We are thinking about going for our honeymoon. We have the itnerary and everything, and at this point we are pretty excited.

I would just like to hear from others what their experiences were like. Anybody out there?

9/26/2006 1:31:59 PM

I was just there this summer.

It was totally awesome.

Search The Lounge, there are many threads about this already.

Enjoy!

9/26/2006 1:32:40 PM

well, I didnt think to search because I didnt recall anyone going, and I didnt think it was that popular of a locale

9/26/2006 1:33:38 PM

you kiddin' me? it's pretty much America's playground. I saw more foreigners than locals on my trip.

9/26/2006 1:34:29 PM

my cousin went with her school and their group discovered a new species of butterfly...YEP...NEW FRICKIN SPECIES AND SHIT

an old elementary school friend is supposedly living down there right now

a few others have been on either vacation or surfing trips

you know what you need to do thought right...MEET A SLOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 1:44 PM. Reason : ]

9/26/2006 1:43:35 PM

I went for my bar trip in August, 2005. Despite traveling during the rainy season I had a great time. We visited San Juan, Drake Bay (Corcavado National Park), Monteverde (Cloud Forest), La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano.

Arenal was the first volcano I have seen erupt in person...really amazing. But my favorite place was Jinetes de Osa resort in Drake Bay. To get there we had to fly a 6-seat prop plane, land on a dirt airstrip that floods during rainy season, then forge a river in a SUV but it was well worth it. The resort is out of the way and serene, and it a short boat trip from Corcavado and Cano Island.

9/26/2006 1:51:15 PM

I'm supposed to go at some point. One of out outsource centers is there, and i'm in charge of them from a technical standpoint.

9/26/2006 2:04:56 PM

if sloths are your thing, there is a sloth reserve on the carribean coast (below La Fortuna). It was awesome, and you even get to hold them + take pictures with em. They have babies + adults + lots of freak deformed ones.

9/26/2006 2:39:22 PM

PM humandrive, he goes every year. We're going for winter break.

9/26/2006 2:59:33 PM

movin down there in about a year

9/26/2006 4:49:16 PM

Caribbean or Pacific Coast?

Pacific (in my experience) is much more scenic. Suggest Manuel Antonio, Mal Pais and Dominical as places to visit. Transportation is rough down there...you can either rent and drive (very expensive), fly (expensive) or take the chicken buses around. Seeing as this will be a honeymoon, I suggest steering clear of the chicken buses.

Pilsen beer is good.

9/26/2006 5:07:20 PM

Go to La Fortuna...its a wonderful small town in the mountain region

It is right at Volcan Arenal and that creates wonderful, natural hotsprings

9/26/2006 5:12:31 PM

we will have a driver provided for us

so far, we will be staying for about three nights in the Arenal area, then 3 nights in Manuel Antonio, and a day or two to goof off.

Im thinking about adding a package for the Cloud City...I want to go ziplining through the canopy

9/26/2006 5:39:43 PM

They actually sell canned rum and coke. Mmm.

^for our trip we're doing Arenal and a canopy tour, also a horseback ride through the rainforest. Rapelling down a waterfall, and of course surfing and snorkeling, the usual tourist stuff. I highly recommend the Frommer's guide to Costa Rica, it's GREAT and we booked most of our stuff through their recommendations. When are you going?

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 7:49 PM. Reason : merf]

9/26/2006 7:48:12 PM

9/26/2006 9:18:03 PM

We are going in April

I picked up Fodor's guide, and its being arranged through AAA. So far we are doing Arenal, a canopy tour, and will probably go whitewater rafting in Manuel Antonio.

How well will we need to know Spanish?

9/28/2006 3:42:37 PM

not at all

tourism is one of their biggest industries -- everyone speaks english

9/28/2006 4:08:21 PM

Exactly. If you try to speak Gringo Spanish you'll probably get laughed at. They know that if they want your money, they'll speak English. Economic Darwinism.

Canopy tours are usually a fun time. Make sure you go with someone reputable--some of these tours have sketchy equipment.

