HOTEL: La Posada Jungle Bungalows in Manuel Antonio

OVERALL: We loved La Posada Jungle Bungalows!

DETAILS: La Posada Jungle Bungalows is literally right next to the entrance of Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica. The picture to the right shows La Posada and then the main entrance to Manuel Antonio (and in the bottom left corner you can see the Jimny we rented). There are four or five "bungalow" rooms, plus three other suites. All are air-conditioned - the only place we stayed in all of Costa Rica that offered a/c. They offer a full breakfast each morning, along with a $6 dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rooms all have WiFi, DVD players, cable TV, and a fridge in room. There is a pool and small Jacuzzi on the property, too. The Posada room that we stayed in also had a full kitchen. Rooms range in price from 50USD to 225USD, depending on season and room.

La Posada is a family-oriented property and most of the rooms accommodate several people. Lots of families were there during our stay with kids playing board games in the common area and borrowing DVDs from the video library to watch in their rooms.

La Posada has an extensive library of books - fiction, non-fiction and travel books about Costa Rica - along with a computer in the common area if you need to check email or scope out your next destination. We did have some trouble connecting to the WiFi from our room, but this old Apple is picky about connecting when it's more than about 30 feet from the router. When I went to the common area to connect, it was a clean signal and it was password-protected for the guests.
The staff is truly exceptional at La Posada. Hands-down, these were the most SPOTLESS rooms we've stayed in during our time in Costa Rica. The "desk" staff (the main desk is also part of the kitchen!) was helpful in finding out tour times and recommending restaurants and things to do.

We had the most up-close animal experiences here at La Posada on the property. A deer or two wandered over from the park, two large iguanas hung out on the property, capuchin monkeys, and then loads of spider monkeys! The picture above is one of the iguanas who liked to hang out in a porch rafter; his buddy would hang out in the other rafter, but he kept his head "in" and you could only see the last four inches of his tail. There are also two darling lovebirds (I forget their names) who live in a BIG cage near the pool. The picture below is of a mama spider monkey and her baby hanging out on a big piece of bamboo near the pool at La Posada. There were about ten other spider monkeys that came hopping and swinging onto the property that afternoon. They're quite noisy and active.

When Mike said La Posada was right next to the entrance of Manuel Antonio Park, he wasn't kidding. NO PLACE is closer. In fact, the guides you can hire to take you through the park hang out right outside the parking area of La Posada and sometimes, they would come onto the property to buy a water or Coke and shoot the bull.

To get down to the beach and all the vendors, there was a nice footpath that took about three minutes to walk down to the beach. There were TONS of vendors on the beach, mostly selling the same thing. The Dog did buy two Imperial beer (oops - cerveza) shirts for about 15USD after bargaining. There was also this cool guy who was selling 8-in-1 ocarinas. Because he was so demonstrative about these little ocarinas that most everyone else was selling, too, we bought from him. Check out the video below. We paid about 8USD for the ocarina...




In summation, we loved La Posada, but we weren't that crazy about the Manuel Antonio area itself. However, if we were to go back to Manuel Antonio, we'd absolutely stay at La Posada. Great staff, excellent location, and I forgot to mention - the BEST beds we'd slept in during our travels in Costa Rica.