Romantic Getaway Costa Rica: A Central Pacific Honeymoon
A romantic getaway in Costa Rica starts the day you land. Amarena is on the beach at Playa Hermosa, 94 km from San Jose airport, and every villa has its own private plunge pool on the terrace. The beachfront master suite runs to 100 square metres of open air.
Costa Rica’s no stranger to honeymoons. By now the two of you have looked at 3,465 photographs of infinity pools, plus a volcano lodge, a hanging bridge in the mountains, and a beach hotel somewhere up north. You’ve possibly also noticed that the itinerary joining them together puts you in a rental car for a good part of the week.
The Central Pacific’s the one that should be the star of that show. You land at San Jose in the morning and you’re in your own pool by lunch, because the drive is only about ninety minutes. Scarlet macaws cross over the villas in the late afternoon, loud, and always in pairs. Always. They mate for life and seem to want you to know it. Between June and December, turtles come up the beach in front of you after dark.
Amarena is a canvas beach hotel of sixteen tented villas on the sand at Playa Hermosa, ideally located between Jaco and Esterillos. Your villa opens 360 degrees, the plunge pool on your terrace belongs to you alone, and the canvas on the ocean side rolls all the way up. So the only thing between your bed and the water is sixty metres of dark sand.
Here’s how to plan a romantic honeymoon in Costa Rica on this coast: why couples pick it, what a beachfront villa gives the two of you, how the days go, and which of the two seasons to book. The honeymoon you’ve been picturing is already on this beach.
Check availability at Amarena Canvas Beach Hotel
Where should you honeymoon in Costa Rica?
The region you pick decides how much of your week you spend together and how much you spend in traffic. The itinerary that tries to see the whole country turns a honeymoon into a driving holiday with four check-ins and one afternoon of actual rest.
So what makes the Central Pacific coast the one worth staying put on?
Here the beach itself is a national wildlife refuge. Protected coastline runs south from our sand, where olive ridley turtles haul up to nest between June and December and four species have been recorded in total. Scarlet macaws cross the treeline in pairs. The jungle behind the villas starts up before the sun does. The surf out front is ranked among the best in the world, and the national parks are close enough to be afternoons rather than second hotels.
Most places put a wall between you and all of that at bedtime, and then it’s morning before you see any of it again. Your villa at Amarena opens on every side instead, so the refuge, the jungle and the sound of the water are still in the room with you at two in the morning.
What makes the Central Pacific coast right for a romantic getaway
Between the long dinners and the spa afternoons and the hours in your own pool, you’ll want a few days that give the two of you a story to tell. Those start within a short drive of the villa.
You can be standing in Carara National Park half an hour after breakfast, where SINAC counts 420 bird species, 47 percent of every bird recorded in Costa Rica, and where the scarlet macaw is the park’s emblem. Watching a pair of them cross in front of you at close range is the sort of thing couples come home and describe badly to friends, because there’s no describing it.
Or you take a catamaran out for the day and swim off the back of it, which isn’t a bad Tuesday. Or you ride horses through the hills behind Los Suenos. Or you go up into a canyon and come down through waterfalls on a rope, which is one of those days where you’re both slightly frightened and then extremely pleased with yourselves. Manuel Antonio, 67 km south, gives you monkeys in the trees over a beach and gets you home for dinner.
Closer in, you can do most of it without leaving the gates. Kayaks and paddleboards on the lakes inside Mistico, trails through the jungle, and the bicycles that come free with your villa, all of it on the list of things to do around Playa Hermosa. Jaco is 6 km up the road when you want a night out, and Playa Hermosa stays quiet regardless of what Jaco’s doing.
The point of a week here is that you don’t have to choose. You get both. Adventure when you want to feel alive together, and a private pool and a hammock forty steps from your bed when you’ve had enough of feeling alive.
Your beachfront villa: private plunge pool, ocean views, and nobody else
Roll the canvas up on the ocean side and there’s no wall between your bed and the Pacific. The jungle is behind you and the sand is in front of you and you’re lying in the middle of it. There’s nowhere else on this coast quite like Amarena Canvas Beach Hotel, and you feel that most at night, with everything open.
Your villa is canvas and handcrafted teak, and those panels roll up and hook overhead in about a minute. After the first night you won’t bother putting them down. A king bed, and you’re looking at the ocean from the pillow. A terrace with a hammock, an outdoor bathtub, and a private plunge pool that only the two of you will ever swim in.
Comfort here isn’t hoped for. It’s engineered. Escape Nomade built these villas in Indonesia from salt and humidity resistant materials, with ventilation, insulation and climate control designed in. So the air conditioning holds the room cool when you want it cool, the bathroom is a full en-suite, and the bed is a proper bed. Barefoot luxury, mini fridge and in-room safe included.
There are sixteen villas on the entire property, nestled back into the jungle line, and the 100 square metre beachfront ones are the most secluded of them. You’ll hear more parrots than people.
Two of you, 100 square metres, and a plunge pool nobody else swims in.
Have a look at the beachfront villas
Romantic things to do together at Playa Hermosa
Most of your week happens inside a few hundred metres, between a table, a treatment room and the water.
