La Rosa de America

10% off any multiple night booking of four nights or more

Special is ongoing until further notice. There are no current blackout periods.

• Must be 4 nights or more.
• Must be paid for in CASH (either US Dollars, Costa Rican Colones or CDN Dollars).
• All nights must be fully paid at time of arrival to receive the discount.
• Booking nights do NOT have to be consecutive.
• This offer CAN be combined with other offers – but only on the accommodation portion of any booking.

Multiple Week Stay?

15% After Easter booking Discount

Special commences 16 April 2012 and ends 30 April 2012.

• Can not combine with other offers except the Multiple Night Discount.
• Discount is valid any day of the week.
• Bookings must be made directly with Hotel La Rosa de America either via the website Reservation/Contact Us Page, or via telephone. Online bookings from other booking agencies are not eligible for this discount.
• To receive this discount, please mention it (the After Easter Special) in your email or phone in request to Hotel La Rosa de America

To book now click here!

Place of Enchanted Waters

Welcome to the blog home of Hotel LaRosa de America’s charity climb! On Dec 5th and 6th we will be climbing Cerro Chirripo in Costa Ricato raise money andawareness to support the efforts of the Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary in the Southern Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. This organization is striving to protect animals within the National Parks of Costa Rica from poaching and degradation of habitat. To find out more about this worthy cause, please check out their website and associated news releases, blogs etc…

Also for future climbs, you can help by spreading the word and letting people know about this opportunity to blend a great holiday experience with some hard work, and a great payoff through supporting our environment.

Basic Facts about the Mountain

• Cerro Chirripo is 3,820 metres or 12,533 feet in hight.
• The second tallest mountainin Central America and the tallest in Costa Rica.
• Trailhead elevation is 1,520 metres
• Overall hiking distance is 40 km over two days
• Non technical climb – great for fit adventurers!

Our Guide

Integral to our climb is a strong desire to learn about the various environments that we will pass through. That, coupled with the extra safety of a guide, led us to search out one of the best! Ameila Garita, daughter of Jose – the man with the World Record for Chirripo ascents, has agreed to be our guide.

Amelia holds a degree in tourism from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, is bi-lingualand has extensive experience in the Chirripo region. We are very happy to have her join us!

The Itineray:

Day 1: Enroute from the Central Valley, we will cross over the famous Cerro de Muerte and see our first glimpse of the Cerro Chirripo rising over the omnipresent Talamanca Mists. Arriving in San Gerardo de Rivas on the afternoon of 04 December, we will enjoy a dip in the Thermal Springs prior to supper.

Day 2: Rising early, we will enter the Chirripo National Park and begin our hike, passing through many distinct climatic regions as we climb. After about 7 hours, we will enter the “La Cuesta del Agua” which will prove a challenge to our endurance! We will then enter the Paramo Valley and then stop at Base Crestones for the night.

Day 3: Rising early, we will have a quick breakfast, and then begin our climb to the Summit in time for a “continent spanning” sunrise. After an hour at the top, we will commence our descent down into the Valle de los Conejos (Rabbit Valley) and through the Paramo high altitude equatorial vegetation. If time and energy allows, we will take a look at the Cerro Terbi and Los Crestones features as well. Continuing our descent past Base Crestones, we will arrive back at the Hotel Uran before nightfall.

Day 4: After breakfast, and the inevitable swapping of stories and maybe a few aches and pains we will say goodbye and continue on with our holidays -until meeting up again at Hotel La Rosa prior to departing Costa Rica.

We are very excited about this chance to climb the highest point in Costa Rica and hopefully have the chance to see the Pacific AND Atlantic Ocean at the same time! Thank you for your participation and for your willingness to support our wildlife charity cause! See you at the top in a month!

Book Donations Update:

Through the generosity of hundreds of our guests from all over the World, our Costa Rica Airport Hotel is nearing our initial goal of 5,000 books donated to local schools. Thank you for your support of our program. To have this kind of success in only three years has been a humbling experience for us and has left many local school Principals amazed at the generosity of people from countries they have only seen on a map!

Students from Ambiente Lista El Roble eagerly reading!

Though clearly difficult to put a monetary value on these donations, we estimate that the resale value alone in Costa Rica would be in the area of $50,000.oo USD. Of course, the new book purchase value would be much greater. The great cost of books for Costa Rican Schools means that only the most important books for learning can be purchased. Novels, picture books etc are very much a secondary concern to having sufficient pens and paper, rulers etc. Sadly this is resulting in a culture-wide loss of the love of reading.

