Villa Vilar

The air conditioning worked really well. That was a god-send every afternoon or evening when we would return. There's a refrigerator in the room that we took advantage of, both for leftover food from restaurants and for chilling and freezing our water bottles overnight before we headed to the beach for the day. The room was extremely clean. The private bathroom was also in excellent shape. The courtyard is very clean and pretty. It isn't special, and despite its pleasing appearance it is essentially all parking lot, but it's still a nice-looking place. There is a tiny outdoor "pool" (about the size of a large hottub), that we never used. We spent our time at the beach, obviously. Duh. Who wants a pool? There is a locking gate (padlock). She gives you two keys, one for your room and one for the gate. You have to open and reclose the gate every time you leave or return, but I consider this a good thing. The entrance is on a rather disconcerting alley (not dangerous, just unpleasant) and the gate was very much appreciated. Also, if she noticed you coming or going, she would often come out and close the gate for you after you drove through. The location is ideal in my opinion. It is far enough from the main drag that it isn't noisy and there aren't piles of pedestrians or urban levels of traffic all around you all the time. At the same time, it is only a two or three minute drive from the "main" street through Coco. It wasn't so close that walking to "downtown" was preferable. We always drove, but it was an extremely short drive and we never had trouble finding parking. It was essentially an ideal distance in my opinion. Any closer (so as to facilitate more walking) would have made for noisier and busier surroundings. Of the various beaches around, go to Ocotal (very close), Gringo (next to Ocotal but hard to get to) and Poor Calzón (a little farther, but splendid).

The shower has no hot water (but you don't need it). I suspect that around Coco (or anywhere along the coast), practically no one uses hot water for anything. Frankly, we hardly wanted it. The "cold" water (not very cold) made for a very refreshing shower anyway. I didn't personally consider this to be a downside, but other people might care and may was well know about it. But like I said, the comfortably refreshing "cold" water (honestly, not cold by more northerly standards) felt really good after a sweaty, sunny day on the beach. The owner stiffed me a bit when I paid in cash. I pulled up the exchange rate on my phone right then and there for the two of us to look at together, but she pulled out her calculator and used some other exchange rate anyway, one she had chosen or convinced herself of for whatever reason, and of course that rate benefited her over the true exchange rate unambiguously visible to both of us on the internet on my phone. So she overcharged me by 5,000 colognes or about ten dollars. I can understand she went into the transaction with a different exchange rate in mind -- I don't fault her for that -- but I rather resent that when we could both see the rate was what it was at the current moment, she simply ignored it and refused to honor it. That was extremely rude in my opinion.

La sécurité du site.

Un peu cher pour la qualité.

Close to the beach

I wish there was a face cloth

Établissement somme toute correct du côté des équipements. Chambre propre, salle de bain également. Parking privée àce qui est un plus. En revanche très déçue de l’accueil que nous avons reçu, personnel qui ne fait aucun effort pour communiquer avec vous, pas un sourire, rien. Extrêmement désagréable d’être accueillis de la sorte.

Le personnel extrêmement désagréable. Comme une impression de déranger.

Un lieu très sécurisé, un très bon accueil, le côté pratique avec la cuisine commune.

Pas trop de place pour les valises, manque d étagère pour les vêtements.

La señora que nos atendió fue muy amable

La comodidad y la ubicación