Jungle Love
The Four Seasons Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo, part of a master-planned golf-and-beach community, has all the brand's hallmarks: serious spa, understated rooms that subtly reflect the locale, and uncannily good service. (Nearly every employee I encountered called me by name.) The spa is big (18 treatment rooms) and has exceptional therapists. Most are physiotherapists—a three-year degree program that spa director Todd Hewitt says is tougher than U.S. massage school—who've also mastered the experiential side of the equation. The menu includes interesting Costa Rican-inflected treatments, like a hot-stone reflexology session that begins with a volcanic-sand foot scrub, and a massage that uses various lengths of bamboo to roll out tight spots and muscles (very effectively), which my therapist deepened with reiki.