9/28/2006 5:18:15 PM

We went in Oct 2004 for our honeymoon - it was awesome. Highly recommended.
here's our pictures - http://www.thalions.com/gallery-wedding2/honeymoon
you can follow through the album captions of where we went, including San Jose, Arenal, and Manuel Antonio.

we booked the trip though - http://www.costaricabureau.com/
they were excellent. the lady we worked with, Ines Silva, was outstanding - she took care of everything. We just told her what we were interested in based on the website, she gave us several iteneraries, revised based on our feedback, then booked everything for us. We just bought our plane tickets, flew down there, were picked up by a chartered car and we met Ines at the offices. She gave us a book of vouchers that covered everything for a week except spending money and gas, some maps and instructions, and the keys to our rental RAV4 and we were off on our own for 8 days. It was great because while it wasn't a "packaged tour" on a bus or with a group of other tourists, we didn't really have to do any preparation because they found everything for us.

let me know if you want any mroe details.

9/28/2006 5:38:05 PM

^nice photo gallery

9/28/2006 7:25:31 PM

^I think I meant Fodor...not Frommer...err.

You ought to be juuuuust avoiding the rainy season.

9/28/2006 8:35:37 PM

bttt

5/20/2009 4:33:39 PM

thanks for the bump, i got some questions later tonight ill post when i get home from work

5/20/2009 5:41:48 PM

i went in dec. 2007...spent a day and a half on the east, went to a coffee plantation and then went to the west coast which was awesome....manuel antonio is highly recommended....i saw both a two toed and a three toed sloth (which was my goal for the entire trip).....we also saw scarlet mccaws just out and about flying around...it was quite amazing.....


we also did a tour of the rain forest canopy (not the repelling, but just walking to rope bridges, which i think is much better if you actually want to take the time and see anything versus flying by it in a blurr).

i definately recommend the west coast if you go...alot more nature-y stuff.

[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 7:51 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2009 7:50:06 PM

^you ever check out the sloth at the museum of NS?

5/20/2009 9:35:02 PM

The treetop canopy tour is cool.

Also agree with the Pacific coast.

5/20/2009 10:23:11 PM

alright. So the girl and I are going on our honeymoon to Costa Rica. The dates right now are ~Dec 26th-Jan 4th. Just past the rainy season and we'll be there over New Years. She has family friends that live in a big house in San Jose who are going to let us stay with them some while we are there. They will be there most of the time, but won't be a few days but we'll have the keys to their place.

So we know that we'll be staying there for several days on the trip as a base and hopefully San Jose is a fairly safe place to walk around during the day and all. We plan to spend a couple days at a beach as well. It looks like there are some nice beaches in the central pacific area. I was kinda thinking We could go to a beach around the 30th (maybe see Manuel Antonio while we are on the coast), have the full 31st at a beach just relaxing and be there for new years eve and then leave the beach sometime on the 1st.

I also know we'd like to visit Volcano Arenal while we are on this trip. Any suggestions overall are accepted but here are a few direct questions to start:

1) Are places like Volcano Arenal able to be made into a day trip from San Jose? Its only about 60 miles NW. I know travel there isnt as quick as 60 miles would be here, but it seems reasonable to me but that is a totally uninformed guess on my part.

2) What beaches would be awesome to consider going to stay at for New Years? Mainly looking for an aesthetically pleasing beach that we could simply relax at. We'd probably try and find a nice place to eat around there too for new years. As I mentioned earlier, I was kinda thinking we could hit up Manuel Antonio while we were around the beaches). I saw a few other suggestions in this thread for pacific coast destinations.

3) what method of transportation is best from say san jose to the volcano or to the pacific coast. not looking to fly. I know they have super cheap kinda sketch buses but I was under the impression they had a lot nicer buses too if you were willing to pay a little more. I guess renting a car is an option but im not that thrilled about driving around there.

4) anyone know any good latin music places in San Jose?

5) any spots that are a must see in San Jose period?

I'm sure I'll think of more later. Not sure if we are going to set this stuff up on our own or have someone help us book stuff yet.

