Review: The Springs Resort, Arenal, Costa Rica

We recently stay at The Springs Resort in Costa Rica and loved it!! Such a great property with so much to see and do! Using the acrostic of WGD (for White Glove Destinations), you will find the following in my review:

W for "What to Know Before You Go"

G for "Get Your Eats On"

D for "Do This" What to Know Before you Go:

Location: The Springs Resort is located in Arenal, La Fortuna Costa Rica. You will want to fly into San Jose (or possibly Liberia). From the airport, you will want to consider a rental car (this is what we did) or you can always add in a private or shared transfer if you don’t want to deal with the drive. Travel time is approximately 3 hours drive. It was a fairly easy drive and distance wise, not that far but you will be dealing with two lane roads and slower speed limits. We enjoyed our drive though and would do it again in a heartbeat. Note that you must have car rental insurance when renting a car in Costa Rica and this can be pricey but we found it less expensive then hiring a private driver, plus, we like the added benefit of being able to come and go at our leisure. Passports are required when traveling to Costa Rica and must be valid for your entire length of stay.

The Resort: A beautiful property that is about 30 minutes drive from the main town of LaFortuna. If you are a fan of the show The Bachelor, this resort was featured in Brad’s season. It is a romantic destination but very suitable for families as well. You will be driving on a dirt road to get to this resort for about 15 minutes or so but it’s an easy drive. We enjoyed this remote location with an amazing view of the volcano! We stayed in a 2 story, 2 bedroom suite with views of the volcano. You would have options of standard hotel type rooms and suites. We loved the two story option so our girls were upstairs with their own bathroom and my husband and I were downstairs with our own bathroom and a lock on the door! Ha! We especially loved the wildlife that surrounds this resort. We saw several monkeys and heard even more (Howler Monkeys). We had heard that mosquitoes can be a problem since you are in the rainforest but we never had any issues with mosquitoes!

So, with a name like The Springs Resort, you would expect natural springs, right? Well, they have them and many to chose from! They range in temperatures and are noted with signs next to each spring as to what the temperature is. All the springs, including the monkey slide, are included with your stay. And, they have several amazing pools, one with a swim up bar. When we weren’t off enjoying the endless activities in Arenal, we spent our free time at the swim up bar at the resort!

The People of Costa Rica: This is the best feature of this country. Everyone we came into contact with in Costa Rica was lovely! They all spoke English, made us feel comfortable, they were amazingly kind and generous people. We fell in love with Costa Rica because of the people!

Get Your Eats On: The Springs Resort offers several dining options. For lunch, on our arrival day, we enjoyed sandwiches and sides from the Treetops Grill....set outdoors by the main swimming, this restaurant is super casual with great lunch options. We even got to see a howler monkey while we dined!

For breakfast, we opted for the breakfast buffet at Tres Cascades. The buffet was delicious and fueled us for the many activities that Arenal offers (tubing, ziplining, rappelling and more!)

We opted to dine in town for 2 of the 3 nights during our stay which I highly recommend. That is why having your own car is beneficial...so you can drive into town and enjoy the local cuisine and culture.

On our last night we decided to order room service from the resort and we all enjoyed our meals. The meals were served timely and still hot so that is always a bonus with room service!

Do This:

Since we weren’t really sure what to expect from this destination, we opted to wait and book our excursions/activities upon check-in. This worked out great for us! We sat down and visited with the concierge on our arrival day and told him what are desires where. We ended up booking a fun river tubing adventure that is right at the resort. Ziplining and Waterfall Rappelling were booked with an outside company but the hotel arranged all of that for us!! You can easily book excursions in advance or “wing” it like we did and it still worked out perfectly but do keep in mind that we traveled during low season (end of May) so during high season, I do recommend booking all excursions in advance.
Definitely take advantage of Club Rio that is located right at the resort. This is a great free area next to the river. You can enjoy the views and the springs down here as well. There are fees if you want to enjoy any of the Club Rio activities and we loved what they offered. We enjoyed river tubing, wildlife sanctuary and hot springs!! The resort offers complimentary bus service (just about hourly) from the resort down to the club...do not attempt to hike to the club area as it is very steep and dangerous. You will definitely want to use the complimentary bus to get back and forth from the resort to Club Rio
Stay a minimum of 3 nights...4 to 5 nights is ideal so that you can enjoy the many activities in Arenal and still have time to enjoy all that this resort offers. We felt a bit rushed during our 3 night stay but I would do it all over again the same way if I didn’t have more time!!
Dine locally. We loved dining like the locals do. Get out and enjoy the quaint town and park square area of La Fortuna. They have some great little dining spots, cafes, bakery, candy shops, nut shops and more!