Two bedrooms in Jacó for a December dry-season week
Three of our Garabito homes are listed with two bedrooms, and they are genuinely different animals: Condo Jadura, a sixth-floor unit in the Viva Jacó tower that sleeps five; Cabina Plumeria and Cabina Bamboo, two separate cabinas on a shared garden property, also sleeping five; and Zen Den and Rose Room, two private bedrooms inside the main house at Zenergy, sleeping four. Start there. The price question I'll come back to, because the honest answer depends on your dates and nobody can give it to you from a web page.
Garabito is the county, by the way. When you search it, what you're really searching is Jacó and Playa Herradura, the two towns on that stretch of coast, plus everything behind them in the hills. All of our Costa Rica homes sit in that canton.
December is the month the weather turns, and the last week is the crowd
Rain tapers off through November, and the dry season takes hold around the middle of December. So a trip in the first half of the month is a different proposition from one in the last: earlier, you get the green still on everything and fewer people; after the 15th or so, reliably clear skies, and then a sharp rise in visitors as the holidays land. If your dates are flexible and the budget is tight, the first two weeks are the smarter window on both counts.
Jacó in dry season sits at the upper end of its own pricing. That is simply how this coast works: the months everyone wants cost more than the months nobody does. A sub-$150 target in December puts you in the budget-to-lower-middle tier of what the town offers, which is reachable, but not with the casual assumption that any two-bedroom will land there.
Condo Jadura: the one you book if you want to walk everywhere
Condo Jadura is two bedrooms and one bathroom on the sixth floor, looking out at rainforest-covered mountains on one side and the pool deck below on the other. Two bedrooms, one bath, five sleeping spots: do that arithmetic before you book. For a couple, or a family with young kids who don't mind a queue in the morning, it's fine. For four adults who all need a shower before dinner, it isn't.
What the tower gives you is everything a condo building can give you and a house can't. Three pools, two BBQ areas, a gym, a coworking space, billiards and foosball, a kids' playground, a dog park, and 24/7 security. There's an elevator, which matters more than you'd think on the sixth floor with groceries, and an EV charger in the parking. The kitchen comes stocked down to basic spices and coffee, every room has its own air conditioning, and the Wi-Fi and Roku TVs mean a rainy afternoon in the first half of December doesn't become a crisis.
It's the only one of the three with a pool table and a game room on site, and it's also the only one of the three set in town rather than on a quiet property. Avenida Pastor Díaz, the two-mile strip where most of Jacó's restaurants and bars are, is a stroll away. Jadura accepts pets, though confirm the specifics with us before you bring one.
Two cabinas in a garden: more room, more privacy, more walking between showers
Cabina Plumeria and Cabina Bamboo is the option people misread, so here's what it actually is: two separate cabinas on a shared property, booked together as a two-bedroom stay. One has a queen bed, a day-bed and its own bathroom; the other is a queen studio with an ensuite. Two bathrooms for five people, which is better arithmetic than the condo offers, at the cost of walking outside to get from one bedroom to the other. For two couples travelling together, or a couple with kids old enough to have their own door, that trade works nicely. For a family that wants everyone under one roof at bedtime, it won't.
The property is landscaped and quiet, with a large pool, a gazebo, a shared kitchen, and an onsite team who live with the place and will tell you where to eat. There's a crib available, which is the single detail that decides this one for families with a toddler, and board games for the hour after the pool. Pets are accepted here too, subject to the usual conversation.
Zen Den and Rose Room: two bedrooms, not a whole house
This is the one to understand clearly before you book it. Zen Den and Rose Room are two private bedrooms in the main house at Zenergy, booked together, sleeping four. Each room locks, each has room-darkening shades and its own air conditioning, and the bathroom between them is shared exclusively by those two rooms. The kitchen and the pool area are shared with other guests in the house.
If you came here wanting a self-contained apartment, this isn't it, and I'd rather you knew that now than at check-in. If you're two couples who don't mind a sociable kitchen, or a parent and older kids, it's a comfortable, inexpensive way to be in Garabito in high season, and the house is the same calm garden property as the cabinas, with the same team on site. Rose Room has a queen, Zen Den a full, and both have desks and reading nooks, which tells you what sort of guest it suits: someone who reads in the afternoon rather than someone who wants a living room of their own.
When two bedrooms is the wrong search
Occasionally the two-bedroom filter is the problem rather than the answer. If you're six or more, Condo Brisa is three bedrooms and two bathrooms in the quieter northern end of Jacó, with the same tower amenities as Jadura and scarlet macaws turning up in the trees outside often enough that guests stop photographing them by day three. It doesn't take pets.
And if you're a large group splitting the cost, per-person is where the real money is. Zenergy Casa & Cabinas is the whole property, six bedrooms and five bathrooms across the main house and three guest cabinas, sleeping thirteen around a large pool. Thirteen people in a two-bedroom condo is a nightmare; thirteen people in one house with five bathrooms and a shared kitchen is a reunion. For a group that plans to cook and spread out, it's the house to beat on this coast, and it takes pets.
How to actually get a number under $150
Nightly rates in Garabito move with the date, and December moves them more than any other month. Nobody, including us, can promise you a specific figure for a specific week from a page like this one. What we can do is answer in a minute when you ask, with the real rate for your dates, the taxes and fees on top, and the minimum stay if there is one.
Three things make the difference between landing under your number and not:
Your dates. The week before the 15th and the week after Christmas are different markets. Shift by a few days and the whole equation changes.
All-in versus nightly. Decide whether your $150 includes taxes and fees or sits before them, and tell us, because it changes which homes we put in front of you.
Booking direct. We manage these homes ourselves, so there's no platform fee stacked on the end. On a week's stay that gap is not trivial.
Confirm the pet policy at the property level too. Several of our Garabito homes take dogs, but the terms belong to each house, not to the brand.
What to do with the week once you're here
Carara National Park sits north of Jacó on Route 34, around twenty-five minutes up the road, and it's the day trip I push hardest in dry season: close to half of Costa Rica's bird species have been recorded in those 4,700 hectares, and the macaws come through in pairs at the start and end of the day. Herradura is about ten minutes the other way, with Cocos Beachfront Restaurant doing ceviche right on the sand, and Los Sueños marina a short walk from there. Lanterna Italian Steakhouse sits inside Los Sueños with a terrace over the water, which is the best seat in the canton for watching the sportfishing boats come back in the late afternoon. Bambú, also at the marina, does sushi and Thai if you've had your fill of grilled fish.
Playa Hermosa is about a quarter of an hour south of Jacó, Esterillos roughly half an hour, and Manuel Antonio makes a long day of it rather than an afternoon. Coming from the airport at San José, give yourself somewhere between ninety minutes and two hours depending on when you hit the road.
Tell us your dates
Message us with the nights you want, how many of you there are, and whether a dog is coming. We'll tell you which of the Garabito two-bedrooms is open, what it costs all-in for those exact dates, and if nothing fits under your number, which week in December would. That's a faster conversation than clicking through calendars, and it's the one advantage of a manager who looks after these homes personally rather than a listings page that doesn't know you exist.
