We visited Orient Beach in March on a cruise ship, rented a car at the port and drove up to the beach. Parking lot on Wednesday was good. Beach bar was really nice, and chairs with umbrella good too. In fact, they were installing a permanent bathroom versus the somewhat dilapidated outhouse currently in use. Club Orient resort was very sad to see. Beach was good though all the way down to Papgayo's. Seaweed was a bit problematic. We even ran into the "Happy Hour Gang," alas, we had to rerun the ship.