Surf Ranch Tamarindo

After reading the recent reviews I was hesitant but apparently they just finished a new makeover renovation and I think it was a great stay! The room had a fridge and tv and desk and ac and hot water which was a plus. The cafe is prettty cool too and the included breakfast was better than I thought it woukd be, seems they are stepping up their game, I will be back!

What you see on the website is DEFINITELY not what you get. The room was run down, TV didn't work ( and they didn't care to fix ir replaced it). I can see why the is no cancelation, because once to get to see the room your stuck with it. Also the is no view, except for the cement wall. There is no reception, you have to go to the coffee shop attached to the building ( the staff there are wonderful). They charge like it's a higher end hotel, I've stayed in hostels better than this.

We felt very unsafe here as the door to the compound left open all night and it’s unsupervised. All other places there have 24 security. When we arrived the place it was filthy and had to clean it up ourselves. The girl at the front didn’t seem to care. Also, it seems they double book so if you do not pay in advance you may not have a place to stay when you arrive. Saw this happen to couple of young travellers-they had to scramble to find other accommodations.

I would not recommend staying here. This review is on the host, not the place. You can also find the owners place on airbnb and read their reviews as well. We were looking forward to Tamarindo however major rainfalls and flooding caused the main road from Liberia to Tamarindo to shut down. Even Liberia airport was shutdown. We still planned to drive but many locals strongly recommended not to risk it. There were also major red alerts on the news with flash flooding, trees collapsing, and mud slides in the Guanacaste area. We politely requested for a refund solely due to something out of our control, however Lucas declined and his reply to us was nothing less than inconsiderate and made us feel guilty. We were fully aware that our booking was non-refundable, but with a natural disaster like this we hoped there was some empathy. We didn't request for a refund just because we didn't want to go. We brought it up to airbnb with proof and he still declined. The owner was unsympathetic towards us about the fact that we could not make it due to a natural disaster. You could just tell by the host’s responses on other reviews he shows no sympathy or understanding, and gets quite defensive about it. I would take his replies with a grain of salt as they can be exaggerated and untrue. Just seems he is only in it for the money and not providing the experience and good service. The place MIGHT'VE been fine (though other reviews say otherwise) but don’t waste your time dealing with these ownesr.

Dear travelers, please review all feedback for this place from many prior guests, and you'll realize it's not a good idea to stay here. Both staff members are rude, aggressive, uncooperative, and unfriendly. Let me give you guys the context of our experience and what you might encounter upon arrival should you choose this place. We booked Surf Ranch Hotel in Tamarindo from the Airbnb app, however, from the get-go, we had a bunch of problems with this host: Firstly, before our arrival, the owner persistently messaged us non-stop to confirm our check-in for that day. It was odd but as we found out later, he probably had already rented the place to other guests even though we had a solid booking. We replied and told him several times we were on our way but based on his responses you could tell he wasn’t happy about it. Interestingly, the day before we had considered exploring a different part of Guanacaste and we requested a cancellation, but he declined it. Given the non-refundable cancellation policy at that point in time, it seems he denied the cancellation to secure his payment, hoping we might not turn up or thinking we might not be able to make it, therefore giving our room to somebody else without telling us, getting paid twice for the same accommodation. We arrived at 11:10 a.m. as our booking was for 11 a.m., but Laura the hotel manager didn't let us check in, saying other guests were in our room. She was reluctant to help us in the beginning as Lucas didn’t tell her he had accepted a booking at 11 a.m., so she was not expecting us at all. But to make things worse, her attitude was just unacceptable. Rude, uncooperative, and completely out of place. Once we showed her undeniable proof of our booking being valid, she unwillingly verified in the system that our booking was indeed approved by the hotel owner, Lucas. This is when she finally realized that they had made a mistake and tried to notch down her awful bad attitude towards us. We were super cooperative and understanding with her because we knew it wasn’t her fault though now, I think we should have been much more demanding with her due to her attitude. We asked for a solution as the room being occupied was not our problem as we were properly booked, and all paid for a check-in at 11 a.m. With the room taken, the solution given by both Laura and Lucas, was for us to wait outside the hotel for other guests to leave that day with an approximate wait time of 4-hours based on her estimation, and then blatantly proceeded to kick us out of the premises by closing the reception office, saying she had to leave, obviously just to avoid facing us. We refused, but Lucas over the phone told Laura to force us out and instructed her to tell us to wait in the blazing 40-degree sun until 3 p.m. for our check-in. This was unacceptable at that point. Furthermore, while the accommodation details listed "public parking" as an amenity, upon arrival, we discovered that this simply referred to street