All Inclusive Living at Costa Rica’s Dreams Las Mareas

Dreams Las Mareas in Costa Rica’s Guanacaste region is ready for you when you’re in need of some rest and relaxation after exploring the rest of the country. That’s exactly what we did, and it couldn’t have worked out better for us.

I was a bit on the fence about staying at an all-inclusive resort in Costa Rica. Small, boutique hotels are part of what makes visiting Costa Rica special, but we had already done two earlier in our trip in Monteverde and La Fortuna, so we were ready for a change.

Dreams Las Mareas’ secluded location on Playa Jobo seemed like a perfect option. After some initial trepidation, I quickly fell in love with the property after seeing the pristine beach and luxurious pools. Keep reading my review to see if Dreams Las Mareas is for you!

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The Beach at Dreams Las Mareas

Perhaps my favorite part of Dreams Las Mareas property was the beach, which is saying something because I’m not usually much of a beach person.

The beach, officially named Playa Jobo, spans a wide tract of land overlooking Jobo Bay with sprawling trees growing close to the surf. Much of the beach is more of a fine, silty soil, but it gets sandier closer to the water. These qualities give Dreams Las Mareas’ beach a much more primitive and natural vibe than any beach I’ve visited before.

Adding to the ambience is the presence of 15 or so small boats gently bobbing in the bay. It’s a very nice setting to just sit and relax for a bit away from the crowds at the pools.

The beach is a lovely place for a stroll, too. You can walk about a 0.25 mile along the coast to a peaceful section of coastline where you can listen to the relaxing sounds of the surf crashing against the many rocks strewn about the shore. This area also seems to be a popular spot for local birds doing a bit of morning fishing if you want to do some birdwatching.

Watch out for sting rays. We saw one person being treated for a sting. He seemed to be in quite a bit of discomfort while staff attended to his bleeding foot.

Luxurious Pools

What’s an all-inclusive resort in Costa Rica without some luxurious swimming pools to relax by with a drink in your hand? Fortunately, Dreams Las Mareas has you covered with two excellent pools.

The two pools at Dreams Las Mareas are stacked in a row as you go from your room down to the beach. Appropriately, they’re given the titles of Upper Pool and Lower Pool. What’s more, the Upper Pool is organized in such a way that it essentially creates two separate pool areas.

Both pools are pretty large, with more than enough space to find areas for some privacy if you like. They both have plenty of features to keep guests entertained, ranging from two different infinity pools, cascading water, water volleyball, and the always popular swim-up bar.

I loved the pools at Dreams Las Mareas. The infinity pool at the Lower Pool overlooking the beach was especially nice. Even with locals on the beach hawking goods to guests, it was still a great spot to post up with a drink. Fortunately, a quick no to any of the vendors will get them to leave you alone.

Our Junior Suite Tropical View Room

We booked the Junior Suite Tropical View room for our stay at Dreams Las Mareas. Other room options include swim-up rooms, pool views and ocean views. You can also choose between a king bed and two doubles.

Our accommodation was one large room with a king bed, two separate areas for a toilet and walk-in shower, a vanity with two sinks, and a balcony with a small table and hot tub. The room also had a dresser; a large TV; a mini fridge stocked with water, snacks, beer and wine; a corner table with a couple chairs and closet space. While it didn’t come with a crib, we were able to request one for our daughter that fit easily in the room without making it cramped.

It was all nice enough but a bit generic. This was fine since we didn’t spend much time in the room. My only real gripe is that our room was a bit damp at times. I’m not sure how much of that is just a function of Dreams Las Mareas’ tropical location versus anything wrong with the room, though.

One feature of the rooms that was a bit odd at first glance was the lock on the balcony door. Rather than a typical latch lock, it had a heavy-duty pin type of lock. After talking with other guests, the reason for this is added security against monkeys. You read that right: Monkeys around the resort have been known to get into people’s rooms and make quite a mess. Keep that balcony door locked!

Eating at Dreams Las Mareas

Many people stay away from all-inclusive resorts because they’re concerned the food quality won’t be worth the money. Fortunately, that’s not the case at Dreams Las Mareas, at least not with the food we ate.

It wasn’t the best resort food I’ve ever ate – though a few things were very good – but it was far from the worst I’ve had.

