken my suitcase. Luckily I had an apple tag in it so we got in our hire car and followed them across San Jose. This meant that we were late checking in. No big deal you would think. It’s 9:30 pm. We drove into the hills to find the hotel gates barred, the security post unmanned and no reply on any of the hotel numbers. Unusual for a hotel in my experience. We had resigned ourself to a night on our friends couch after a very long day, but luckily a local whatsapp call eventually led to us returning and being given a key. The security people were very kind and didn’t need us to do any formalities, but simply directed us to our room. The room was interesting. A light sparkling of glitter on the floor, dimly illuminated by a ceiling fixture in which 2 of the 5 bulbs actually worked. The room is a good size as is the bathroom. The ceiling light in the bathroom was dimmed by the amount of waste in the fixture; dead insects I’m assuming. The loo seat was broken, there was no drain or plug in the basin. On to the positives. There was a huge jacuzzi bath which I made full use of in the morning and loads of hot water. The bed was also large and comfortable. In the morning we went to breakfast but we were too early as it didn’t start until 8:30. It was at this point that we realised that we might be the only guests. We didn’t see another guest in the three nights that we were there. Breakfast was good. Great coffee and Costa Rica’s favourite, gallo pinto with scrambled egg and fried plantain. A good fruit course as well. We left on a days jungle hike, and on our return showered (also good). We had decided to walk to our friends house for an early evening barbecue. On the way out we stopped and chatted with the security guard. “ What sort of time go you think you might close the gates tonight?” “Oh probably around 10 pm”. Excellent we thought until we returned at 8:30 pm to a padlocked gate. We jumped up and down in front of the security camera, we phoned, we yelled, all to no avail. Luckily my wife who is smaller than I, decided that a storm gulley to the left of the gate, was of a sufficient size to crawl under on her belly, commando style. She crawled under in the dark, walked down the road and roused the security guard. Obviously he didn’t see her at first as she was camouflaged by the leaves and twigs covering her clothes! It’s 8:30pm. It’s not really what I would expect of any decent accommodation, never mind a hotel where we might have been the only guests. You think that they might have cared. Save your money. I’ll try to affix some pictures. Mor