San Carlos, Costa Rica

Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa

Price per night from$639.58

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD639.58), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa Photos

Style

Hot springs eternal

Setting

Activity-packed Arenal

Explore

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There are spa resorts, and then there is Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa. This one-of-a-kind, 900-acre rainforest estate teems with native wildlife, and centres around a mineral-rich thermal river. Clever landscaping diverts the flow of water into over 20 pools, fringed by tropical flora. When not soaking your stresses away, enjoy a massage in a thatched palapa, escape to a reading pod in the gardens, or swim up to the bar for your next cacique cocktail.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A wine and tapas pairing (minimum two-night stay), or just-baked pastries on arrival

Facilities

Photos Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa facilities

Need to know

Rooms

105, including 24 suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates include traditional Costa Rican breakfast (or your choice from the buffet) at Tucanes restaurant.

Also

At Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa, there are five rooms adapted for wheelchair accessibility with widened doorways, lowered controls, grab bars and support handles in the bathroom, as well as an emergency phone. Communal areas around the resort are also accessible for wheelchair users, including the thermal pools.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: smart TV, air-conditioning, tea- and coffee-making kit, bathrobes, slippers and custom bath products.

Our favourite rooms

The Tabacón Suite has bags of space and a spa-jet bath, but there’s yet more wow-factor in an adults-only Honeymoon Suite, with a bath tub (or plunge pool) on the forest-facing terrace.

Poolside

The main pool (by Tucanes restaurant) is large, thermally heated and delightful in its own right, but most of the action is down at the springs, naturally. Spend your days pool-hopping up and down the river, and taking time out in the adults-only Shangri-La Gardens.

Spa

A full suite of treatments can be enjoyed alone or as a couple, in any of 11 open-sided bungalows at the award-winning eco-spa. Local, natural ingredients star in treatments such as the anxiety-soothing Shirodhara head massage and Honey Temptation full body massage, with orange-infused antioxidant oil. There’s also an open-air yoga studio, and a small indoor pool with hydrotherapy jets. Just off the lobby in the main hotel building, you’ll find a fitness center, too — equipped for simple workouts.

Packing tips

Binoculars for wildlife-watching, and a head-cam for recording your adventurous exploits.

Also

The Tico Chef cooking class is open to all ages, and gives you the 101 in Costa Rican cuisine.

Children

Welcome. Some suites sleep up to four, babysitting can be arranged and the restaurants have children’s menus.

Best for

Over-eights

Recommended rooms

Book the capacious Two-bedroom Arenal Suite, which has separate living and dining areas, as well as a spa-jet bath tub and outdoor terrace.

Activities

The hanging bridges at Mistico Park are fun for all the family, and mini thrillseekers should try ziplining through the trees, too.

Swimming pool

The thermal pools are a natural water park for kids, who can play in the shallows (although they should keep their heads above water). Just watch out for the hotter temperatures, and take care around the waterfalls.

Meals

Highchairs are available and a children’s menu caters to little Smiths’ tastes — although the kitchen team is equally happy to adapt dishes as requested. 

Babysitting

Babysitting can be arranged with 24 hours’ notice, from $20 an hour.

No need to pack

Water toys — there’s more than enough natural entertainment.

Food and Drink

Photos Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa food and drink

Top Table

Snag a mesa by the water of the thermally-heated main pool.

Dress Code

Jungle-ready khaki cottons.

Hotel restaurant

Tucanes takes diners on a patriotic culinary journey, with dishes inspired by Costa Rica’s seven provinces. You could start with tamarind pulled pork croquettes, move onto squid-ink blackened rice topped with chunky shrimp, and finish with the orange and chocolate torrija, featuring locally-sourced cocoa, of course. At Ave, ceviche and tuna tartare nachos are elevated snacks, the salmorejo soup is cooling, and tortillas on the side mean you can enjoy glorious picadillo stew, taco-style. For memorable private dining, the Ephemeral Table experience is set in a rainforest bungalow, and takes you through six courses, paired with wine and the estate’s own craft beer.

Hotel bar

There are four, so you can happily bar-hop without leaving the grounds. Start in the lobby at Caña Brava with a speciality Yy (not a typo) tiki cocktail, composed of passionfruit, hibiscus and orange bitters alongside raspberry gin. Then suit up and swim up to Agua Ardiente at the main pool, and order the Toku – a blend of whisky, rum, tangerine and lychee that is so popular that it starred at a national mixology competition. The Shangri-La Gardens bar is your heavenly adults-only escape, and Bosque is the place for drinks pre-dinner at Tucanes – try La Feria, made with local cacique sugar-cane liqueur.

Last orders

Tucanes restaurant is open from 6.30am to 10.30am for breakfast, and from 6pm to 10pm for dinner. Ave serves lunch from noon, and dinner from 6pm to 10pm.

Room service

Breakfast can be delivered from 6.30am to 10am, and the all-day room service menu is available from 10am to 9.30pm.

Location

Photos Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa location
Address
Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa
Noreste de Centro de la Fortuna de San Carlos 13 Km Nuevo Arenal
Provincia de Alajuela
21007
Costa Rica

Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa is between Lake Arenal and the Arenal volcano, in the dense rainforest of Alajuela Province in northern Costa Rica. The nearest town is La Fortuna, 20 minutes away by car.

Planes

The nearest international airport is in Liberia, two and a half hours away on the other side of Lake Arenal. However, it’s more likely that you’ll arrive at Costa Rica’s largest airport, Juan Santamaria International, in San José. From there, the hotel is three and half hours away by road. Transfers can be arranged for a fee.

Automobiles

A car is essential if you want to explore the natural wonders of Costa Rica independently. There is a good range of international rental companies at the airports.

Worth getting out of bed for

The Arenal area is nature’s playground, with wildlife-loaded rainforest, roaring rivers and a peaceful lake to explore, not to mention the volcano itself. Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa can arrange a guided nature walk along rainforest trails in the company of an expert who can tell you all about the local flora and fauna. Outside of the resort, the hotel works with a local partner to provide adventure activities such as white-water rafting, canopy ziplining, waterfall abseiling and quad-biking through the jungle, as well as hiking, biking, and horse-riding excursions with a guide. Wherever you go, look out for the native howler monkeys, macaws, toucans… and many, many more – including coatis, who might just try to steal your lunch.

 

Local restaurants

You're unlikely to dine outside of resort, but to dip into the Arenal dining scene, there are street-food stalls and roadside shacks locally to explore. 

Reviews

Photos Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this thermal resort in the shadow of Arenal volcano and unpacked their artisanal coffee and chocolate, a full account of their spa-tacular break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa in Costa Rica…

When you arrive at a spa hotel, you don’t expect your first feeling to be the sheer giddiness of unbridled, child-like joy. And yet that’s exactly what happens at Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa, when you lay eyes on the river that flows down through the jungle, crossed by stepping stones and humpback bridges. 

Dip in a toe, and that feeling turns to gratitude, towards mother nature and the mighty Arenal volcano that warms the water here. Then, it’s just a case of picking a pool — they vary in shape, size, and temperature, roughly speaking from ‘Ooh, that’s nice’ to ‘Please, just five more minutes.’ Take your time to linger and explore here and there, pausing for the kind of pummelling back massages that only tumbling waterfalls can deliver, and to absorb the serenity of the adults-only area, known as the Shangri-La Gardens. 

By the time you leave, the excitement of your arrival and ensuing gratitude towards nature will have been replaced by a profound sense of inner calm — and probably a strong urge to come back to this magical verdant pocket.

Book now

Price per night from $639.58

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