Playa Negra CR is a beautiful area with wonderful nature and cute restaurants. As a solo female traveler, I felt entirely safe in the town.
Peace Retreat is also beautiful, but I WOULD NEVER LET SOMEONE I CARE FOR STAY THERE.
I had many unsettling experiences. Here are the top two:
(1) I asked the hotel to arrange a surf lesson for me and another guest. While surfing I severely injured my knee and was unable to walk or stand on my left leg. The instructor had no idea how to handle the situation and just offered me a beer to “chill out.” They didn’t take my injury seriously at all and I had to struggle to advocate for myself in a foreign language (thank goodness I have working medical Spanish). I demanded to head back to the hotel because I assumed they had some plan for handling emergencies.
After returning to the hotel I was shocked at the level of care. They clearly have no ability to handle a medical event and were unwilling to even take my injury seriously.
No one there had medical skills or even a basic first aid kit. All I wanted was an ice pack and an ace bandage and they had neither. They had to go off site to get a bag of ice. It is irresponsible that a rural place where people are regularly practicing sports is so unprepared. I'm scared to think about what would have happened if I had a more time sensitive medical issue. I have zero confidence in this team.
On top of that Kevin--the owner of the hotel--was a total weirdo with me. Cell service is spotty on the property so I found myself sitting in a public area icing my leg and trying to make some phone calls. Kevin sat down next to me and told me I should ask "why me? why now?" and “what is the universe telling me with this injury?” When I told him I was busy scheduling a wheelchair escort for my airplane home, he scoffed and said “really” as if I was just being dramatic. I asked him to leave so I could handle my own care.
Now that I’m home and have seen a doctor, it turns out I have a torn meniscus and need surgery. So I wasn’t being dramatic.
I am not angry that I got hurt during a risky sport -- I signed up for that risk. But I am livid at the hotel's general negligence. I saw a hotel staff member give the instructor two $20 bills on the $150 USD they charged us. I understand that a hotel upcharges for concierge services, and have no problem with them making a reasonable profit. But I can’t help but think I would have had a safer experience if they profited a little less and hired a vendor with appropriate skills. Same goes for their lack of staff training at the hotel site.
(2) Even before my medical event, I was wildly uncomfortable with the “yoga classes” taught by Kevin.
Each “class” started with a 45 minute sermon (videotaped and posted online!). Kevin made us circle around him while he presented a "problem" and a "solution."The problem was us: he told us were “monsters“, “repressed”, and “broken." The solution was yoga, and by extension, him the instructor.
The problem + solution framework is a classic sales technique designed to prey upon the insecurities of someone so that they purchase your product. It is irresponsible to casually poke at people's trauma without care or context. If students resisted or questioned this framework, they were dismissed as "not ready for the message."
When the sermons finally ended, there would be 30-40 minutes of light yoga. The experience was abrasive at best and abusive at worst.
These are just my two worst experiences. There were several others as well. If you stay here, please do your research and be prepared to take care of yourself.
------------ Response from Center ------------
Dear “Anonymous”,
To begin, thanks for your detailed review, as it has allowed me and our team to hear about your experience for the very first time. With that, if you had shared it with us while on retreat, as it was occurring, I have no doubt that your experience would most certainly have been different. What a shame that you missed out on the incredible experience that Peace Retreat is known for offering our guests. However, for whatever reason, you chose not to have an open and honest conversation with me/us while here, and instead waited, created distance, and went straight to a public forum. It’s quite clear now that your decision to be malicious and attempt to deter future business in a public forum was intentional. And so here we are. While I imagine readers can already see your propensity for drama and positioning to play victim in your review, writing a response to you is also intentional on my part. My intention is to support future guests in hearing our perspective and, perhaps, to encourage you to refrain from public shamings and instead learn to communicate more effectively.
As a result of your injury, we provided you with ice and offered to transport you to a medical facility. You accepted the ice and declined the medical attention. You then left the next morning without affording us an opportunity to further discuss your situation, nor find a resolve.
With respect to your observation of a money exchange between us and a provider (your surf instructor), the payment you witnessed had nothing to do with you, nor your lesson. I imagine it’s hard for you to believe, but not everything is about you.
Now, as for my so-called morning “sermons”, thanks for giving me this public forum to share yet another one with you. It’s clear to me that you missed the entire premise of the lesson, so here it is again. I always find it interesting why injuries and conditions present in specific parts of our body. As an example, did you know that our relationship to pride lives in our knees? Too much pride manifests as smugness, self-importance, and presents as stubborn refusal to change. Irony at its best here. Your knees buckled underneath you and your immediate reaction was to find excuses to blame others for your experience. Your smug and, yes, “monstrous” attempt to soil and bastardize my teachings and my reputation is weak.
What’s true, is that you don’t like me. What’s not true is your assertion that we were attempting to sell you something or that you were “preyed upon.” You were not held captive nor are you a victim of us, despite your efforts to be one here, on clear display. I imagine you’ve fooled many people along the way, but I can see your tricks (as I’m sure others do too), and perhaps the very reason you found my teachings so abrasive.
My hope is that you would have embraced your experience at Peace Retreat as a series of opportunities for maturation, change, and growth. However, based on your approach, any learnings on your part are unlikely.
Besides your unsavoury way of communication, we do wish you well.
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