I would give this resort a 2.5/5 for a couple reasons: Pros: - The yoga was twice a day at 7:30am and 5pm and it was FANTASTIC. The yoga gets a 5/5 for me, the instructors were amazing and the facility that we did yoga in was outside, overlooking a beautiful view. Tip: bring your own yoga towel for the mat, the mats stay outside at all times and are covered by dust and dirt. - The shuttle service to the beach twice a day is included in the yoga package and was great value. Harold was a fantastic driver, very accommodating to picking up and dropping off at different times and very knowledgeable about the area. The pick-up to and from the airport was great and very seamless. The shuttles were very comfortable and it was easy to find my driver. - The rooms and main facility were really private and nice. The pool was clean and maintained daily. I loved my little bungalow and felt very safe in it the entire time. - The resort dogs Marshmallow, Rocky and Chocolate were so friendly and absolutely adorable. Cons: - As a Canadian paying in Canadian dollars, the WeTravel website told me explicitly that the cost of the trip was $1746 CAD. I then accepted to pay this price in Canadian dollars. However, this was actually in USD and my credit card was charged in USD and converted to CAD. I suggest updating the WeTravel check-out page to only allow people to pay in USD and explicitly say all costs are in USD instead of misleading people. So right from the beginning that put a sour taste in my mouth. I ended up still moving forward with the retreat despite this because it was still comparable in price to some other yoga retreats in the area. - The food was horrible with the exception of breakfast which was consistent and the same every day. You could tell that with lunch and dinner, management was trying to cook the most low cost food to have bigger profits. It only got better when one of the other guests I was with complained to the manager and we got two higher quality dinners (ceviche once and chicken & beets another) as opposed to the low quality dinners we were getting earlier in the week (rice & vegetables). Costa Rica is such a beautiful country and it was disappointing that the dishes didn't showcase the delicious food and local ingredients that Costa Rica has to offer. - Not only is the general manager not on site for the majority of the day (or even half of it), there are no 24/7 staff on site. This would be fine if there was a bell or emergency phone at the front desk to call staff if you needed to but there wasn't. The staff all disappeared every night after dinner around 7:30pm and you never saw them again until the morning. I was worried what would happen if I got locked out of my room at 10pm, where would I go and who would I talk to? - Although my room was beautiful, the bed was the quality of a hostel and there was only cold water from the shower. The pillows were only 2 inches thick and I had to ask for additional pillows in order to sleep. The other guests also experienced cold water the entire time and a very uncomfortable sleeping experience. Moreso, room service was only provided when you asked and this was hard to do because you could barely find the staff to ask them to do this. Overall, the yoga was great, the facilities were great and this was a great distance to the beach. I would come back to this area in Costa Rica again but I would stay elsewhere and see if I could take yoga classes with the instructors that I liked.

This was my second visit to El Sabanero. Positives are: a quiet and beautiful location, very friendly and responsive staff, yoga twice a day, free shuttle to the airport and to Tamarindo beach daily. Opportunities for improvement: lack of a yoga retreat program/itinerary, the cabins need updating (at the very least reading lights would be nice), lack of food variety for breakfast and dinner (I believe that lunch can be altogether eliminated as most guests choose to have lunch in Tamarindo). It would also be nice to have a host (such as a main yoga teacher) who can bring the guests together during the retreat (this was still in place last year but was lacking this year). Overall this is a very nice and relaxing spot with a great potential.