Selina Santa Teresa North

I stayed here for six nights, and one of those nights, the air conditioning wasn't working. I asked the front desk, Claudia I believe her name was, if there was someone who could fix the issue. She responded mockingly, saying "oooh nooo," and assured me she would send someone to address it. However, nobody came to fix it, so I spent the entire night sweating and ended up getting sick the next day because the bed was soaked with my sweat. This sickness persisted for most of my trip in Costa Rica due to this problem. I wouldn't recommend staying at this Salinas, and even the other Salina front desk staff were not very friendly towards foreigners who speak little Spanish. However, the rest of the staff at Salinas were very nice and helpful.

We took two surf lessons with Andres, and he is hands down the best surf instructor we've ever had - out of many over the years!! We both stood up more times than we ever have before, and Andres took us to surf green waves on our second trip, which was a real treat. Andres has an amazing mix of tough love of a great coach, with tons of personalized correction on what to do when, foot placement, how fast to get up, where to hold our arms, how to stand, where to look, how to turn, how to paddle, how to stay safe in big waves, and more. He always knew exactly where the wave would be great, he knew most everyone out on the waves and helped make sure we had clear space to catch waves when people came close to us and made us feel so safe in new situations. His friends who were out in the water gave us high fives when we caught great waves. Andres' whistles, cheers, "Paddle with power!" "Lower lower!" and his total enthusiasm were all amazing and made our experience spectacular.

They didn't reimburse me for a $100 excursion that was canceled by the host. I have text receipts where they acknowledge that I deserve a refund, but they never actually processed the reimbursement and took my money. I reached out multiple times to empty promises ("I will talk to my manager and you will receive your refund today") but nothing happened and now they are ignoring me. My advice is not to book excursions through this Selina or any Selina really. The markup on them is crazy. For example, I saw a tour that charged $20 through the venue while Selina was charging $65 - $100.

I stayed at Selina North for a full month with 4 friends. I've never given a 1 star review before but here we go: FRONT DESK STAFF Anytime we asked for anything (fix our broken AC, get towels...), the front desk staff would say they'll take care of it, but no one did anything. Then the water broke in the hotel and there was no water anywhere for 2 days, and it was broken on our floor for another 10 days. I understand that things break, the problem was that the staff was unhelpful, rude and wouldn't provide updates (including managers not returning our emails) or any compensation. We were paying for a room with a private bathroom but had to use the shared bathrooms on another floor instead (last I checked, rooms with private bathrooms are 40% more expensive). CHARGED AFTER CHECKOUT I was told I didn't owe anything when checking out. They charged my credit card a few hours later. I've messaged them several times but I still don't know what they charged me for (it's been 10 days).  COWORKING The coworking space is tiny, only 8 people can sit at desks, everyone else sits on couches. It's always packed in the morning with people speaking loudly in meetings. We were told there were 2 individual booths we could take meetings from, but they had signs saying "staff only" on the doors. ACTIVITIES AND TRANSPORTATION  The front desk at Selina can book activities and shuttles for you, it's very convenient. I really enjoyed the Tortuga Island tour. However, do not book activities or transportation online from Selina's website, they will not actually book them nor respond to you even after emailing and sending them WhatsApp messages. LOCATION Just a 2 min walk to the beach, 5 min to the grocery store, many restaurants around. KITCHEN Clean with everything you need to cook. The 2 fridges are always completely full. There are individual bins to store your groceries in the kitchen, but people will steal your food. CLEANLINESS Everything was clean and the cleaning team is nice and helpful.  NOISE AT NIGHT  I would not recommend to light sleepers. By 6:30 am, you will hear loud noises from construction next door and coming from Selina's restaurant or reception, including Selina's staff blasting music for everyone to hear.  BREAKFAST The breakfast at Selina's restaurant is decent and was costing $7 USD the 1st week we were there, then they bumped the price to $10. For that price you can get a better breakfast somewhere else.

This hotel does is in no way worth the value, there is construcction next door, the road is bad and dusty and the room is small. Its all a bit decorated to make it look better but its just glitter nothing else. We misbooked one date in a wrong month and even though they will be full for these dates again, they refused to refund us so we paid double on top of that. They dont care about guests, only making quick bucks with nice pictures. I recommend you book something else.

I stayed at Selina with my girlfriend and it was great, but not perfect. I’ll start with the positive comments: ✅ Location is amazing, almost in the beach and close to most restaurant and bars ✅Vibe is super cool (apparently better than Selina South) ✅ Infrastructure is nice! Really liked the swimming pool area and pool table ✅ The Argentinian staff around the bar/restaurant were great! It was my girlfriend’s birthday and they helped me get a cake and candles and kept it overnight so I could surprise her. There were also some areas which could be greatly improved: ⭕️ We had ticks/ bed bugs in our bed ⭕️ Reception staff were not as “receptive” as you would expect. I’ve read this in other comments, they were quite indifferent and didn’t really care about you or your problems ⭕️ No security. Anyone could drop it and use the pool or bathrooms and wonder around. I must also add that the manager really helped us out with an issue we had. Any problem you have, be sure that if you let the manager know he will give you a solution. That is greatly appreciated.

Very disappointed with this hotel very poor conditions. They ran out of towels so we had to buy our own. The sheets were dirty and we all got bitten by fleas/ticks. The rooms were not ready when we checked in. bottom line: with the same budget you can get a much better place and the whole experience is so much better.

The gave me a Room which was next to the kitchen and the only window it had it looked directly to the kitchen, so I couldn’t open the window neither move the curtains because i would have no privacy at all. Also there was a lot of noise coming from the kitchen, it was way too close. The recepcionist staff was disrespectful and everytime you asked them something they would take a long time to respond and answer in a very bad way. Specifically the 3 recepcionist girls. Besides the horrible recepcionist staff and the bad room, the hostel facilities are good. I would give 4 stars but with the bad room and the aweful recepcionists it made to 1 star only.

For a first time solo traveling, I had an amazing time at the Selina. What really made it all worth it were the guys at the surf rentals. They were amazing instructors. Very fun to be around, so kind, funny and willing to do whatever they can to make sure you feel comfortable and happy. 10/10 would recommend them. Tota will be missed!