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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent guide
Review: I have been in Costa Rica for 2 months now and have one more month to go. I have been using this guide to find hotels, great places to eat, shop, and hang out at night. His recommendations are awesome and, of course, accurate. The only discrepancy has been some of the hotel prices. They seem to be quoted lower in the book by a few dollars even though I am traveling during the low season. His bus schedule times are pretty accurate although with so many fluctuations with scheduling it is best to call ahead. If you want more history on any particular region it would be best to do outside reading as this guide book is more to the point step by step instructions on how to get there and where to stay.
Rating: 
Summary: Good guide but not the best
Review: I traveled to Costa Rica with some friends. All together we had four different guides. The best was Lonely Planet's, Frommer's ranking second.
We found the guide lacking an enormous amount of maps, specially for cities. The guide is written for US tourists only. Since we were all from Spain, the conflict was served.
G.
Rating: 
Summary: What you've come to expect
Review: Lotsa solid information here, "best of's" gathered over the last nine years. But despite it's deceptive length of over 350 pages, Frommer's "Complete Costa Rica" misses out on many of the more subtle aspects of the experience this country affords.
Buy this for the condensed travel tip. Buy "Costa Rica: The Last Country the Gods Made" for an expansive, deeply researched, euriditely written book on a country whose "second bests" are well worth investigating.
Rating:
Summary: Great Guide For A Great Travel Destination!
Review: My husband recently took me to Costa Rica for my thirtieth birthday and we used this guide every day. We travelled to Santa Teresa & visited many places of interest & local places to eat in the area. The guide was most helpful. We went to the waterfalls in Montezuma & would not have known about them if not for the guide. The hotel/restaurant reviews were very accurate and saved us a LOT of heartache. Thanks Frommers!
Rating:
Summary: Great Guide For A Great Travel Destination!
Review: My husband recently took me to Costa Rica for my thirtieth birthday and we used this guide every day. We travelled to Santa Teresa & visited many places of interest & local places to eat in the area. The guide was most helpful. We went to the waterfalls in Montezuma & would not have known about them if not for the guide. The hotel/restaurant reviews were very accurate and saved us a LOT of heartache. Thanks Frommers!
Rating:
Summary: Would be perfect if it included more places
Review: The descriptions of hotels and restaurants in the guidebook are accurate and colorful. Frommer's prepares you for exactly what to expect, and in a few instances correctly identify places that are overrated. In Costa Rica we found that many places were just that: overrated. It seems that places that the most commonly used guidebook, Lonely Planet, raved about had jacked up their prices and become content on coasting on that review, letting the money roll in without exerting any effort (or facility upkeep) to earn the money. It is important to understand that Frommer's does not devote much attention to budget travel; it is not appropriate for people on a tight budget. Additionally, Frommer's is not very comprehensive (only listing a handful of hotels at each location) and Frommer's doesn't give you enough nuts & bolts about how to get to places, which buses to take, how much a taxi should cost, or the real "on the ground" grunt work that you need in a foreign guidebook. Thus, my rating of this book as a 5-star is only as a secondary book. It is not sufficient guidebook by itself. But the information it does have you can really count on. Once you're in the country and a little tired out from travel, and frustrated by inaccurate and outdated info in other guidebooks (LP) you'll really appreciate this book's information.
Rating:
Summary: A good companion book
Review: This is one of three books I purchased for my trip to Costa Rica and we referenced this book most often because of its simple layout and definitive information. While some of the hotel prices and hotel phone numbers were not 100% accurate, we found it to be a good guide that pointed us in the direction of some sure-bet hotels.
We relied on the 'Moon Handbook' guide to Costa Rica to fill in where this book lacked. Specifically, we found that the Moon Handbook provided more in-depth information regarding the flora and fauna of Costa Rica and a few additional hints.
Rating: 
Summary: Leave the guide on the book shelf
Review: We used this guide to get us an hotel in Montezuma. We stayed at the Nature Lodge Los Fincas. It was a dump and we were forced to either stay or lose all of our money for the entire saty. We did what the couple before we checked in did. We paid them to leave. The rooms were covered with ants, triantulas, no constant running water....hot water, no way. The food was served with ants and bugs in it. I think this writer is either dillusional or just tells the hotels to get ready cause he is on his way. My advice, pick up another guide.
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