With the kind assistance of anexpat Canadian with close ties to the Women’s Club of Costa Rica, and a local teacher,as well as the employees of Hotel La Rosa de America, we have been able to organize, sort into appropriate age groups, source deserving schools, and deliver over 3.500 books so far in English, French and Spanish as well as large numbers of school supplies. Some of the benefit schools, statistics and pictures can be found on our website page devoted to the project: BOOK DONATIONS

Many of the schools we have donated to now have large numbers of books in English. To ensure that these donations are best used and distributed, we have volunteered to host theWomen’s Club at Hotel La Rosa and to potentially team up with this organization in order to expand the current scope of the program.

The WOMEN’S CLUB of COSTA RICA:

The Women’s Club of Costa Rica has deep roots throughout Costa Rica, especially in the local schools and webelieve that their experiencewithCosta Rican schools combined with books from Hotel La Rosa’s Donation Program will leadtotargeted donationsthat will provide the greatest benefit for Costa Rican children. The Mission Statement of the WCCR is “a philanthropic organization supporting education, primarily through scholarships and development of school libraries for children in Costa Rica.”

To this end, our San Jose Airport Hotel will be hosting the next planning meeting of the Women’s Club of Costa Rica on the 26th of October 2011. For Hotel La Rosa, this will be a charity event with all Hotel services donated for the event. During this meeting, Hotel Staff will introduce the “La Rosa” book donation project. We hope to continue our donation project and develop our new link with the Women’s Club.

Again, thank you all for your great support of our book donation program, and let’s keep the books coming!!

Owner and Teacher Donating books to Principal

Once again, as the summer period draws rapidly to a close, we are faced with yet another transition into the wettest of the wet season. This is typically a time for consolidation among the various tourism businesses within Costa Rica and can sadly often lead to significant layoffs of employees across the country. At our Costa Rica airport hotel, we prefer to cross-train our existing employees to do “other” functions in the times we have few guests. This way, our employees can retain their jobs, and the hotel benefits by ensuring all our intensive training of staff is not wasted every year through layoffs.

Painted by one of our talented staff members!

During the Sept-Dec timeframe, we have traditionally focused on significant capaital improvements to enhance the hotel, and to renew it’s 15 year old services and presentation. However, this year, we are going to focus on customer feedback generated over the past year. This feedback is invaluable to us as it allows us to maintain what works and conversely to eliminate any problems that may come up over the course of hosting thousands of guests per year. This year we have received some guest concerns over hot water reliability. We are currently addressing these concerns and we expect to complete the change over from gas to an electric system by the end of August. It is disappointing to us that the carefully picked gas water on demand system failed to deliver what it promised to do. We had hopes of eventually removing ourselves from the power grid, by first converting all major energy users to gas and then utilizing solar for the remainder.

New High Output Electric System on the left

However, this plan has proven ineffective therefore we are adapting to a new electrical energy saving on demand system. When it is complete, guests will not be able to tell the difference between the systems they use at home and the much more powersmart on demand system being put in place. Complete installation throughout the cabins is taking some time due to the need to rewire many areas of the hotel to 220 Volts, complete with heavier guage wiring and breakers.

Other upgrades will include improvements to our existing WIFI system, finishing up of the exterior painting of the entire hotel, resurfacing and repainting of the walkways, and replacement and painting of the roof over the restaurant area. Significant upgrades to Cabin 12 and our handicapped certified cabin will also be done. Inside, we will be upgrading all our computer systems, installing wireless music and speakers in the common areas, and introducing a brand new reservation system for better guest management. Gone will be the hand-draulic paper based system complete with it’s mountain of colour coded sticky notes!!!! Of course continued maintenance and minor improvements will continue apace!

As always, there is lots to be done. We want to ensure that Hotel La Rosa is 100% ready for the 2012 High Season so as to ensure maximum guest satisfaction! Shortly we will be making a blog comparing and contrasting some of the “then” and “now” differences at La Rosa as we will shortly be celebrating our fourth anniversary of hotel ownership in Costa Rica!

Hello Everyone, we now have Facebook and Twitter directly connected to our website! Please visit us and post your comments. We’d love to hear from you. From the staff at La Rosa de America

Hotel La Rosa de America continues to thrive thanks to our many guests who chose to include us as part of their holiday plans this past season. As we enter the quieter time of the year we are looking forward to the opportunity to make more positive changes and upgrades to improve our service.

Hello once again and thank you to all of our guests who have helped make our Costa Rica Airport Hotel a success! We have enjoyed hosting our many guests from around the world – we have experienced increased diversity. The hotel now accepts Canadian dollars for the convenience of our Canadian guests and we are working towards accepting Euros.

