March break was rapidly approaching and the hubs and I had 2 weeks vacation to kill by the end of March, so at the end of January, I began to frantically plan... a wonderful trip to Australia with very detail finalized in a weeks time only to go and book the flights and see they increased 2 fold. Scratch that, now where to growth a 5 year old in tow that meets the following checklist:
Must be warm (as it is freezing still in Ottawa right now 7C/46F)
Must have beaches
Must have adventure
Would like some animals (as our Australia trip with promises of koalas and kangaroos fell through)
Not crazy expensive to plan 30 days out
I used google flight planner (best tool ever) and put in the dates I wanted to go, then our home airport, Ottawa, and began moving around the map to view various prices, Costa Rica was the lucky winner!!!
As this was a long trip with so many activities, I will break this into 4 posts... the booking info with the itinerary overview, then a post for each region to dive back down into the details!
Itinerary:
Day 1: Fly into San Jose - Drive 9pm, pick up rental car and stay at airport hotel (not trusting to drive 5 hours at night in a foreign country).
Day 2: Drive 5 hours north to Guanacaste
Day 2-7: Stay at @JWMarriottGuanacaste
Day 7: Drive 4.5 hours east to La Fortuna/Arenal Volcano area
Day 7-11: Stay @CasaDelRio
Day 11: Drive 5.5 hours south-west to Manual Antonio
Day 11-14: Stay @HotelLaPlayaandEspadilla
Day 14: Drive 3 hours north-east back to San Jose airport (chose a later afternoon flight with a layover in Newark) landed 8pm New Jersey time which was 6pm our time, stayed at airport Marriott
Day 15:Back to airport at 6:30am for 8:40am flight back to Ottawa, back in our own home by 11am with the rest of the day to relax and decompress.
Car Rentals in Costa Rica...
I had done a lot of research re: car rentals in Costa Rica and heard horror stories. Many agencies quote one price and you show up and they tack on required insurances. I thought I did everything right, I called the car rental (EuropaCar) and they validated as long as I had a letter from my credit card company validating they cover insurance on loss/theft and damage I would not need the additional. The initial rental was through Economy Car Rentals, and then they pair to the actual car rental place and I had chose Economy because it said they covered the third party liability, so would I then had all 3 coverages covered. WRONG and lied too! I show up at 9 at night (11 our time) exhausted only to be told it was another $600. I fought like hell, showed all the required docs, told them about the call and no dice. They said the third partly liability from Economy Car Rentals was only basic and I had to get full. It was for 2 weeks and this brought the total to $900 so it was not bad, was even the same as the quote from Adobe which I have heard is totally upfront, but it was the principle. I was tired and over it so I paid and we left.
Costa Rica 1, Family 0
Rental was @Europacar and I will say the customer service during the ordeal was HORRIBLE!!!! SO RUDE and I will never rent through them or Economy Car Rental again.
I highly recommend Adobe and heard AVIS was great too! Just be prepared!
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