A Week at a Luxury Surf Resort in Costa Rica, Day by Day
Lamangata is a six-suite luxury surf resort in Costa Rica, named a top supervilla by Robb Report and picked for BBC Travel’s 20 best places to travel in 2026. Expect 360 degrees of ocean and jungle, plated farm-to-table meals, and a champion coach who gets 99% of guests standing on a board.
The road up from the coast climbs for only ten minutes, and then the trees break open and you are looking at panoramic ocean and jungle views, the surf rolling into the coastline and lush rainforest all around. You’ll want to take a photo the moment you arrive. Then you’ll remember this is the view from your private terrace all week long, and you can take your time with it.
Lamangata Luxury Surf Resort sits up here above Dominical with six ocean-view suites, and the week takes the shape you give it. Surf every morning, if that is what you came for. Surf twice and give the rest of the week to waterfalls, a rainforest walk, and an afternoon at the Whale’s Tail. Or decide as you go, one morning at a time. Scott came here for his first surf lessons and summed up the rest of it plainly. “Everything was taken care of from luggage, food, and fun.”
Here is what a week at a luxury surf resort in Costa Rica looks like when the days are built around you.
How your all-inclusive stay gets built around you
Your week at Lamangata Luxury Surf Resort gets built around you and the details of your reservation. Every luxury stay comes with a dedicated Experience Designer whose whole job is shaping the days to fit you, which adventures, which mornings to surf, how you eat, and the anniversary you mention once.
Our surf packages gather the best of Costa Rica together: the surfing, the waterfalls, and the time off the board: the surfing, the waterfalls, and the days off the board. Then move any of it. Swap an excursion for a second morning with Junior, push dinner later, add a massage in the afternoon your legs give out. By the time the car pulls up to the resort, the kitchen knows your food preferences, Junior has your surf level, and the whole staff knows your name.
Stays at Lamangata start at only three nights. Arrive on a Wednesday with a few days in hand and you still get a morning in the water with Junior, an afternoon under a waterfall, and dinner with a show as a kaleidoscope of colors washes over the sky at sunset.
Arrival day, from the airport to your accommodation
A private SUV meets your flight in San Jose, or at the regional airstrip in Quepos if you fly in closer, and getting here is easier than you’d expect. The road runs well maintained all the way to the gate, so the last stretch is windows down and the air cooling as you climb. From up here it’s a short drive back down to Dominical, the beach, and Nauyaca Falls, so everything stays close once you’re settled. On stays of six nights or more that round-trip transfer comes with the package, and on shorter stays we’ll arrange your pickup, so ask your Experience Designer to confirm it for your dates.
You’ll have a welcome drink in your hand before you’ve finished unpacking. Your accommodation is an ocean-view king suite with teak floors, vaulted ceilings, 400 thread count sheets, and glass doors that slide the whole wall open onto your private terrace, so the ocean and the jungle are right there whenever you look up. National Geographic Traveller (UK) put that room in its Luxury Collection guide as a place to unplug, which you’ll easily understand after you witness your first sunset.
What a day of surfing looks like at Lamangata Luxury Surf Resort with our surf coaches
A day of surfing here has a shape, and it starts in the pool. You warm up in the infinity lap pool with Junior, rehearsing your paddle and pop-up in flat water where you can hear every word, and then the car takes you down to whichever break is working. Lunch comes down to the sand, so you stay in the water and eat when you come in. Back at the resort in the afternoon Junior puts your surf sessions up on the big screen and you watch what your back foot was doing.
The pool warm-up plus the video analysis is what we call the Pool-to-Ocean Method, and 99% of guests stand up on a board before they leave. It is also why guests who arrive with hours of surf camp lessons behind them break through here. One came with twenty of those hours from Central America, the US, and Europe, taking a push into every wave, and left catching them alone.
Junior, our head surf coach, grew up in Hatillo and won the 2024 Costa Rican longboard title, which is why he can stand on the sand at seven in the morning and tell you which beach you are surfing and why.
Two decades of Costa Rican surf on this coast go into that one sentence. He coaches beginner and intermediate surfers inside the same week, and each of you gets your own list of things to work on. Your Firewire surfboard and the rest of the surf equipment lives here, so your packing list for the water is a swimsuit and a rash guard if you like wearing one.
Which surf spots in Costa Rica you’ll surf near Dominical
You could easily surf a different wave each day of your stay at Lamangata. Dominical is a long beach break that picks up swell all year and throws both rights and lefts, so it holds something rideable through the season. On the days it runs big, Junior takes you south to the sheltered water at Dominicalito, or up to Playa Hermosa or Playa Linda, surf breaks a short drive from the gate.
Junior checks the tide, the swell, and the wind, and picks the spot with the best conditions for whoever is in the car that morning. After twenty years he knows where the best surf sits on a given tide, and different surf on different days is how you get comfortable in more than one lineup. Costa Rica’s famous point breaks sit hours further south, and the sand-bottom breaks in front of you stay forgiving when you come off the board.
Dominical easily ranks among Costa Rica’s top surf towns, and as a surf destination it still keeps its space. Read up on surf spots in Costa Rica and few of them come with this much room in the water.
Nine adventures included with your all-inclusive surf package
Your luxury stay includes a surf lesson or an excursion every day, and you pick which one each morning. After three surf days in a row your shoulders will thank you for a day off the board. If you want to stack two tours into one day, ask and we’ll see what we can do.
The nine included adventures are surfing, Nauyaca Waterfall, the Uvita waterfall, Ballena National Park, a hike out to Rocas de Amancio, a rainforest walk at Hacienda Barú, a day on the local beaches, an afternoon in Dominical, and a chocolate tour or coffee tasting. Hernan hosts the coffee tasting on the property.
