“There's a pelican that lands on the same beach post every afternoon around four, and nobody at the pool seems to notice except the bartender, who nods at it like an old colleague.”

The shuttle from Liberia's Daniel Oduber airport takes about 40 minutes, and the driver has opinions about everything — the new highway interchange, the price of casado in Sardinal, the fact that the dry season this year started late. The road narrows past Sardinal town, where a handful of sodas and a Pali supermarket mark the last outpost of anything resembling a commercial strip. Then it's dust and cattle fencing and the occasional howler monkey screaming from a guanacaste tree. You smell the ocean before you see it. Playa Matapalo doesn't announce itself. There's no boardwalk, no strip of souvenir shops. Just a long, wide stretch of grey-brown sand backed by dry tropical forest, the kind of beach where you could walk for twenty minutes and encounter exactly one person, usually someone with a fishing rod.

The Riu Guanacaste sits at the southern end of this beach like a small village that decided to organize itself around swimming pools. You check in, someone hands you a wristband, and the transactional part of your vacation is essentially over. Everything from here — every meal, every drink, every soft-serve cone your kid demands at 3 PM — is already paid for. That's the deal. Whether the deal is worth it depends on what you do with it.

The pool with the submerged bar stools

The property reopened in early 2025 after a full renovation, and it shows in ways that matter and ways that don't. The ways that matter: the pool areas are genuinely good. The main pool has tables and seats built directly into the water — you sit chest-deep with a drink on a submerged ledge, which is either the most relaxing or the most decadent thing you've done this week, depending on your baseline. A second, quieter pool near the back of the property draws the couples and the readers. The ways that don't matter: the lobby art is aggressively modern in that way that says "we hired a design firm" rather than "someone who lives here picked this out."

Rooms are large and clean and air-conditioned to the point of mild aggression. I turn the thermostat up twice before giving up and sleeping under a blanket in the tropics. The balcony faces a garden courtyard, and in the morning you hear two things: birds you can't identify and the distant thud of a maintenance cart rolling over tile. The shower is strong, the Wi-Fi holds up for video calls — I tested this, regrettably, on a Tuesday — and the bed is firm in the way that European hotel chains tend to prefer. If you need soft, bring a mattress topper or lower your expectations.

The food surprised me. All-inclusive buffets carry a reputation for quantity over quality, and the Riu doesn't entirely escape that gravity, but the main restaurant rotates themes nightly — a Costa Rican night with gallo pinto and plantain done three ways, an Asian night where the pad thai is respectable if not revelatory. The breakfast spread is enormous. There's a dedicated omelet station, a fruit section with papaya so ripe it's almost orange, and a pastry corner that a German family near me visited four times in one sitting. I counted. The à la carte restaurants require reservations and serve better versions of the same impulse. The Japanese option is the strongest; the steakhouse tries hard.

“The beach is the thing the hotel can't take credit for and doesn't need to — it's right there, uncurated, full of hermit crabs and driftwood and that specific late-afternoon light that makes everything look like a photograph you didn't mean to take.”

The entertainment team runs a tight operation. Daytime activities include pool volleyball, Spanish lessons that nobody takes seriously, and a kids' club that functions as a reliable four-hour window of parental freedom. Evening shows happen nightly in an open-air theater — a mix of acrobatics, dance numbers, and a magician who got a standing ovation from a crowd that was at least 40% children under eight. It's not Cirque du Soleil. It doesn't need to be. The kids are sunburned and happy and asleep by nine, which is the actual metric.

The honest thing: the property is big, and "big" means walking. Your room might be a solid seven-minute walk from the beach, longer if you're carrying a toddler and a pool bag and the inflatable flamingo that seemed like a good idea in San José. The signage after the renovation is better than it was, but you'll still take a wrong turn at least once. Also, the beach itself has no lifeguard, and the waves can be rough. The hotel posts flags — red means stay out — and they mean it.

Past the gate

Walk north along Playa Matapalo for fifteen minutes and you reach a rocky point where tide pools appear at low tide. Small fish, the occasional sea urchin, crabs that scatter when your shadow crosses them. It's the best free activity within reach of the hotel and nobody at the front desk mentioned it. South, toward Playa Hermosa, a handful of independent restaurants serve fresh ceviche and cold Imperial beers for a fraction of what you'd pay in Tamarindo. A taxi to Tamarindo itself runs about 25 minutes and opens up surf shops, nightlife, and the kind of tourist infrastructure Matapalo quietly refuses to build.

On the last morning, I walk the beach early, before the pool chairs are set out. A man in rubber boots is pulling a fishing net through the shallows. Two dogs follow him with professional interest. The sand is cool and packed from the tide, and the guanacaste trees along the shore throw long shadows that reach almost to the water. A woman from the hotel jogs past in the other direction and waves like we know each other, which, after four days of buffet proximity, we sort of do. The shuttle back to Liberia leaves at ten. The driver has new opinions.

Standard double rooms at the Riu Guanacaste start around 180 US$ per person per night, all-inclusive — meaning that price covers every meal, every drink, every poolside ice cream, and the nightly entertainment. For families doing the math against buying meals separately at Pacific coast prices, it tends to come out ahead, especially with kids who eat like they're training for something.