Arenal Paraiso Resort & Spa

Best View of the Volcano! Best Grounds!

by roberteolsen about Arenal Paraiso

Basic accommodations, decent restaurant, outstanding tropical grounds, lava flows in sight, three or four natural mineral water pools, hike to the Arenal River, lovely swimming pool, easy access to La Fortuna (to buy more cerveza Imperial) Plants and flowers

Arenal Paraiso Costa Rica

by p_jolicoeur about Arenal Paraiso Costa Rica

$ 50 US for a double with bath, and views. In January 2,000, the only spot you could see the lava was 6 to 9 kilometers west of the village of La Fortuna. It's like a candle, and drips on one side. Since it's often cloudy in this area, if you go back and forth from Fortuna to stand just 30 minutes in front of the volcano, your chance are slim of seeing an eruption.

We stayed just in front, spent a few hours mesmerized by the impressive cone, and it was worth the wait! We found a reasonably priced hotel, the Arenal Paraiso. There is other places to stay if you can afford it: Montana de Fuego, Senderos Los Lagos, and Tabacon Resort.

As a budget alternative, you can stay in La Fortuna, and use the trail system of Hotel Los Lagos, for an entrance fee of $5. You need to take a taxi, because you can't see the lava from the village. Good luck!

Arenal Paraiso Resort

by tedandtina about Arenal Paraiso Resort

Cottage like rooms with showers and deck to view the volcano. Be careful, try and get a newer room as the older ones are pretty old. Rooms 133-135 Are very new and good although a bit far from reception. We are talking just the basic 'deluxe' room. 75$

Superior room that we saw was higher up and had a covered deck, but seemed older. We were quoted 120$

Breakfast is very good.

There is a trail around the hotel, good for walking.

Feels safe and secure. They take good care of their guests. Hot Springs are great, 12 pools at your feet...

Pool is good for kids and there is a special hot spring pool that kids can get into.

Views of the Volcano are excellent.

Arenal Volcano Area

by Jim_Eliason about Hotel Arenal Paraiso

Great hotel with on-site hot spring pools and canopy tours. This place is well-placed for an excellent view of the Arenal Volcano. However while we were there, we were not able get a view of it due to constant cloud cover. The hotel has 18 Deluxe and 12 Standard private cabins.

Hot springs and a volcano

by Helga67 about Hotel Arenal Paraiso

This hotel is a great hotel near an active volcano. You have a wonderful, in my opinion the best view of the volcano, and at night you can see the lava flow.
There are 12 standards and 25 deluxe bungalows surrounded by lush tropical gardens and all with a view of the volcano.
Good service and friendly people.
The breakfast buffet is huge, and offers local dishes as well as more American style dishes. The hotel has a lovely swimming pool, hot springs and a hot springs fed wet bar all with a great view of the volcano. They also have a spa, canopy tour (zip line tour) and private trails.
There is a 24-hours security.

Bad hotel service or just bad luck on our side?

by monica71 about Hotel Arenal Paraiso

We wanted to stay at Hotel Arenal Paraiso because of the hot springs they have on site. Plus, the hotel web site looked really good. So we decided to give it a try. I sent an email to the hotel in early February 2008 to check on a room availability for late April 2008 and got an answer few days later. I was happy to see that they have a room available for the 2 nights we wanted to stay with them and I decided to go ahead and book the room. I filled out the form adding my credit card information there and faxed it to them.

I called the hotel 2 days later to check if we were good on the reservation and they could not find my fax. Liz, the person I talk to, said that it most likely got lost and I should either resend it or emails the form to her. I decided to email it to her and asked her to confirm that she received the email with the reservation request and the information on my credit card. I had to send 4 email within the next 3 weeks to get an answer from Liz that we were good with the reservation. I was starting to get a little bit concerned due to the fact that communication was going so bad, but my husband told me to try to understand the fact that they may not speak English well enough and they may need time to get back to us.

A day before going to Costa Rica, I called all the hotels we book rooms at again in order to make sure that we were OK with the reservation. I was surprised to hear that my reservation could not be found in the computer. At this time, I got a little bit upset and decided not to book with them again, but go to the hotel when we get in La Fortuna town and talk to them directly. I knew it was low season and they would have a room available.