5/20/2009 11:32:35 PM

Quote :

"my cousin went with her school and their group discovered a new species of butterfly...YEP...NEW FRICKIN SPECIES AND SHIT an old elementary school friend is supposedly living down there right now a few others have been on either vacation or surfing trips you know what you need to do thought right...MEET A SLOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

WTF?!? I don't see the relevance here. And WTF are you talking about???

5/21/2009 3:13:24 AM

^that post was from 2 and a half years ago

[Edited on May 21, 2009 at 4:05 AM. Reason : js]

5/21/2009 4:01:51 AM

^ Oh! Well, still....bears no relevance. But thanks for "just saying".

5/21/2009 2:23:11 PM

I'm going this summer with my wife - she's already been. Can't wait!

5/21/2009 2:26:55 PM

my one word of advice is to not leave stuff in your car (if you rent one), whether it's visible or not. i got robbed in San Juan and it sucked.

other than that, my trip to Costa Rica was one of the best trips i've ever been on.

5/21/2009 3:01:30 PM

awesome. and im still not sure what we are doing for transportation there yet, we'll have to figure that out.

5/21/2009 3:18:31 PM

i think this guy has been:

5/21/2009 4:22:52 PM

5/21/2009 4:27:42 PM

^^^ i just rented a car from a small random place. cost me $18/day. when i returned it with a broken window i just gave the guy $20 and he called it even.

5/21/2009 5:51:51 PM

we rented a little car on our honeymoon - a Rav-4 or CRV or something like that, and it was great. it was really, really nice to have a car of our own where we could make our own schedule and travel whenever and wherever we please. It was easy enough to drive through the cities, and the small roads between the towns were fun to drive on, and we even did some accidental off-roading when I got lost.

I got a speeding ticket, and when I turned the car in I just paid $40 or whatever to the rental place, and they took care of the actual ticket. no problems. When we picked up the car, they said if you get a ticket, under no circumstances pay the cops - just take the ticket, don't pay anything, then let the rental agency take care of it.

5/21/2009 6:01:48 PM

Quote :

"I'm supposed to go at some point. One of out outsource centers is there, and i'm in charge of them from a technical standpoint."

hahahahhahaa

so this never ended up happening. This is a case of our own video conferencing technology screwing me over.

5/22/2009 7:41:44 AM

Three words: BOT FLY LARVAE

5/22/2009 9:16:02 AM

bttt

9/3/2009 1:52:19 AM

going to costa rica in late october!

staying here:
http://www.costaricavillas.com/villas/mariposa.htm

can't wait!

9/3/2009 7:38:45 AM

I am so jealous! That place is cute. I'll have to stay on the Pacific side next time I go. Do you think you'll make it out to Arenal while you're there?

9/3/2009 8:08:10 AM

i still need to plan for my trip in December We've had the plane tickets for awhile tho so at least that is settled haha

9/3/2009 8:22:04 AM

that reminds me, i still need to book tickets.

9/3/2009 9:43:20 AM

so i'm going to costa rica at the end of october with the gf for 5 nights and we are trying to figure out where we should stay and how we should prioritize activiites. we were thinking either somewhere on the pacific coast or near aranel but were planning on staying in the general area of our hotel as we wanted to avoid wasted days travelling. any suggestions on where to stay (areas or specific hotels) as well as general advice would be much appreciated.

thanks!

9/3/2009 10:28:33 AM

wow, you and Bobby both going in late October...ours was going to be late October as well, but as I said we booked for December instead. Would have been funny to meet up with some TWW people in Costa Rica ha.

9/3/2009 11:01:13 AM

I went there a few years ago. It's all around awesome. I've got stories but I'm not about to type that much. Went deep sea fishing, took a jungle tour, went gambling, talked to prostitutes .

9/3/2009 11:04:01 AM

^^

haha considering i've rarely met random TWWers in raleigh, it would have been pretty fucking hilarious to run in to TWWers in a different country.

9/3/2009 11:47:17 AM

haha exactly. 99% of the TWWers ive ever seen outside of here were ones I already knew before TWW

9/3/2009 12:02:53 PM

I went last december to paradisus resort on the pacific coast, it was honestly one of the best times of my life.

9/4/2009 3:56:39 AM