Our first meal was at Oceana, which combines with Seaside Grill to form one lunch restaurant (they each have their own menu for dinner). We ended up eating here twice during our stay, and each time I had some pretty tasty meals. The first time we ate there I had the seafood cream and steak and shrimp skewers, while my second meal was seafood ceviche and grilled octopus. Everything was good, but the seafood cream and skewers were the best dishes I had. As expected, the steak wasn’t high quality like a filet mignon, but it was good for what it was.

If you don’t want to leave the pool for your lunch, Dreams Las Mareas has two different grill options, one by each of the pools. The burritos and quesadillas we had from these grills were good. They were fairly generic but still tasty. On the other hand, stay away from the pizza.

World Café is the spot for breakfast at Dreams Las Mareas. Breakfast here is a buffet comprised of a wide variety of breakfast foods. Highlights include the fresh tropical fruit, omelet station, their Costa Rican gallo pinto and some of the pastries. World Café also has a buffet for lunch and dinner.

Unfortunately, we were only able to try two different restaurants for dinner: Gohan Sushi and El Patio. The sushi restaurant was fairly standard for sushi at all-inclusive resorts. In other words, it was slightly better than average but not great. The nigiri was good, but you only get one piece. Since it’s all inclusive, order as many pieces as you think you’ll need.

El Patio, the Mexican restaurant, was excellent. We ended up eating here twice, with the second time being somewhat accidental but by no means disappointing. Everything I had here was delicious. The pastor volcano, birra quesadilla and divorced enchiladas were especially good.

Finally, across from Rendezvous is Coco Café, a small coffee shop with ice cream, small sandwiches and pastries. They have a nice selection, and while nothing I had here was spectacular, it was good enough for a late afternoon snack. Coco Café stays open all night, too, so it’s a nice place to grab a bite to eat if you’re having a late night.

My review of the food comes with one big caveat: We didn’t get the chance to eat at three of the restaurants. Portofino, the Italian restaurant, was adults only, and the other two Asian restaurants, Himitsu and Teppanyaki, were both closed on the night we planned on trying one of them.

Drinking at Dreams Las Mareas

Dreams Las Mareas has several bars throughout the property to choose from. However, only three of these are truly unique compared to the rest.

All good tropical resorts need a swim-up bar, and Dreams Las Mareas is no different. Manatees is the name of their swim-up bar. (But honestly, does anyone ever realize or care that all-inclusive resort pool bars have names? I never knew that till researching this post.) We didn’t frequent Manatees much since we were there with our baby, but it had a nice vibe the one time we sat there for a drink. It was pretty calm when we were there around early afternoon, which was nice because sometimes swim-up bars can get a bit too rowdy for me.

Rendezvous is Dreams Las Mareas’ main bar. It was also my personal favorite. Rendezvous is a large, dimly lit cocktail lounge in the main building of the resort. Despite the furniture being a bit worn out, I loved the ambience of Rendezvous. It was a great place to escape the Costa Rican heat while sipping a cocktail. At night, it also had live music to keep people entertained.

One odd thing about Rendezvous is it doesn’t open till 6:00 p.m. The pool bars stay open till then, but pool bars usually get pretty slow in the late afternoon, with most people either napping or getting ready for the evening. It would be nice if Rendezvous opened a bit earlier.

If you’re looking for some late-night drinks, Dreams Las Mareas has a nightclub, Desires, that opens at 10:00 and doesn’t close till 1:00. I only took a quick glance at the bar to see what it looked like. It had plenty of seating, a large dance floor and loud music. It seemed fun for those people visiting without a 6-month-old baby keeping them on their toes all day.

Dreams Las Mareas has a few more bars, but they’re all just generic poolside bars with different names. Each is convenient to one of the pools if you want to grab a quick drink without waiting for a waiter.

And my favorite drink at Dreams Las Mareas? That has to be the Green Monster, especially when poolside. It’s a frozen rum-based drink with mint, mango and passion fruit. I recommend trying one out during your stay.

Monkeys, Tropical Flowers and a Stunning View

As you pull up to the front of the property, you may be a bit underwhelmed at first, especially if you’re used to some of the more palatial all-inclusive resorts like those in Cancún. It didn’t help that we had just come from a couple different boutique luxury hotels in other parts of Costa Rica.

