Pros: Incredible beach to swim at every day. No crowds.
Cool birds, and iguanas in the "backyard". You can hear the ocean from the condo, and the view out the back to the bay is simply stunning.
Close to some fantastic restaurants (highly recommend Amigo's Tacos Y Beer, La Cazuela Del Marisco, & Banana Wind at Margaritaville) and Playa Flamingo Beach if you like more waves and people watching.
Internet and Netflix both worked for us although we had to reset WiFi on our laptops every day.
Cons: Getting to the condo upon arrival was a fiasco. I had reached out over a week prior to the trip for assistance with airport transfer. Gustavo was so nice telling me he would help me, but didn't, and when we arrived we were on our own. We ended up getting a cab (it's about US$100 to get to Playa Flamingo from the Liberia airport) but it is not easy to find and if it weren't for accidentally running into the housekeeper at the top of the "resort" I would not have found it at all. I hadn't even known the resort I found her at was the one we were in; I was just trying to find WiFi in order to contact Gustavo. Fortunately she thought to ask me if I was in 413 and even though there was a language barrier, she was persistent and got us into our condo. Meantime (while I did not have access to internet in the cab) I had received a What's App and video from a different contact than Gustavo, (adding to the confusion) bringing me into the condo from a completely different entry point which of course I had no idea about at that time. So for future reference, have your driver take you to "Flamingo Marina Cove", and you can get to the condo from the bottom of the hill easier, (Vacasa will send you a video) but you still have to walk through an adjacent resort and the backyard lawn and it's convoluted finding it for the first time.
The condo is attached to a hotel/resort that even though is listed on Google Maps as a 4* Waterfront Hotel with Outdoor Dining, it is quite abandoned. There is a pool and hot tub that are still in working order with a fantastic view of Potrero Bay, but do not expect this to be a working resort. The tennis court was in bad shape, often with sitting water on it, the playground was overgrown and in disrepair, and there is no restaurant.
This condo sits on a steep hill and without access to parking, that means you have to walk up and down whenever you go to eat or shop. For us this was not a problem, we like the activity, but it is a hard walk.
The day we arrived there was loud banging in an adjacent condo, it sounded like there was construction going on. That came and went throughout our stay.
Two times we lost running water, once over 15 hours overnight. Little things like flooding from draining water from the kitchen sink, the ice maker not working, the guest bath toilet having to be flushed from inside the tank, a leak in the guest bath shower, and no knob on the clothes dryer were mostly just inconveniences. The A/C unit in the bedroom leaked onto the bed one day completely soaking the pillows on my side and I had to move to the guest room for two nights while it all dried out. (Maintenance the next day was great, and they attended to the other plumbing issues as well). The A/C in the living room would periodically go into E1 mode and stop working, then turn itself back on eventually.
Sadly, it was very difficult to sit on the back deck and enjoy being outside because of the mosquitos and other biting insects. We bought some Off but even using that, the buggers would find the spots we missed, so we couldn't spend much time on the incredible back deck enjoying the outdoors without getting bitten.
All that said, we absolutely loved our time in Costa Rica. We love the food, the people, the climate, the beauty, the wildlife. It's not uncommon to lose power, and getting places is much slower than many of us are used to because the infras...