This is a continuation of our previous post about our move within Costa Rica from Escazú, to near Playa Flamingo. In this post we share our experience staying in the Margaritaville resort in Playa Flamingo while we looked for houses. This just as things entered Phase I of reopening in Costa Rica due to COVID.
We arrived at Margaritaville near Playa Flamingo, the hotel we were able to book a room at for our house hunt on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27th. We were booked to stay Wednesday through Monday, June 1st.
We parked our vehicle in the manned parking lot, and went up the 10 or steps to check in. I searched for a ramp for easy access with a suitcase, but there was none to be found.
Searching for room access
The man at the front desk of Margaritaville was donned with COVID-appropriate mask and gloves. There was a certificate displayed on the front desk stating that he had received and successfully passed COVID training. When we checked in, he gave us a small paper bag with COVID supplies – two disposable masks, gloves, and very small box of Kleenex. (We had our own masks and gloves, also.)
Our room keys, he explained in English, would be our wristbands, which he then attached to each of our wrists. He also told us the Internet access code would be our last name.
We noticed that there was practically no one else around. The gift shop was closed (no T-shirts or other souvenirs from this trip!), the very large pool had no one in it, and the swim-up bar was abandoned. Even the multitude of decorative margarita classes that hung upside down from the lobby ceiling seemed dusty.
We found our room, and John held his wristband to the electronic lock on the door. The door didn’t open, and the lock turned red. After John’s multiple attempts, I tried the same thing, with the same result. We also had been given electronic card looking things tucked into a hotel map. Because the wristbands hadn’t worked, we tried those as well – still nothing. John stayed with our luggage while I trudged back to the front desk to explain the situation.
“We can’t unlock the room,” I said, holding the electronic cards.
“I told you those are your beach towel cards,” front-desk guy said with an obvious sigh. “You need to use your wristbands.”
“Well, we tried those first, and they didn’t work.” I said.
He checked something on the computer and had me hold my wrist to a small device that sets the wristbands. “This should work. Try again.”
I went back to the room and held my wristband to the lock. Nothing.
I went back to the front desk again. The guy did not seem pleased to see me. He rechecked the computer, took another wristband, set it on the device, took off my old wristband and gave me a new one. “OK, now it should work. Your husband will need to come back and get his new wristband.”
I returned to the room, where John was still waiting. This time my wristband worked – yay! I told John he would have to go get another wristband for his to work.
The room seemed a bit dated (sounds like House Hunters already?), with a king-sized bed and “closets” that had curtains. We did have a small balcony on our room, with two Adirondack chairs. There was a sign that told us NOT to hang anything on the balcony, but there was also a towel rack conveniently located there. Kind of a mixed message
We were not at liberty to lounge around the room or explore the hotel at that time. We had arranged to meet Enis, our reluctant realtor, at her office at 2:00 p.m. We just needed to unload our stuff and then get back in the car to find her office. (More on the actual house hunt in the next post.) At the time we did notice that the toilet took an unusually long time to refill, which was inconvenient, but not a deal breaker. (Can we get just one hotel room where the toilet works as expected?)
When we returned to Margaritaville after our first afternoon of house hunting, John went to the front desk to get his new wristband. Same guy was there. Same process of checking the computer, the electronic device, new wristband, etc. When we went back to the room, his wristband still didn’t work. Fortunately, mine did.
We returned to the front desk. Same guy was there. He had John hold his wristband to the electronic device. He checked the computer. He then said, “I’m beginning to think it’s the lock and not you.” Wow – he actually said it out loud! He may have received a certificate for successfully completing COVID training, but he could use a refresher on basic customer service!
Searching for the hotel Wi-Fi connection
Upon our return to the room on Wednesday we tried to connect to the hotel guest Wi-Fi but didn’t have any luck. It was supposed to be very easy. When we asked to join the Margaritaville guest Wi-Fi in “Settings” on our phones, we were told by front-desk guy to enter the last name on the reservation. We both entered “Pestotnik” where it requested the name. It said we were connected to the server, but not to the Internet. We just assumed that there were issues with the Internet at that time, so for our daily Duolingo and email catch-up, we just used our cellular data.
On Thursday after our house hunting, John and I still couldn’t get connected to the Internet properly, so again used our cellular data for catching up on email and doing our daily “obligatory” Duolingo lesson. And again, we assumed that there was an internet problem – after all, everything was slightly weird due to COVID, so maybe this was just one more thing. On Friday, we had the same problem, and shrugged it off.
By Saturday, however, we decided it was time to address the issue. This time when we went to the front desk, there was a woman there, not our regular front-desk guy. We explained our problem. She stated that the internet was working just fine and told us to “forget the network” and try it again. John and I went back to our room, went through the steps on our cell phones of “forgetting the network” and tried again. No luck.
John and I both traipsed back to the front desk, cell phones in hand. We told her that “forgetting the network” and rejoining hadn’t worked. She frowned and brought up our account on the screen. “This is your name?” The screen showed PESTOTNIK. Amazingly it was spelled correctly.
“Yes, that’s correct,” we replied.