While in La Fortuna, we took a horseback riding tour to the volcano. The tour is provided by Hotel Arenal Paraiso, so it was the perfect occasion for us to talk to them about our reservation at the reception desk. I was concerned that if we do not show up, they will charge my credit card. So we stopped by the reception desk before going on the horseback riding tour. Again, they were not able to find my reservation in their system, but they had rooms available. We decided to put a room on hold for the next 2 nights we planned on spending in the area (they could not reserve it for us since we had no credit cards with us; I was not going to go riding a horse while caring my credit card in my pocket, so...). The next morning, we got the car we rented from Alamo and headed to Hotel Arenal Paraiso where we wanted to spend 2 nights. We got to the reception and again, no room was found on hold under my name in their system. At this point, I got fed up with them and decided to leave. We checked in another hotel in the area and we were happy to do so.

The hotel grounds are very nice, but the experience we had with the hotel staff was so horrible, that I would hesitate considering staying with them in the future. Maybe this was just an unfortunate incident, but when it happens to you, it is really hard to get over it and consider staying with them.

Beautiful view of an active volcano!

by gramboman about Arenal Paraiso Resort and Spa

Beautiful gardens line the walkways to your personal little bungalow. This is place is kept so clean, and they leave floral arrangements and creativly assembled towels in your room after they clean - it's that kind of place.

The breakfast buffet included is very good. For lunch, go to town for the best food at any of the very inexpensive soda stands. The restuarant on site at the hotel is not worth it. Don't be tempted to order the steak unless you crave chewy sponges.

The town of La Fortuna has the best prices on typical wooden crafts souvenirs. In addition to the regular crystal clean pool, there are two thermal springs pools that they refresh daily. Also a jacuzzi and sauna nearby. So very relaxing.

Every bungalow has a wide view of the volcano, that erupts quite frequently (but never excessively). Set up your camera on a tripod and leave the shutter open for 20 minutes or more for a great picture.

The on-site spa is a littel pricey but if you're ready to splurge - do it. There are very few places you can get wrapped up in volcanic mud!

Lots of adventure tours available that last 1-3 hours, including a canopy zip line through the rainforest behind the property, a night hike, horseback riding, cave exploration.

Howler monkeys in plain view in the morning.

Wow! What a view!

by A TripAdvisor Member

We loved Arenal Paraiso! My family of 4 (2 adults and 2 young adults) were pleasantly surprised when we arrived. It was much more than we had expected. The staff was most helpful always (even sending a driver to pick us up at the airport unexpectedly when our plane was delayed by 3 hours!), the premises were extremely clean, well appointed, comfortable, and beautiful. Our cabin was set high on the hill overlooking the rain forest from the back porch and Arenal Volcano from our front porch. Loved the leather seated rocking chairs! We enjoyed the pools (14, I think!), the hike down to the river, and breakfast every morning. The Canopy Tour on their property was also very convenient. In fact we decided not to visit Tabacon Springs as we were so very comfortable enjoying all that Arenal Paraiso had to offer.

Arenal Paraiso Stables

by monica71

I really enjoyed taking pictures of the horses from Arenal Paraiso stables. I took them at the end of our tour, while waiting for our ride back to the downtown La Fortuna hotel we were staying at.

The stable has about 60 horses that are being used for tours. The owner of the stables also has some great horses here. Eric showed me around the stables and he told me a little bit about the owner's passion about horses. It was so nice to see that all the horses were very well taken care of and they were not overworked!

Eric showed these miniature horses to me and I was so glad to see them! I pet them all and they were so cute! I thought that they were ponies, but Eric said no, they were miniature horses that the owner had there just for showing them to people.
Eric also showed me some ponies they had on site, so I could see the difference between a pony and a miniature horse.

He was so cute and gentle! He came to me to pet him when he saw me walking by. His mother was just behind him and she walked away when she saw me petting the little horse.

He was another little horse that sticked his head out to be pet. It was really hard for me not to pet them all! They were all so cute!

This is the horse that only Eric rides. He is very nice and strong. He likes Eric a lot and he really does not feel comfortable when somebody else is riding him. He may even try to get rid of the person riding him if that person is not Eric :)

This is the last picture of the horses that I took before going to our hotel. I had such a great time riding Peggy and visiting the stables. I felt so honored that Eric took the time to show me around the stables!