In response to our increasing popularity with families, we have created two new family suites that can accommodate the needs of larger families. The suites have a double bed and two adult-sized hardwood bunk beds, thereby being able to host a maximum of 6 people. The suites have been very popular this year.

We have also done complete redecorating of our popular rooms, with new mattresses, bed linens, artwork, and nice touches that add to the tranquil ambience of the rooms.

Our dining room has been redecorated also, and our breakfast service has changed to buffet-style, with more choices such as eggs, cheese, and cold meats for those who prefer more protein in the morning! Also our guests enjoy being able to control their service time, in the event that they are in a rush to get to the airport or get on with their trip. We now provide coffee service before the dining room opens, for our coffee lovers who need that cup of locally grown Costa Rican coffee right away!

Staffing has been restructured so that there is always someone available 24 hours a day, for guest needs. Our reception staff speak Spanish and English, and are always very happy to help. Hotel La Rosa de America staff pride ourselves on our exceptional service, and we have been repeatedly complimented by guests for the friendly service.

Our parking lot entrance has been resurfaced, with a lovely rose design motif added. Our gardens are blooming well, and the mango trees are heavy with fruit. More plants have been added outside the breakfast area, adding to the beauty of sitting down to a nice first meal. These plants are favorites for attracting hummingbirds, butterflies and also as an extra benefit, many have a beautiful scent.

We continue to make changes and improvements, and we will be focused on marketing, training and customer service in the upcoming months.

The dry season is winding down and soon the beautiful green season will begin, to the relief of the plants! We hope that many people will choose to travel during this lush time of year, where the sun still shines just about every day.

Recently, Hotel La Rosa de America underwent a periodic inspection performed by the Government controlled Instituto Costa Rica de Turismo (ICT). This inspection was designed to examine quality of service, safety standards, employee standards, cleanliness, and general maintenance of the property.

Having not been inspected formally for two years, this inspection was quite extensive. After all the work we have put into upgrading cabins, providing handicap accessibility, improving the gardens and stressing customer service, it was gratifying to find out that after the inspection, the ICT would without solicitation, be upgrading our Hotel Star rating from the current 2 Stars, to 3 Stars. We were very surprised by this as we did not formally request a review, nor did we expect to be raised two complete levels! (Hotels are rated in 0.5 increments to a maximum of 5 in Costa Rica).

Furthermore, it was strongly recommended that we petition for a Sustainable Tourism Level (CST) as the inspector indicated that we were already incorporating sufficient activities to rate a possible level 3 sustainability. Currently at the Hotel, we operate new, energy efficient gas appliances and hot water, we have an in depth recycling program, and we reintegrate the majority of waste water back into the garden and property via underground drainage fields invisible to guests! Also, of course, we maintain a low density cabins to garden ratio thus ensuring that guests never feel crowded or having to compete for hotel services. Rarely will you have to wait for anything!! Also, all the water we use to maintain both swimming pool and gardens originates from the Hotel property itself, thus reducing stress on the municipal water system. Guest drinking water however is municipal so as to guarantee it’s quality.

All the staff here at Hotel La Rosa feel very proud to have met with such success over the past two economically challenging years. This acknowledgment of our efforts by the officials at the ICT have only served to re-enforce what we already hoped… that we are headed in the right direction to provide our guests whatever they need!

Another year has come and gone at our San Jose Airport Hotel.

As always, the beginning of December was ushered in by the Hotel La Rosa Christmas decorating party. Most of the staff participated in this party and had a great time putting up decorations, the Christmas tree, having a party and listening to Christmas Carols.

This year was characterized by a number of new faces among the staff. Our receptionist, after performing excellent work for 18 months was promoted to Interior Hotel Manager. We created a new full time Cleaning/Food Prep position and rewarded our longest serving part time cleaner with the position. In the exterior areas, a recent gardener hire proved so good that after the retirement of our head groundskeeper, we promoted the new gardener directly into his empty position. So far, he is doing an admirable job of assisting the hotel in ensuring the hotel grounds survive the transition to the dry season – always a challenge when the rain stops falling in a jungle environment and hundreds of guests begin to arrive for Christmas! A forth hire has been in a bi-lingual evening concierge/receptionist with some basic maintenance skills! This jack of all trades has somewhat carved out his own position here by being useful in more areas than we have the ability to spare him in!

Unfortunately, this year we have had to say goodbye to a couple of staff members. Miguel, our gardener and groundskeeper of 15 years retired at the end of November. During his good-bye party, he indicated an imminent desire to move to Hawaii… an odd and unlikely choice indeed! Also, in mid December, we said good-bye to our former Hotel Manager. We wish him well, especially as he is our next door neighbor!!