“Enter it in all capital letters,” she said. Now this was new information. No one told us we needed to enter the name in all capital letters. Besides, we’ve logged into Wi-Fi at plenty of other hotels where you entered the name, and never needed to enter the name as all capital letters. That just seemed wrong, anyway.
Still, we both dutifully entered the name in all capital letters, while showing it to her as we did it. Again, no luck.
She seemed perplexed. I could almost hear her thinking something similar as the front-desk guy had said when we continued to have problems with the lock – “I’m beginning to think it’s not you…” If she did think it, at least she didn’t say it out loud. What she did say was that she would see if there was a promotional code we could use instead. She disappeared behind a door and returned a few minutes later with a code written on a piece of paper. “Try this.”
We did and were very happy to find that it worked. We now finally had the free Wi-Fi that had been promised to us, for the last 2 days of our 5 day stay. Yay!
Searching for Food
Wednesday night we decided it would just be easier to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. The restaurant building is two stories, facing Playa Flamingo beach. It has a sign saying “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” on the thatched roof.
There is a road that separates the beach from the Margaritaville resort. Only the first floor of the restaurant appeared to be open, with both inside and outside seating. We chose to sit outside, hoping to get a view of the beach. There were limited options because of restricted seating due to the Coronavirus, and there were trees and some trucks parked along the road, so no beach view.
John ordered a cheeseburger, well, because, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” after all. I ordered a different sandwich. Our dinner was fine, but nothing to rave about. The sandwich buns were especially disappointing, kind of tough. The outdoor seating area had netting from floor to ceiling presumably to keep out birds and other critters. We sat a corner table, where we were graced with the presence of raccoons, that were easily able to nudge their way under the netting and make their way to our table. Fighting raccoons became our evening dinner “entertainment” on multiple occasions.
Fending off the enemy with an umbrella 
What happens when the staff doesn’t clean up a table fast enough
We weren’t the only people in the restaurant, but there weren’t many others. On a positive note, the restaurant staff was very friendly throughout our entire stay. We ended up eating there so often, and the restaurant staff was consistent, so they came to know us very well.
Thursday evening, we met another couple for dinner. They are also building a house in the same development that we are and live near the Flamingo Beach area. We’d Zoomed a few times previously and were excited to finally meet in person. They suggested eating at Margaritaville, as it had been a while since they had eaten there. We chose an outside table and waited for them. They arrived and went to the upper floor of the restaurant, then texted us that the restaurant was closed. We texted back that only the upstairs was closed, but the downstairs was open. The restaurant staff seemed pleased to see us, and even brought us some a complimentary sushi appetizer. We’d never seen sushi on the menu, so figured that it must have been a special.
By Friday evening we had eaten at the Margaritaville restaurant for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner since we had arrived on Wednesday. One of the realtors had mentioned a nearby restaurant, Angelinas, that was good, so we set out to eat there Friday night. It was just a short walk down the road. After we got there it started pouring. All of the seating was inside, but it was open air. We were sitting by the balcony and the waiter came by to make sure that we weren’t getting wet and needed to move. Happily, we weren’t. The restaurant is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, so we were glad we decided to try it on Friday night. We enjoyed a good meal and used our umbrellas to return to the hotel.
By Saturday evening, we had eaten at the Margaritaville restaurant for every breakfast, lunch and dinner, except Friday night, and knew the menu by heart. The problem now was that due to COVID restrictions, no restaurant could be open for seating on the weekend, only for delivery. We had no idea what restaurants were delivering in this area. We had seen another couple at the front desk in one of our many treks there for assistance, that had a pizza box. Based on our experiences in Escazú with delivery, we found that not all foods travel well, but pizza definitely does. Pizza sounded great to us. There was no pizza on the Margaritaville menu, so I searched the internet for “pizza places near me.” We found a joint that looked like it was open. I called but only got an answering machine with a recorded message in Spanish that I couldn’t understand. Thinking they might just have been busy, I waited a few minutes and called again – same thing.
Reluctantly, we went to the front desk to see if they could provide assistance. Front-desk guy was there, per usual. We asked about ordering pizza. He said, sure, the Margaritaville restaurant had pizza, and we could call now to order it. He then pushed the phone on the front desk to us. “This restaurant has pizza?” I asked again. “Yes,” he said again, with his attitude beginning to show.
“Um, OK,” I said, “We’ll just go there then.”
John and I went to the Margaritaville restaurant and were given the same menu as before, with no pizza. When the server came back to take our order, we asked about pizza. “Yes,” she said, left for a minute and returned with a different, shorter menu. So, a secret menu that you have to know to ask for? This secret menu had both pizza and sushi! Guess that explained the sushi we’d received as a free appetizer Thursday night! We ordered pizza and ate it contentedly as we sparred with the raccoons.
Sunday night we had our hearts set on sushi, now that we knew it was available. We went to the restaurant and asked about sushi. The waitress returned with disappointing news – the cook said the rice wasn’t good that night for sushi, so we would have to order something else. Sigh…
Monday breakfast was our last meal at the hotel restaurant, and we found out that it was the last day for the staff for a short time, as well. One of our servers told us that the staff was rotating on two-week shifts. The manager was trying to keep everyone employed during the COVID capacity restrictions. Half of the staff would work two weeks, then be off for two weeks while the other half would work. It was heartening to know that management was trying to do what it could for the employees. They acknowledged our “good-bye” with a message on the food plate.
