Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Eco Sanctuary

Our stay at Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge was the highlight of our visit to Costa Rica. The Lodge takes a relatively small number of people and provides genuinely warm hospitality - they make you feel welcome guests in a lovely home. If you are interested in the Costa Rican wildlife, and in eating freshly cooked, delicious, relatively local food - this is the place for you! The lodges/rooms are set into the forest, so you are surrounded by wonderful plants and animals all the time. There are well-maintained trails that give you miles of walking through wonderful ecosystems. Gardens provide havens for huge numbers of butterfly species and humming birds, and the beach the ecosystem is different again. Everywhere chilled water is available to fill your water bottle, a real bonus in the hot, humid climate. The rooms have silent, effective ceiling fans which mean the lack of aircon is no problem - in fact you really get the sense of where you are staying, rather than being observers from cool rooms. We slept really well there. The meals are served at a communal table unless you request otherwise - we weren't sure about this until we experienced it. The variety of interesting people we met and chatted to, from so many different countries, was an added bonus to the whole stay. All of the staff - from the guides to the bar staff, the gardeners and the cleaners - were welcoming and were all knowledgeable about the wildlife - sharing sightings of animals from frogs and hawks to bats, snakes, humming bird nests and puma! If you are looking to sit by a pool and then retreat to an air-conditioned room, then this is not the place for you - but if you want an amazing experience of time in the Costa Rican rainforest with all it has to offer in terms of hospitality and biodiversity, you will love it here. Nicuesa will always be a cherished memory for us, and we will return to visit them again!

My partner and I stayed for 10 nights, and we loved it. It's a peaceful and relaxing place. The cabin we stayed in was very private and very comfortable. The main lodge had pretty good Wi-Fi and was a nice place to hang out, with a nice bar and dining room upstairs (all open, no doors or windows, you could see birds and monkeys from everywhere in the lodge.) Every morning there was some type of tour to go on with a guide, from dolphin watching to snorkeling to kayaking to guided walks in the rainforest with very knowledgeable guides. We saw so much wildlife. All the staff were so helpful and friendly, all the meals were fresh and tasty. And when we weren't on a tour, we loved just relaxing on the beach (under trees or canopies), or snorkeling around the pier. My partner enjoyed the two yoga classes she took and also a Thai massage.

We visited as a family with an 8 yr old and 10 yr old. We had a wonderful and relaxing stay. The food was amazing and plentiful. The staff were extremely accommodating. Shout out to Stefan, Manuel, Stephanie, Jon Carlo. My husband and son went fishing and they prepared the fish they caught. We did chocolate making and the chocolates are delicious. The sustainability tour was very interesting as well. The clothes drying was genius! If you want authentic jungle living, this is the place. It is not for everyone. Nothing dries, there are bugs, it is dark, it is remote. The food is delicious but there is not a variety of food choices. You get what chef makes. Not recommended for young children.

If you are looking for a truly rustic "eco-lodge" this is the place for you. The lodge is fully contained, from supplying their own water to their laundry service that uses an incredibly efficient "solar dryer" and use of a fan instead of AC. All the bungalows are deep in the forest. Activities that we would recommend are the mangrove safari either by boat or kayak and the waterfall hike. Birds are abundant as are reptiles and various interesting insects. The people that work there make this a truly special experience. Our primary guide was Steven. He is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the flora and fauna that are found at the Lodge and in the neighboring national park. He is particularly adept at finding and identifying birds. Michelle is the yoga instructor and masseuse. She is exceptional. Having a great massage on a platform that is on the beach is terrific. The wait staff led by Caesar is exuberant and provide terrific service that is matched by tasty meals. Even the boat captain Memo, is warm and skilled at navigating the tricky parts of the mangrove estuary.

I stayed at Playa Nicuesa with a group for a yoga retreat. We were able to book the entire lodge. I must say, this was an experience of a lifetime! The staff led us on several sightseeing tours, prepared great meals, and made our stay truly memorable. I look forward to visiting again and hosting my own retreats!

An absolutely unique and wonderful place. Forget doing a hike around a National Park in Costa Rica, stay in one instead! This place is part of Piedras Blancas National Park and has the lovely dual offer of a private beach as well as being completely in the jungle. You will not feel more remote very often and it’s a perfect place to truly switch off and get away from everything. We initially had to get used to the accommodation, as you really are staying in the middle of the jungle in an open lodge with just netting around your bed, but once we realised that the animals are more scared of us than we are of them, and that we were perfectly safe, we really enjoyed it and had a good night sleep! The activities offered by the lodge are really good, we had an excellent time kayaking and snorkelling, as well as birdwatching. My personal favourite was the kayaking tour along the mangroves - with some dolphins, snakes and crocs thrown in!- absolutely stunning! But what was probably the best about this place were the people who work there. They are all genuinely happy to work there and will go above and beyond to give you the best possible experience. The best example of this is that the kitchen staff invited our two daughters to come and bake biscuits with them, giving us time to pack our bags in peace. A simple gesture that went a long way, and the biscuits were delicious!!