Costa Rica for Rookies

[sleepymedic1]

Beef is quite a bit more expensive in the little grocery store in Manuel Antonio from what i remember from a few years ago. There are a few secluded beaches that were great. The national forest tour or whatever they call it was really cool with a guide. Zipline trip was cool but wore my *** out. Fishing offshore was amazing out of Quepos. Im 6'3" and was stopped by locals to take pictures with them, kinda weird.

[dosrobles]

I know I am late to the party but we used a company called Costa Rica Vacations that we found on the net and it was a fantastic experience. They charge the hotels and vendors so it doesn’t cost you a thing and everything they had us set up to do was awesome

[Capt Glenn]

Awesome info! I’m scared we didn’t book long enough. We are only doing five days. I was curious about the beers down there and what was offered and what it was comparable to.

The beer selection is limited. At least is seemed to be the times I was down there. We usually just ended up drinking Imperial which is probably their most popular beer and there are 3 varieties of it. There are a couple other brands that we tried, I think Bavaria and Pilsen or something like that. They are nothing special, any of the ones we tried. They aren't bad but at the same time I didn't come home and try to find a source for them here. Pretty much in the same vein as your run of the mill big name beers here. I am sure if you ask around you can find imported beer too. It wasn't a big deal to us so we just bought Imperial and were all fine with it.

[JES]

Just saying the cost were comparable to US cost, some a little higher. We bought food/beverages from the super markets around town and they were not any less than US stores. All the fun stuff cost money and the restaurants (non sodas) were comparable to the US. Still had a blast, no complaints here.

This is consistent to what we experienced as well.

[Capt Glenn]

I'd tell you go eat breakfast at one of the little sodas. Very inexpensive and a great breakfast to start your day.

We ate at cheap places, mid-priced places and one really expensive place and we got great meals at all of them. Trip Advisor will steer you right on places to eat. There are tons of options. We ate several meals at the Runaway Grill in the marina. You can take them fish and have them prepare it for you. We took them tuna, dorado, snapper and grouper at different times and had dinner there. It was great. We'd drop the fish off when we got off the boat and then would head back to the house to swim, cool off, clean up and then we'd head back to the marina for dinner in time to watch the sun set. It was affordable and the food, drinks and service were great.

On one of our trips we had our extended family on my wife's side with us and we rented a huge house. One night we had a chef come in and cook for us. He prepared mahi and tuna that we caught and did an excellent job. I think we set that up through our rental property concierge. We had folks doing all kinds of activities that trip. I go to fish so I don't care about the rest of it but they went to the park for a tour, did a spice farm tour, went ziplining, did a watefall tour, and probably some other stuff. We all did an ATV ride and I have to say it was the only thing I didn't care for that I took part in. Very dusty and was a ride through a big date palm farm, across a stream, up a hill and back. Not a huge deal. The kids did love it because they got to drive their own atvs. I would have rather stayed at the house and hung out in the pool. All the other activities got huge thumbs ups from the participants. Well, we did a half day afternoon inshore fishing trip and it kinda sucked. I wanted to catch a rooster fish. We spent half the time catching bait and then the captain told me it was the wrong time of year for roosters on the beachfront. We caught a couple small ones and some mackeral and trash fish. It was ok but was definitely a tourist trip, not a quality fishing trip.

Good luck and have fun! It is a great place to vacation. I can't wait to get back down there. I keep saying next time I am going to go for a longer stay and spend more time just relaxing and exploring.

[Lungbuster13]

I didn't realize how popular of an area that is. There has been some very useful information here. I really appreciate all the insight fellas.