The front is just a straight, palm tree-lined road along the property’s length. It was a bit discouraging because it hid the tropical paradise that is the rest of the resort. Still, once you’re all settled in your room, a walk along the front of Dreams Las Mareas can reveal some pretty birds and even monkeys swinging through the trees.

Once we got a chance to relax and start seeing more of the property, I began to forget my initial misgivings. Dreams Las Mareas is lined with intertwining pathways bordered by a large number of flowery bushes and trees. The number of pathways helps to make Dreams Las Mareas feel more spread out than it really is. Unfortunately, these pathways can also make getting from place to place a bit confusing at first till you get a lay of the land.

The area close to the resort’s main buildings are especially nice. The space around the ground floor restaurants has plenty of shade and pleasing decor if you want to find a restful place to sit away from the beach and pool.

On the level above the restaurants is a large sunlit terrace overlooking the whole property with views extending out to the ocean. It’s a great place to sit with a drink as the sun sets and the lights come on across the property.

Oh, and did I mention monkeys?! That’s right, Dreams Las Mareas has monkeys galore. They were most easily found along the side of the main building where all the restaurants are close to the gift shop. I found several monkeys in this spot on two separate mornings. If you go behind this building, you’ll likely find many more swinging through the trees and scrambling along the hotel balconies.

We realized later what we think is the typical main entrance to Dreams Las Mareas was being renovated. This fact likely contributed to its somewhat lackluster first impression.

Resort Activities – or Lack Thereof?

One area where I felt Dreams Las Mareas was lacking was its activities. It just didn’t seem like the resort had much planned to keep people entertained, at least compared to other all-inclusive resorts we’ve stayed at before.

During our 3.5 days at Dreams Las Mareas, I only witnessed two staff-led activities, both of which were water aerobics. I saw one attempt at water polo, but the staff didn’t do much to get people interested, so it never took place.

Making matters worse, it was a bit difficult to even get a schedule of activities. Other places we’ve stayed either print out pamphlets for each room or have several calendars prominently displayed throughout the property. Dreams Last Mareas did neither of these things.

Instead, Dreams Las Mareas had a single calendar with planned activities for the day (if it had more than one, we never found it). We were told when we checked in to check their resort app for scheduled activities and entertainment, but the app was never updated during our stay to show that day’s calendar.

In fairness to Dreams Las Mareas, when I check their app now, the activities section seems to be getting updated daily.

Entertainment at Dreams Las Mareas

Entertainment options, like activities, were another aspect of Dreams Las Mareas that seemed to be a bit lacking. However, this part of my review comes with a couple big caveats.

As far as the entertainment itself, it seemed to mostly be a couple live music options throughout the day. Each day at the lower pool, they had someone setup poolside performing. Similarly, the cocktail lounge had someone performing each night.

I only saw one bigger stage show being put on during our three nights there. If you’ve stayed at an all-inclusive resort in Central America before, it was pretty standard fare. Besides that, they had karaoke set up one night and what looked like an informational program about tobacco another night.

So, what about those caveats I mentioned? The biggest one was the Super Bowl, which was happening during our stay. Dreams Las Mareas put on a big Super Bowl party in the space they use for nightly shows. They had a large buffet and a couple huge screens showing the game. It’s likely that night would have had a show going on if not for the Super Bowl.

Like the activities, checking the app today shows up-to-date entertainment information. It’s possible the app just wasn’t working during our visit.

The Dreams Las Mareas Preferred Club

Dreams Las Mareas offers an additional Preferred Club option for those guests looking for a bit of exclusivity during their stay.

The main benefits of the Preferred Club are the exclusive pool and lounge, personalized check-in and check-out, and access to rooms in premium locations. As far as the pool and lounge are concerned, I’m not sure they seem particularly worth it. The lounge didn’t seem like anything special while the pool sits right in the middle of the resort where anyone can walk through. If you purchased the Preferred Club for privacy, I don’t think the pool gets the job done.

Other perks of the Preferred Club include an upgraded mini bar, upgraded bath amenities, a pillow menu, a complimentary newspaper in your room each morning, access to premium liquors, and special breakfasts and hors d’oeuvres throughout the day.