Overall, our Costa Rica Airport Hotel is looking towards the future with high hopes. We used the second part of 2010 to complete a major hotel re-organization, launch a new marketing campaign (with upgraded/updated website) and conduct a comprehensive staff restructuring in preparation for the 2011 tourist season. This was necessary due to the increasing business at our airport hotel and for our desire to maintain and even improve upon our already famous customer service and attention to detail. Therefore, we feel confident that, with the new training and organization at the hotel, we will be even better able to ensure your satisfaction when you stay at our San Jose Airport Hotel!

We have been very grateful for the increasing business at our San Jose Airport Hotel especially during these very difficult economic times. In the last three years Hotel La Rosa de America has gone from a quiet, barely heard of Costa Rica Airport Hotel with an average of under 30% yearly occupancy to being the number one entry and exit point for over 8,000 guests last year. We have also recently expanded, adding two new large family suites which have been very successful and we are still finding that on many days we have limited or no space left! Naturally this has resulted in a need for employee and services restructuring at the Hotel. Thus, in a process that started in June 2010 and was finally completed 01 December 2010, we have completely overhauled all aspects of our customer service and redirected efforts towards improving and enhancing the overall guest experience. One of the main components of this task was to fully restructure and retrained our employees to meet the expanding needs of our Costa Rica Airport Hotel.

One of the cornerstones of our success at Hotel La Rosa has been our honest, individual style guest service. It is our policy to ensure that every guest has the opportunity to interact and talk with staff about their trip plans, or trip experiences and of course to ask any travel related questions they may have. We want to ensure you have as best as possible a Costa Rican experience here in our host country! Of course, this was much easier to do when we had half the guests coming to our hotel! Thus, we have had the pleasant task of being in a position to hire more staff during a recession. Due to the current difficulties in the Costa Rican Tourism economy, and the necessity of so many hotels needing to downsize, we have been able to access a very wide selection of trained workers needing employment in a stable position. Now as a result, we have five new employees, all of whom have completed Hotel La Rosa’s training program and we feel are now well equipped to assist with guests needs.

Part of our new season’s goals are to provide a better overall experience for our guests. Our guest’s feedback, repeat business, and guest referrals provide the single largest component of our international marketing campaign. Thus ensuring guest happiness and loyalty is extremely important for us. We know we are one of over a hundred and fifty

Part of our New Airport Hotel Breakfast Concept!

competing Costa Rica Airport Hotels! To that end, La Rosa staff will ensure that all guests will still feel like they have entered a Hotel that still provides Bed and Breakfast personalized service. Another major change for the 2011 year is our breakfast service. We have completely changed the way we present our breakfast. It is now in an all you can eat buffet style. Our kitchen staff now prepare almost double the options we provided for in the 2010 season including eggs and on certain days, the Costa Rican favorite, “Pinto”. Returning guests can still enjoy our famous Banana Bread – the secret recipe that came all the way from Raffles in Singapore many years ago! If you like tropical fruit, you will have a feast at La Rosa! We offer a minimum of five different types of seasonal fruit including what we think is the “best pineapple in the world” – the Costa Rican Pina Dorada. This local variety of pineapple is much sweeter and less acidic than normal pineapple.

Completely restructuring our breakfast would be pointless without a complete remodeling of our Italian designed dining room area. New for 2011, the dining area now displays new curtains, a much warmer sandy paint colour on the walls, a greatly expanded buffet display area, new chairs, and all new table cloths. The tables have also been re-organized to offer greater privacy for guests during breakfast time. Just outside, we are re-doing the flowerbeds to the rear of the property to increase the beauty of the breakfast area view. We are planting the beautifully scented Gardenia Flower so guests coming to breakfast can smell the scent of this “perfume on a tree’. These changes are designed to increase the early morning enjoyment for our guests – especially those who have just arrived from long flights the night before and have yet to actually see the beauty of Costa Rica.

Another objective for the hotel is to become recognized as a 3 star hotel. To this end, we continue to upgrade hotel infrastructure services, using environmentally friendly solutions wherever possible. Also, we now have 24 hour, 7 days a week night concierge service. No matter when your flight arrives, we will be waiting for you! At this time our Reception area will still close at 10 pm however, this will not be a problem for late arrivals or early departures as our night staff are now fully trained to deal with most guest needs.

Hotel La Rosa de America has spent five months of the low season restructuring in preparation for the 2011 high season. Though we recognize this process never ends (nor should it!) we do feel that our Alajuela Airport Hotel is now in an even better position to provide great service to our guests, both repeat and new alike!