Breakfast is a la carte at Kairos, our bar and restaurant, from seven until half past ten, which is a window wide enough to sleep in and still get eggs. Dinner runs six until ten, contemporary cuisine with local roots and Mediterranean and Latin American influences, at a table with the beach behind it. Room service goes until ten as well, for the nights when the hammock’s winning.
At the Amarena Spa you can book two treatments for the same hour, which is the version couples ask for. Take the Deep Relaxation on your first afternoon, when the flight’s still in your shoulders, or the Hot Stone Ritual, which lays warm weight down your back for 75 minutes. Morning yoga happens at Madresal Beach Club a few steps from the villas, and every stay includes access to it.
Then there are the turtles. The refuge runs 13 km down the coast from our sand, and standing barefoot on wet sand at dusk while one digs beats most dinner reservations. We can’t tell you which night one will come up. Nobody can. You walk down at dusk and find out.
The water out front belongs to surfing, and the breaks here are mapped among the best in the world. For the two of you that means walking at low tide when the beach doubles in width, watching silhouettes in the last of the light, and swimming in your own pool. Calm ocean water is twenty minutes north at Playa Mantas, or at Playa Herradura by the marina.
A week of exactly this is waiting on the other side of one booking.
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The best time to visit for a Costa Rica honeymoon
There’s no wrong month to visit Costa Rica for your honeymoon, only two different versions of the same week.
High season, December to just after Semana Santa, is the Pacific dry season. The light goes gold around four and stays that way for an hour. The afternoons flatten you, and the pool stops being a feature and starts being the plan.
Green season, May to November, is quieter and greener. Mornings come clear, the rain arrives in the afternoon and gives the two of you a reason to be horizontal, and the turtles nest from June onward.
They’re both romantic. One’s bright, one’s lush, and you pick by temperament. With sixteen villas, December and January go early.
How many nights should a Costa Rica honeymoon be?
A Costa Rica honeymoon works best at five to seven nights in one place.
Two nights is a stopover. Five gets you a spa morning, a boat, the refuge at dusk, and two whole days where the only plan is the hammock and whatever the tide’s doing. Seven gets you the version where you stop looking at your phone. One address. No check-ins.
In our minds, five nights on one beach beats nine nights and four check-ins. That’s the trip we’d book ourselves.
Plan your romantic getaway in Costa Rica
Book the villa and hand us the rest. We’ll have the spa booked for the afternoon you land, the catamaran held for the Thursday, and a table on the sand for the night that matters, and all of it will be waiting when you walk in.
Costa Rica honeymoon and romantic getaway FAQs
What is the most romantic place to stay in Costa Rica?
The most romantic places in Costa Rica are the ones where you and the setting are the only things in the room. On the Central Pacific coast that means a beach, a private plunge pool and a ninety minute drive from San Jose. Amarena is a canvas beach hotel of sixteen tented villas at Playa Hermosa, each one opening 360 degrees with its own pool.
Is Amarena an adults-only hotel?
Amarena welcomes couples, families and groups of friends rather than operating as an adults-only hotel, and privacy here comes from the layout instead. Sixteen villas sit spread across the property and set back into the jungle line, each with its own pool and its own terrace, so the two of you are the only people in your villa and nobody walks past it.
Which villa is best for a romantic getaway?
The 100 square metre beachfront villas are the most private and the most spacious, with views of the ocean from the bed, an outdoor bathtub and a private plunge pool on the terrace. The 50 square metre villas come in garden view or beachfront and have the same private pool, hammock and open canvas structure.
How do you plan a romantic honeymoon in Costa Rica?
Pick your region first, because that decides how much of the week you spend driving. Then book one base rather than four, give yourselves five to seven nights, and leave two or three days free for a national park, a boat or the spa. To plan a romantic honeymoon in Costa Rica with the least time in a car, start on the Central Pacific coast, ninety minutes from San Jose.
How long is the perfect honeymoon in Costa Rica?
Five to seven nights in one place suits most couples better than a two week loop around the country. That gives you two or three days out for a national park, a boat or the spa, and several days where nothing at all is planned. Couples who try to fit the whole country into one romantic vacation usually wish they hadn’t, and the perfect honeymoon here is one address with time in it.
Can you arrange something for an anniversary or a proposal?
Yes, and the sooner you tell us the better it goes. Should you be planning to propose here, tell us the date and what you have in mind, and we’ll work the table, the timing and the spa around it.
Are there couples spa treatments at Amarena?
You can book two treatments in the same hour at the Amarena Spa, which is open daily from ten until six by appointment. The menu runs to Deep Relaxation and Deep Tension Release massages, a Hot Stone Ritual, the Aromatic Escape, a Restorative Therapy and the Radiance Boost facial.
What is the best time to visit Costa Rica for a romantic getaway?
December to just after Semana Santa is the Pacific dry season and books out first. May to November is green season, quieter and greener, with clear mornings, afternoon rain and turtle nesting from June onward. Both work, and the second one gets you more of the beach to yourselves.
How far is Playa Hermosa from San Jose airport?
Playa Hermosa is 94 km from Juan Santamaria International Airport at San Jose, about ninety minutes by road and mostly downhill out of the mountains. That’s close enough to land in the morning and be in your plunge pool by lunch, which is the main argument for starting a honeymoon on this coast.