Spectacular Nauyaca sits about 10 km from Playa Dominical, a 45-metre fall stepping down into a 20-metre one, with a swimming pool at the bottom that runs cold in the best possible way after a week in warm water. At Ballena National Park you walk the one-kilometre sand spit known as the Whale’s Tail, which opens at low tide in the shape of a fluke, with humpbacks passing offshore from July to November and dolphins in the bay year-round.
For the included adventures the car, the driver, and the entrance are handled. You say which one at breakfast. Rafting, ziplining, an ATV tour, and a Caño Island snorkel can be arranged as add-ons.
Food and evenings at our surf resort in Costa Rica
Dining at Lamangata takes its cue from what’s growing just outside the kitchen. Chef Tony builds the menus around the season, and many of the ingredients come from the garden and greenhouse on the property. Every meal is plated and built around the preferences you shared when you booked, and breakfast comes with fresh fruit. Dinner runs three courses with the other guests, the table set as the light goes, and by the second course the ocean has gone from gold to dark. Somewhere in your week come homemade ice cream, edible flowers cut from the greenhouse, and kombucha the kitchen brews itself.
Any diet, any allergy, any preference you have, tell us when you book and Chef Tony takes it from there. Ask him and he’ll walk you through empanadas one afternoon.
Midweek you’ll head down into the surf town of Dominical for dinner out, a change of scene and a look at the town at street level. We’ll arrange the car and the reservation, and that meal goes on your own account. Every other meal, and all the non-alcoholic drinks, are covered.
Evenings run as late as your legs allow, and pura vida covers the early nights too.
When to come, and what the surf is like year-round
Costa Rica offers surfable waves in every month of the year, which makes planning a trip simple, and any time of year is a great time to visit Lamangata. The dry season, roughly December through April, brings sunny mornings, offshore wind, and smaller cleaner waves, and that is the easiest window if this is your first time standing on a board. The green season from May to November pushes bigger south swells up Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, which is when the intermediate crowd gets great surf and the hills turn a deeper green.
Water temperature sits between about 78 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit all year, so board shorts are enough. Whale season overlaps the green months, and the waterfalls run harder.
Stays start at three nights and you can arrive on any day of the week, so a trip to Costa Rica can be built around the days you already have off, and your next surf trip can start on a Wednesday. If a trip like this is new to you, our first-timer’s guide walks through it. One guest stayed two weeks and wished they had booked four more.
Who a week at this all-inclusive surf resort in Costa Rica suits
Our luxury surf resort in Costa Rica suits anyone who wants the wonders of Costa Rica, whether or not everyone in your group surfs. It works especially well for:
Couples where one of you surfs and the other one takes the waterfalls, the massage room, yoga sessions your Experience Designer can arrange, and the pool. One of you is in the water with Junior every morning, and you meet back up at lunch with better stories.
Solo travellers, who get company from a handful of other guests and quiet for the rest of the day. One guest came on her own for a week and spent it hiking to waterfalls with Junior, ziplining, and eating rambutans that Miriam brought in from her own garden.
Small groups and retreat hosts, because six ocean-view suites and a private buyout mean the whole property can be yours. A luxury surf retreat here comes with the Experience Designer building your group’s itinerary before anybody lands.
Hilton’s 2026 Trends Report found that 72% of travellers want time off to explore a personal passion, skill, or hobby, and a surf vacation that sends you home catching your own waves is exactly that kind of time off.
Vogue named Lamangata among the best places to ride the waves, and SURFER Magazine called it “one of the more high-end surf travel experiences I’ve ever had.”
How to plan your next surf trip to Costa Rica
Your suite is waiting, Junior already knows which beach will be best tomorrow, and Chef Tony is planning something spectacular around whatever the garden gives up. Tell us the week you can take and your Experience Designer builds the rest around you.
Check rates and book your stay
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a surf camp in Costa Rica or a resort?
Lamangata is a luxury surf resort near Dominical with just six ocean-view suites. People who start out searching Costa Rica surf camp or luxury surf camp options often land here, because you get the coaching seriousness of a surf camp experience with plated meals, a private terrace, and a chauffeured car attached.
How do I compare the best all-inclusive surf resorts in Costa Rica?
Lamangata is built around your dates. Arrive any day of the week, stay from three nights, and choose a surf lesson or one of nine included adventures each morning. Among luxury options on this coast, the differences worth checking are the guest count, the minimum stay, and what fills the days you spend off the board. A three-night surf getaway works here, and so does a full week.
Do I have to surf every day?
No. Your daily surf or adventure choice is made each morning, and after three surf days in a row there is a built-in day off the board when you pick something else from the nine included adventures. The week is meant to breathe, and plenty of guests split it close to evenly.
Will I improve my surfing in a short stay?
The Pool-to-Ocean Method exists to improve your surfing inside a short window: a pool warm-up, then video analysis of your waves on the big screen the same afternoon. 99% of guests stand up on a board before they leave, and learning to surf in Costa Rica as an adult tends to go faster than people expect with one coach watching one small group. Your surf experience so far and the conditions that week both shape how far you get.
Are airport transfers, meals, and alcohol included?
Every package covers your suite, all daily meals, non-alcoholic drinks, your chauffeured car, and your surf lessons or adventures. Round-trip airport transfers from San Jose or Quepos are included on stays of six nights or longer, and shorter stays can still be arranged, so confirm yours when you book. Alcohol is not available at the resort, and one midweek dinner out in Dominical is at your own expense.
Can I book the whole resort for a group or a retreat?
Yes. All six suites can be booked as a private buyout for your group, which is how most retreat hosts use the property. Your Experience Designer co-builds the itinerary, including surf sessions, adventures, meals, and transport for the whole group.
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