Some of those things sound nice to have but not essential if you’re trying to save money. Of course, I didn’t experience any of it firsthand, but at no point during my stay did I find myself wanting for those things.

Other Amenities at Dreams Las Mareas

In addition to everything mentioned above, Dreams Las Mareas also offers several more amenities, one I got to try and several we missed out on.

The one I was able to try was a kayak rental. Near the edge of the resort, tucked in a small corner between the Oceans restaurant and the beach, is a tiny hut that rents out kayaks and canoes. Since the service is free, I took a kayak out one day to explore the coastline.

They give you an hour, which is more than enough time to go along each side of the shore and out to sea as far as they allow you. It’s a pretty smooth ride, unless a jet ski or a boat goes by, with lots of nice views of the resort and the coast.

Dreams Las Mareas also has a fitness center and spa for those ambitious people out there who want a workout and then some pampering afterwards. The fitness center looks like pretty standard fare with all the usual equipment found at resorts. Similarly, the spa looks nice and has lots of options to choose from, but it seems typical for a resort spa.

Would I Stay at Dreams Las Mareas Again?

I wouldn’t hesitate if I had the chance to stay here again. Despite the lackluster initial impression, I ended up really enjoying Dreams Las Mareas.

A big part of the reason why was the beach. I loved how unique it was compared to other beaches I’ve visited. It was just very relaxing to sit there and watch the boats gently rocking on the waves.

I also enjoyed the general vibe of Dreams Las Mareas. I mentioned the lack of activities and entertainment, but in a way, this kind of worked in the resort’s favor. While some people may want the distractions, I felt like it helped to make Dreams Las Mareas more relaxing. I never felt like I had somewhere to be or any schedule to keep.

Similarly, the crowd at Dreams Las Mareas was more chilled out than at other all-inclusive resorts I’ve visited. Possibly partygoers keps away because it’s more remote than some more popular areas known for their all-inclusives. Regardless of the reason, the crowd here seemed more interested in taking it easy. There were some rowdy groups here for a wedding, but they were relatively well-behaved. Of course, it could have just been luck of the draw with when we visited.

I also liked the food here. If you go into Dreams Las Mareas (or almost any all-inclusive resort) expecting high-end meals, you’re going to be disappointed. But if you just expect good variety with generally better than average meals, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the food here like I was.

If you’re

Frequently Asked Questions About Dreams Las Mareas

Is Dreams Las Mareas family friendly?

Dreams Las Mareas can accommodate kids of all ages. Younger kids can enjoy a small kids pool and the Explorer’s Club, a club where you can drop your kids off for daycare that also offers kid-friendly activities throughout the day. Older kids can take advantage of the free kayak rentals and most of the activities put on by staff.

Parents with small babies can still enjoy Dreams Las Mareas, too. We had our 6-month-old daughter who enjoyed floating in the water and going on walks with us. Cribs for babies are available by request.

Moreover, while Dreams Las Mareas is family friendly, I never felt like the resort was one where adults without kids might feel unwelcome. The property is spread out enough that adults looking for some privacy and quiet should be able to find those things.

When is the best time of year to visit Dreams Las Mareas?

Most people agree that the best time to visit Costa Rica is during the dry season from December to April, but because most people agree on that, crowds can be bigger during that time.

We were there in early February and never had issues with crowds, either at Dreams Las Mareas or our other two stops in Monteverde or La Fortuna.

If you want to avoid crowds, you can aim for the shoulder months right before and after the dry season. You can also visit during the wet season if you’re okay with lots of rain.

How far is Dreams Las Mareas from the airport?

Liberia Airport is the closest airport from Dreams Las Mareas and is about a 90-minute drive from the resort. The drive is mostly along a straight highway except for some windy, bumpy roads closer to the resort.

If you’re coming from San Jose Airport, Costa Rica’s main airport, you are looking at a much longer drive of 5 hours. It may be worth considering a stop along the way to break up the drive and see more of this beautiful country.

Is everything at Dreams Las Mareas included in the all-inclusive price?

All your standard meals, drinks and activities are included at Dreams Las Mareas. However, you may have to pay for more premium items, such as bottles of wine or romantic dinners for two by the beach. Treatments at the spa and tours booked through the resort are also not included in the all-inclusive price.

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