Costa Rica

[MENTALMUM]

Has anyone been to Costa Rica, we have booked to go in July for DH big birthday. would love any insight from anyone who has been especially, travelling, hotels, activities and safety.

[EssexSue]

Originally Posted by MENTALMUM

Has anyone been to Costa Rica, we have booked to go in July for DH big birthday. would love any insight from anyone who has been especially, travelling, hotels, activities and safety.

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We were due to go last July but it went red and we changed to Jamaica so I'm following too. We were booked to stay in the Riu Palace.

[justacey]

I have but it was about 20 years ago.
We'd been on a scuba diving trip and tacked a week on, we had a few days in the cloud forest Santa Elena/Monteverde, then drove to Arenal for a few days with a stop off at Poas volcano on the way back to San Jose.
We loved it there.

[ali-s]

Yes, we went in 2015 and I want to go back I did a trip report, link in my signature.
I booked everything independently, Costa rica is well set up for tourism, it's very popular with the Americans. We flew KLM via Panama, BA fly direct ( well they did before covid ) SJO ( San Jose) is the central airport, Liberia is further north and used by the likes of Tui as that's where the AI resorts are. Try not to be tempted by the AI packages, they really aren't what Costa rica is about.
There are so many lovely independent hotels and b&bs and to see as much as possible it's best to stay in 2 or 3 locations. ( we did 6 ) there are rainforests, cloud forests, volcanoes ,beaches, mangroves, you can't reach everywhere from 1 location .
You can hire a car, travel by mini bus or hire a driver. The roads are fine but more like our b roads , it's quite slow going getting around.
The Costa rica forum on TripAdvisor was very helpful for me. ( just don't mention AIs ) most first timers stay in Manuel Antonio, Arenal / La Fortuna and one other location.
Anything else I can help with , just ask, we loved Costa rica.

[mickeyspal]

We went as part of a Panama canal cruise so had 2 days either side of the island, we did a boat tour of the mangroves, and a banana plantation, and a zip line over the jungles, it was great, I cant remember the company we did them through as it was 8 years ago

[ScoopsAhoy]

My ds and his girlfriend are planning to go for 3 weeks travelling around Costa Rica next month so I’ll keep an eye on this thread too 👍🏻
Edit- they’re booked now and leave on the 2nd feb.
Very envious.

[Olympiad]

We went 3 years ago and would definitely recommend (especially if you want to see the rainforests, wildlife and do activities - it's not a great beach destination and as mentioned in an earlier post the big resort hotels in the beach areas don't have a great reputation with the locals)

We flew direct with BA and split our time between Tortugeuro on the Caribbean coast (3 nights), Monteverde (3 nights), Arenal (3 nights) and Manuel Antonio (4 nights).

We booked everything ourselves although the first 6 nights (Tortugeuro and Monteverde) was with a local travel company who picked us up from the airport and sorted out the hotels etc. The rest we booked the hotels direct and the hotels booked transfers for us to the next destination .

All really easy as there is a well developed tourist infrastructure especially for travelling around the country.

Happy to share any details on hotels, activities etc.

[disney_l81]

I've a friend who lives there- he has his own fishing business and does boat trips out to catch (and release) Marlin amongst other things. Ge is located in Quepos, which looks stunning- definition my bucket list.

[MENTALMUM]

Thanks everyone.
ali-s, your trip report is amazing, I don't even know where to begin with questions.
Olympiad, we are doing something similar I think, DH has booked, I just said yes to everything, it is his 60th after all so though he should choose what he wanted to do.