Manatus Hotel

A nice small hotel for Tortuguero, they only have 12 rooms. Staff are great, it’s all very clean. Tours are included and pretty good. The highlight was seeing baby turtles hatch on the beach, which was amazing. We didn’t see a lot on the canal tours and almost nothing on the night walk round the property - but it’s nature and you can’t guarantee anything (and the baby turtles rushing to the sea was worth everything), on our last morning I did spot some toucans in the grounds. The showers are amazing, easily the stand out point of the rooms. Food is decent and fine for a couple of days (the menu is the same for lunch and dinner) but if you stayed longer it might get a bit dull. The barman’s cocktails are really good! Have one of the ones with Guaro! A few minor *******: 1) the amount of light in the room at night - all from the aircon unit. Its display really lights the room up, you can almost read by it!! I finally managed to turn that off but it has a bright light behind it. In the end I stood on a chair and covered it up 2) the waste situation is annoying - if you have non recyclable waste there is literally nowhere to put it in the entire property, so you end up putting it in the toilet paper wastebin. If you have recyclable waste then you have to take it down to the dock - it’s not far at all but from the furthest room it’s a few minutes, this is also the only place to get drinking water 3) coffee. Most people stay 2 nights, some stay 3. You get a coffee maker in your room with one single use sachet of coffee. This does not get replaced. So you get coffee in your room for one day only. Finally - let them do the transfers. We organised a private transfer there from Cahuita and it wasn’t great. We should’ve spent the extra and got them to do it. Pre communication with Jenny was excellent as well

What a beautifully kept small hotel with amazing service . The experience starts with a 1 1/2 hour boat ride thought the rain forest canals and rivers to get to the hotel . There are only 12 rooms on the site all very clean . Being so small the staff are very attentive. The tours of the rain forest on their boats are incredible, very small groups of people and the ranger with you is very knowledgeable. Would highly recommend this boutique hotel

I really liked this hotel, honestly. The rooms are very comfortable with air conditioning set to around 17 degrees Celsius, I believe. The beds and bathroom are beautifully decorated, and the meals are incredibly tasty. I think October was low season, so the experience was lovely and not very crowded. The tours were amazing and seeing the turtles was exhilarating. If we ever return to Tortuguero, this will be the place!!