Searching for Towels
Thursday when we took showers, we found that there was no hot water at all. I mean, the water was ice cold. With it being so hot outside, it was hard to understand how the hotel could possibly get the water so cold. There was only one hook in the bathroom for towels, behind the door. The tub also leaked out the back, so the bathmat towel got completely soaked. We needed to use our bath towels to sop up the water on the floor after our showers. Even if we hadn’t used the towels on the floor, we had no way to hang them in the bathroom to dry. There was the towel rack on the balcony, very near the warning sign not to hang things on the balcony. Still, that seemed like a place you should hang swimsuits and beach towels, not your bath towels. In the end, we left the soaking wet bath towels on the floor, thinking they would be replaced when the staff made up the room.
When we came back from our Thursday house hunting excursion, the room had not been made up. We finally decided we would need to get our towels replaced, as they were all still soaked, and had been used to mop up the floor. I went to the front desk. There was no one there. I rang the bell. The sound it made so faint I don’t know how anyone could have heard it. Another hotel guest approached and also went to the front desk. He rang the bell. No one came. He was a Tico (Costa Rican), and I managed to say something intelligible to him in Spanish. He nodded, sighed, and said “Espera, espera” This means “wait, wait.” Ticos are known for their patience. He sat down in a lobby chair, resigned to wait for an indefinite period of time. I wasn’t (Tico nor resigned to wait for an indefinite period of time), so returned to the room.
After a while I returned to the front desk to see if we could get more towels. There wasn’t anyone there, although the guy who had been waiting was playing pool with a few other people in the lobby. Presumably, the front desk guy had made an appearance at some point.
On Friday John and I took our ice-cold showers and used the beach towels to dry off. Now we had more wet towels and no place to hang them to dry. I went back to the front desk – no surprise – no one there. I went to the restaurant with the beach towels, which had a beach towel station near it, and asked someone if they could help with the towel situation. The friendly restaurant guy said he would take our towels and let the front desk know. I gave him the beach towels.
Later that evening we checked at the front desk, and shockingly the front desk guy was there. We asked about the towels. He said that the restaurant guy had told him we’d given him the beach towels. Then he told us that there wasn’t going to be any maid service because of COVID. (This would have been useful information to be given when we checked in, but still wouldn’t have helped with our towel situation.) I explained that we needed to have our towels replaced. He told us that someone would come to take care of it. We returned to our room. After a short time, someone did come and take our towels and replaced them with new ones. Yay!
Imagine our surprise on Saturday afternoon when there was a knock on our hotel door and two ladies came in to do maid service! We’d just been told less than 24 hours before that there wasn’t going to be maid service, due to COVID, and yet, here they were. They made the bed, gave us more towels, and even swept the floor! We hung out on the room balcony while they went about their work.
Searching for the Great Outdoors
By Friday, John and I had decided on a place to rent near Playa Flamingo – we had completed the purpose for the visit. (Again, more on that in the next post). We now had the entire weekend to stay at the hotel. Frankly, given everything that had taken place, and if we could have, we would have driven back to our apartment in Escazú on Friday. But, the license plate on our rental car ended in “9”, which meant that we weren’t allowed to drive on Friday because of COVID driving restrictions. We’d passed at least one police checkpoint on the way there, so it was highly likely we would get caught if we drove when we weren’t supposed to. Also, driving was restricted to essential services on Saturday and Sunday (groceries, medical, pharmacies), so we resigned ourselves to wasting away at Margaritaville until Monday.
Since we didn’t have any appointments on Friday, we decided to take a walk on the beach. Due to COVID, beaches were only open from 5:30 – 8 a.m., which really limited the time we could enjoy the beach. We did get up early and took a nice beach walk. It would have been optimal if it had been low tide during our stay, but it wasn’t. We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel after our walk, then spent some time in the pool.
The pool at Margaritaville is huge. I am sure that during peak season when there are lots of tourists it is very crowded, and the swim up bar is frequented by many guests. Rest assured, if the swim up bar had been open, we would have been there, but alas, it was not. Because of COVID, reduced hotel guests, the border closures and the driving restrictions, there were only a few other people in the pool. At least that made it very easy to properly social distance.
John and I also took a walk on Friday around the town near the resort to familiarize ourselves with the area.
Saturday and Sunday were much the same – beach walks in the morning, then breakfast at the hotel, and a dip in the pool. Usually it would then start raining so we would go back to our rooms, returning to the hotel restaurant for lunch, and then suppers, as described previously.
It doesn’t sound so horrible, but by the time Monday finally rolled around, we were more than ready to stop wasting away in Margaritaville, and drive back to Escazú! On Monday I noticed that they had erected scaffolding to clean the dusty margarita glasses hanging from the ceiling in the lobby. By the time we checked out, they were sparkling.
In our next post, we’ll talk about our House Hunters International experience. Stay tuned!
Remember, it's an adventure. 