375797 4 Location 519588 <p>I have now stayed at the Orquideas Inn in Alajuela twice. The staff there are really nice, and the hotel and all the walls surrounding the private grounds are painted really bright colors, giving it a really unique look. Breakfast is included and it's a truly local tico breakfast, and it is fantastic!</p><p>There is also a very nice Marilyn Monroe themed restaurant, and we only had nachos there, but they were great. The prices do seem a little high for the quality and amount of food that you receive, however. </p><p>The pool and gardens were really beautiful also, and they have some macaws living on the grounds in cages, but I actually found one of them to be very scary and intimidating.. she clearly did not like visitors and preferred to be left alone. Also you might notice that their pupils dilate and fluctuate in size when they're looking at you and it looks very threatening, but they are actually just trying to focus on your face!</p><p>A cat and dog also live on the grounds and when we were there in 2005, the dog had just had puppies and so that was really cute to see! The groundskeeper loaded them into a little golfcart type vehicle and was driving them around, it was adorable.</p><p>Rooms have recently been renovated and have TVs and the room we stayed in hd an air conditioning unit. Other furnishings in the room are basic, the bathrooms are basic also but all is very liveable! I have stayed both in a garden suite (with a garden view) and in a roadside suite (facing the sidewalk on the other side of the garden suites.. but they face a brightly colored privacy wall so they're not that bad!)</p> 2007-05-01T09:58:06-07:00 415236133 2006-04-08T17:00:00-07:00 0 18 210651 4421220 375797 0 0.0 2006-04-06T17:00:00-07:00 Published 0.0 2007-05-01T09:58:06-07:00 34574 0