Costa Rica Guesthouse

A very nice stay in San Jose

✓ The hostel is located in a very quiet place in San Jose and you can sleep well during all nights. The staff is nice and overall clean and well maintained.

✗ I would take care of the smell of sewer that is in the bathroom (especially the upstairs one)

The CR Guesthouse is perfect for short quiet stays. But there is no kitchen or refrigerator.

✓ Please look at my earlier review, which this review is continuing from. Although the previous review, and this review, only seem to be for a few days, I have actually been staying at CR Guesthouse from July to now, October, for days or weeks, while making trips to Panama. So I have probably stayed here for at least a month, sometimes for two weeks at a time. During that time, I have stayed in one of the 4-bed mixed dorms, or the 6-bed female dorm - all of them in the Workstation building. So I have had a lot of opportunity to see what is good and bad about this hostel/hotel. Firstly, I've noticed that most of the guests stay here for only a day or two, because they are on their way to (or from) the airport, and they just want to get organised for wherever they are going: very few stay longer in San José. All the guests that I've met, in the various dorms, seem to choose the Guesthouse rather than the Backpackers, because they just want to have a good night's sleep in a quiet location. Not many even go to the Backpackers, to use the kitchen or very nice common area there. On the other hand, guests who are expecting to be in San José for a few days, and are expecting to find some friends to socialise with, seem to find the very sociable Backpackers perfect for that. What I especially like about the Guesthouse is the constant hot water in all of the three bathrooms in the Workstation building: 24/7 hot water is available, with good pressure. Also, I like that all the dorms have windows for daylight and fresh air. As I talked a about, in my previous review, the Guesthouse is free of loud 'background' music, so it is possible to have a nap at any time during the day - except when the cleaners are doing their work (really well) in the mornings. There is traffic noise, particularly in the female dorm, but mostly in peak time, or late on Saturday or Sunday night (usually stops soon after midnight).

✗ For guests who are staying just a night or two, they don't seem to care about being able to cook their own meals. But, for a longer staying guest, it's very disappointing that there is no kitchen. Guesthouse guests can use the kitchen at the Backpackers, but it is usually very busy there - and with loud music that is playing (from a mobile phone set up in the kitchen), with that music loud enough to supply 'background' music for the whole area of the indoor-outdoor common area. Also, there are two refrigerators in that kitchen but - for all the many weeks that I have stayed at CR Guesthouse - those refrigerators have always been full: I have never been able to find a space to keep any food in them. In hostels the world over - in Australia too - it is difficult for guests to find space to store food in the refrigerators because many guests leave food behind, when they have gone, and it’s difficult for staff to know what to throw out. In well-run hostels that I know, in Australia, they have notices on the doors of the refrigerators, with messages like: “This fridge is cleaned on Wednesdays. Any food in this frig, on Wednesdays, will be disposed of.” I think there could be a similar system in the CR Backpackers kitchen, for example: Monday, Wednesday, Sunday, for one fridge. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, for the other fridge. But it would be good if some of the space in the Workspace building could be converted to a small kitchen for the use of Guesthouse guests. (There is a lot of space, in the actual workstation, that has to be paid for, for entry.) Alternatively, it would be good if a refrigerator was provided, for guest use, in the Workstation building, near the for-sale Drinks Refrigerator (plenty of space near there). Then Guesthouse guests could cook at the Backpackers, but store their food in the Guesthouse.

It is quieter here than in most hostels in Latin America, where the norm is loud music

✓ I am not a traveller. I came to CR, in January 2020, from Australia (just before Covid came to Latin America), and I intended to leave on a booked flight, in April 2020. However, the border of CR got shut, on March 18, 2020. The Australian border closed two days later, and stayed closed for two years (even to its own citizens). So I got stranded in CR until March 2022, when the Australian border opened, and I am still stranded: I have been trying to get a US Transit Visa, since March 2022. It was denied because I am not a CR citizen, or resident, and I've had to wait until November 14, to be interviewed by the US Embassy here. During the 3 years and 8 months that I have been stuck in Costa Rica (including 8 months in Mexico), my greatest cause of stress is that I really don't like loud percussion-driven Latin American music, or similar American pop music: I am almost 83 years old, and I did not grow up with the expectation that everywhere - at home, in restaurants, in shops, in public transport, in accommodation - there has to be music, as is the case in Latin America. I love to be in quiet places, where I can read: actual books, or selections from the hundreds of books that I have on my Kindle (including for Spanish study); or newspapers that I subscribe to, that come to my iPad every day. But I can't concentrate to read if there is throbbing percussion-driven music all around me. For finding quiet places to sit and relax, CR Guesthouse is almost the best hostel, in San José (and I know most of them). Here it is possible to escape 'background' music. The Workstation building (where the dorms are) is quiet, except for unavoidable traffic in peak times, and there is a quiet sitting area in the reception building. For those guests who love to have music, the CR Backpackers is perfect: they have a really nice indoor-outdoor common area, where music is played day and night. That area, including the kitchen, can be used by CR Guesthouse guests.

✗ Sometimes, even in the reception area, the volunteers (who work in reception) cannot be happy without the accompaniment of percussion-driven Latin American music. Right now, as I am writing this review (at about mid-day), the young volunteer on duty (who I have been chatting to, in Spanish, up to now) decided that he needed to feel happy with some background music. So I have to leave. Not even here, in the reception sitting area, is it reliably quiet. I wish that there was softer music available for the volunteers to play here. But they, being young people, would find such music very boring. Still, of all the hostels that I know - in San José and in Puebla, Mexico - it is very often possible to find a quiet place to sit, in CR Guesthouse. Or it is possible, for guests, to be immersed in loud music, in the very nice common area at the CR Backpackers.

My go-to spot in San Jose

✗ The woman at the front desk when I arrived seemed annoyed.

Great value for private space in the city :)

✓ I love staying here; extremely reasonable prices for a private room if you want to enjoy your own space whilst in San Jose, comfortable beds, lots of space, safe parking, free coffee, can´t complain.

✗ The hot showers are not always reliable.

Great value for money

✓ Great location. Big comfortable rooms. Lots of space. Very clean.

Good and clean guesthouse

✓ Clean, 24h/7 reception desk. Free coffee.

✗ The train passing by. Not that they can do anything about it but the train (each) honks to approach. The noise is terribly high.

Very good

✓ I liked the location. The staff is very nice and also the common areas where super nice. I liked that I got upgraded when I arrived. Kirsten was very patient with me.

✗ It was kind of loud. The pillows where not very comfortable.