After much web surfing we booked Apart-hotel Roma for our final night before departure as we wanted something closer to the airport than one in San Jose and some place not expensive. It is an apartment-hotel in the University area of Heredia. It was inexpensive at $29.00 U.S. per person and looked fine and interesting on the website. It was an experience and part of the fun of travelling! What an interesting place! I have no idea what the building originally was, but it has suites all over the place and appears to take up a good portion of the corner of a block! One of our rooms was on the street – almost literally, the other upstairs and further down the same street. The first had two bedrooms behind the sitting/dining area which opened onto the street through a wrought iron grillwork door. I believe one room had a double bed, the other twin beds. The upstairs room actually had three bedrooms, one with a double bed, a room attached to it with a single bed and a separate room with two single beds. The upstairs room had an outside covered patio with patio furniture. You needed to unlock three doors from the street, up a hallway of stairs,and through the patio to get to the upstairs suite. Furniture ranged from almost antique to just old and seen better days. Both units had a sitting room with t.v., table & chairs, couches, sink, stove, fridge, small clothes washer, dishes & cooking utensils. Bedding was worn but seemed clean, and the units were relatively clean. There was a fair amount of street noise until later at night – maybe 11:00ish – we were tired and hit the beds early. The bathroom in both had individual electrical heaters for hot water – took a bit of courage to climb into a shower that had electrical attachments on the shower! But it worked just fine. The first bather had to share the shower stall with a gecko who appeared once water started flowing. We were supplied two tired towels per room, a bit on the stiff side as they were likely air-dried and no fabric softener used.
The hotel appeared to be owned by a gracious Chinese gentleman who did all he could to assist us with our needs of a restaurant and taxi to the airport – all of us struggling with a language/accent barrier. He was actually there to see us off at 4:00 a.m.! The taxi to the airport was about 20 minutes and $5.00 per person. If you require a van, arrange it the night before, as it can be difficult to get one early in the morning. Again, the language barrier created a bit of a problem in those arrangements, unbeknowst to us at the time, and we just got lucky getting one at 4:00 a.m.!
There is a mercado across the street, and a restaurant down the street that he wouldn’t recommend. Other restaurants he would recommend were a short taxi-ride away – $2.00. Taxis are plentiful and constantly zipping by, here and at the mall. The Paseo de las Flores Mall is a short $3.00 – $4.00 taxi ride away – we went there to shop and have dinner. Had a lovely meal at a Peruvian restaurant and had fun browsing the shops and kiosks- everything from Fox, Pierre Cardin to Mas y Menos, where we found good prices on coffee and local grocery products we wanted to take home. People-watching was also fun.
If you’re not fussy and enjoy an "experience" in your travels, by all means, book this hotel,otherwise look for one a bit more familiar. I wouldn’t book a second time, but am rather glad we had the experience!