Sandos Papagayo Beach Resort

Don't know where this hotel got 4 stars. My son had three rooms before he finally got settled. The smell was so bad (sewer) in his room we could get it by walking out onto our balcony. When he complained they gave him a can of floral bug spray and suggested sending up housekeeping. They asked him to wait until the morning and they would put him in a new room, he probably would have died from the fumes, but alas another problem. The dead bolt on his door got stuck in the lock position, he could not get out of his room. We had to lift over all of their luggage into our room over the balcony. He then got another room that night but had to move again the next day into a similar room which he had on check in. This was just the first day. The beds felt like you were sleeping on box springs and the food left much to be desired. They had one brand of wine which was awful and othere bar drinks were watered down. We ended up going to Supermarket and bought our own wine. Some much for all inclusive. We ate out most days except for breakfast. We ended up hiring a car because we were too far away from everything except the marina (this was about a 2 mile walk if you were healthy enough to climb the hills). Overall we made the most of it but would never go back or recommend to anyone. I must point out that we travel quite alot, have been to many all inclusives, holiday resorts and been on over ten cruises and have never had such a bad experience.

If I were to describe this establishment in one phrase, it would be "lack of class." Now I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for a resort, but what I didn't expect was for "all inclusive" not to really mean "all inclusive." I had no issue with paying extra for the nicer dinner, but I did have an issue with the details. For instance, I had to rent a key to the hotel room safe. Yes, rent, not just put down a deposit. This could have been a mediocre establishment had they not tried to pinch the pennies.