Privacy

We use Google Analytics to understand how the guide is used: which pages are visited, the site you came from, your general location (country or city level), and your device and browser type. We also record a few interactions, such as tapping a tour card, following a link to Viator, or tapping a button to contact us, along with the page and the button’s position.

Google Analytics sets its own cookies (named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID) to tell visits apart. We never send your name, email address, phone number or the contents of any message to Google Analytics. Google keeps this data for the retention period set in our Analytics account.

To opt out, you can block cookies for this site in your browser or install Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on. Learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

We may advertise on Google Search. If you arrive by clicking one of our ads, Google adds a click identifier (gclid) and campaign labels to the link. Google Analytics uses them to tell us which ad brought the visit. We don’t add a separate Google Ads tag, and we don’t use remarketing or build advertising audiences from your visit.

If you arrived from one of those ads, a WhatsApp message to us ends with a short reference such as “(ref G-A1)”. It only names the ad group you came from, so we can tell whether our ads are useful. It contains nothing about you. It is kept in your browser’s session storage for this tab only, is cleared when you close the tab, and you can delete it from the message before sending.

We may also advertise on Facebook and Instagram. If you arrive by clicking one of those ads, the link carries campaign labels, and Meta adds its own click identifier (fbclid). Google Analytics uses the labels to tell us which ad brought the visit. We don’t install the Meta Pixel or any other Meta tag on this site, and we don’t build advertising audiences from your visit.

As with Google ads, a WhatsApp message to us then ends with a short reference such as “(ref M-A1)”. It only names the ad you came from and contains nothing about you, is kept for this tab only, and you can delete it before sending.

The WhatsApp, iMessage, text and call buttons open your own app with a message already written. Nothing is sent until you send it. The conversation is directly between you and PlayaFlamingo.com, and it doesn’t pass through this website. Answers you choose in the fishing charter form only go into that message; they are never stored on this site or sent to analytics. The privacy terms of the app you use apply, for example WhatsApp’s privacy policy. On our side, we only record that a contact button was tapped, not who you are or what you wrote.

If you email hello@playaflamingo.com, we use your address and message only to reply and to fix whatever you told us about.

Tour, sailing and fishing links go to Viator and include our partner ID and a campaign label, so Viator can credit this guide if you book. Booking and payment happen on Viator under its own privacy policy. We receive commission reports from Viator, never your payment details.

Shuttle links go to BookShuttles.com and CostaRicaShuttles.com, which are run by the same team as this site and have their own privacy terms.

Maps on the home, restaurant and marina pages are provided by Google Maps, which receives technical information such as your IP address when a map loads, under the Google Privacy Policy.

The site is hosted by Vercel, which, like any web host, processes request data such as IP address and browser type to deliver pages and keep them secure.

So a member of our team can see what visitors publicly share about the area and, if they choose, respond by hand, we may use third-party discovery services, currently including RecentReborn, to identify recent public Instagram posts tagged at a short list of nearby locations: Playa Flamingo, Playa Potrero, Marina Flamingo, Playa Conchal and Las Catalinas. RecentReborn is an independent service. It is not Meta, and it is not an official Instagram API.

A scheduled job on our own server (hosted by Hostinger) runs these lookups. For each post, RecentReborn returns its link, when it was posted, its caption and hashtags, the author’s name, whether it is a video and a thumbnail link. The job reads the caption, hashtags and account name only briefly, using fixed rules (no AI), to set aside business promotions and older posts. The check labels the post, not the person: we don’t analyse faces or infer anyone’s age, gender or other characteristics.

New posts that pass the check are sent privately to a member of our own team by iMessage (through Photon) and Telegram, as a link with a short generic label such as “Beach/vacation post”, with no username or caption. That person opens each link on Instagram and may like the post or leave a normal public comment, by hand, from our Instagram account. Nothing in this system likes, comments on, follows, unfollows, saves or shares any post, or messages or contacts any poster. We don’t use these posts to send their posters direct messages or private sales offers.

For 30 days we keep only the post’s link and ID, when it was posted, the source (RecentReborn), which of our sites and which location found it, the label we gave it (for example “strong”, “maybe” or “business”) and whether it was sent to our team. We don’t store captions, usernames, photos, videos, thumbnails or the full responses from RecentReborn. After 30 days we keep only a one-way code made from the post’s link, so we don’t show the same post twice, until 90 days, and then nothing. Our server’s copies of the messages sent to our team are deleted after 30 days. Messages already delivered through iMessage (via Photon) or Telegram stay under those services’ own storage, retention and deletion controls; we don’t control those copies and can’t guarantee their removal there. You can ask us to delete what we hold sooner (see data deletion).

Visitors to PlayaFlamingo.com never sign in with Facebook or Instagram here, so we receive no data from your Facebook or Instagram account.

See how to ask us to delete information, including records from our Instagram post discovery.

Ask us anything about this page at hello@playaflamingo.com. See also how this guide is funded.