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List of TR's:
Fan Of Dan, BrooklynCPA, momo Part 1, momo Part 2, lechaim2life, eliteflyer, Pbaruch, Rcarentals (Guanacaste)

Bringing food/meat through the airports:
  • San Jose Airport SJO - customs are known to be ruthless here with meat. There are many stories in the forums and online of people having all their meats or kosher travel meals seized at customs.
  • Liberia LIR - Recent experiences were that LIR customs didn't check anyone at all.
The general advice which is the only method that seems to consistently work, is bringing in specifically USDA certified products. For example most hotdogs will have an actual USDA certification printed on the hotdog packet. Some companies like Teva, Agri in various supermarkets and most manufacturers have the USDA certification and approval number printed on the label. This is rarely the case for supermarkets who repackage and butcher things themselves and do not have a USDA-certified processing room.
There have been reports of stickers like the USDA organic stickers regularly used to label meats in supermarkets working as well if they look like THIS
In the most ideal world, your food has a clear description of: The product, the nutrition, and a USDA label on the manufacturer packaging.

In a worst case, food can be airshipped to anywhere for a fee - for example from one of the SJO kosher suppliers to Liberia for example the JW Marriott for around $400.

Kosher Food/ Restaurants:
  • SKCR/Super Kosher has takeout under the local Chabad rabbi.
  • The Israeli restaurant in Jaco may not be acceptable for many.  It is my understanding that while they get some meat/chicken from Chabad, they have no hashgacha.
  • Supermarket Automercado has pas yisroel bagels in the freezer per the Chabad rabbi in tamarindo - may or may not be tamarindo specific.
  • Walmart is 6 minutes from Liberia airport, and has tons of American, kosher products and snacks.

Synagogue:

Things to Do:

West side/Liberia

Hotels:
The JW Marriott Guanacaste has amazing suites. If you book there, it's worth speaking to the reservations department before or after to see if you can negotiate an upgrade for a small fee. They offered off the base room, an upgrade of $175 a night for a suite, or $200 for a suite with ocean view, and plunge pool.

Getting Around:
A 4 Wheel drive here is mandatory. Not just because the humidity and rain create muddy and slippery roads, but mainly because the potholes here, are really huge and bad, and your car needs clearance to drive... The roads in costa rica are absolutely terribly maintained. they are completely manageable with a SUV - but expect a ton of bumps and thousands of potholes - almost the entire country is made up of 2 lane roads including highways. All overtaking is done in the direction of opposing traffic. cars here are seriously used and abused - so when you pick up your car.. it's worth going for one with as low mileage as possible.


Notes:

ALL CAR COMPANIES CHARGE MANDATORY LIABILITY INSURANCE. This seems to be one of the biggest complaints from tourists who don't know and consider this a tourist trap - like Israel.
CDW here often REQUIRES the letter - more than Israel.. so have that prepared.


Author Topic: Costa Rica Master Thread  (Read 177472 times)

Offline mordechain

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #340 on: December 15, 2017, 10:32:43 AM »
No one?

Offline barak123

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #341 on: December 29, 2017, 07:41:54 AM »
What are top all inclusive and highly reccomended hotels in Costa Rica?

Great hotel with all inclusive. We also did surfing lessons there https://izusplace.com

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #342 on: December 29, 2017, 08:08:29 AM »
Great hotel with all inclusive. We also offer surfing lessons there https://izusplace.com
FTFY

Offline Yitzshpitz

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #343 on: December 29, 2017, 12:14:26 PM »
Whats the deal with Phone service in Costa rica? Will verizon/AT&T work? where would i get sims?

Offline Yitzshpitz

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #344 on: December 31, 2017, 06:39:57 PM »
Whats the deal with Phone service in Costa rica? Will verizon/AT&T work? where would i get sims?

bump. Please educate me , Im leaving next week

Offline BarryLincoln

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #345 on: December 31, 2017, 07:36:27 PM »
American family of 5 among 12 killed in Costa Rica plane crash, reports say

Appears that yidden from Scarsdale are among those killed...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/12/31/costa-rica-plane-crash-kills-12-including-10-visitors.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ten-americans-dead-plane-crashes-costa-rica-article-1.3729974
« Last Edit: December 31, 2017, 07:40:45 PM by BarryLincoln »

Online mochjas

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #346 on: December 31, 2017, 08:32:03 PM »
bump. Please educate me , Im leaving next week
you can call your provider and ask

Offline zagguru

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #347 on: December 31, 2017, 08:43:19 PM »

Offline mordechain

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #348 on: January 01, 2018, 02:14:15 AM »
I bought an ICE SIM card in the airport at San Jose. I don't remember the price but both calls and data were pretty cheap

Offline ludmila

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #349 on: January 01, 2018, 04:20:03 AM »
I was the Best,still the Best, and will always be the Best.
Pele Good,Maradona Better, George Best.

Offline nobiggy

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #350 on: January 01, 2018, 07:35:25 AM »
I bought an ICE SIM card in the airport at San Jose. I don't remember the price but both calls and data were pretty cheap
I did the same. Costs like 5 USD for like 500 MB. Of course one can buy more, I only used it for Internet.

Offline tzvicoco

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #351 on: May 25, 2018, 12:36:06 PM »
Planning a trip to Panama and CR in the summer, and for the CR portion, I'll be flying into and out of SJO. Landing in SJO Thursday night, so will spend Shabbos there, but then I've got Sunday-Wednesday evening to go to a different region. Any suggestions for where to go for 3.5 days of fun/adventurous activities? I was thinking Arenal, but open to other ideas.

Offline PBaruch

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #352 on: May 26, 2018, 10:49:57 PM »
Planning a trip to Panama and CR in the summer, and for the CR portion, I'll be flying into and out of SJO. Landing in SJO Thursday night, so will spend Shabbos there, but then I've got Sunday-Wednesday evening to go to a different region. Any suggestions for where to go for 3.5 days of fun/adventurous activities? I was thinking Arenal, but open to other ideas.

You can view my trip report from our recent trip. If you have any questions feel free to pm.

http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=90729.0
What do you do after your dreams come true?

Offline Jm1248

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Costa Rica Trip Report - Better Late Than Never!!
« Reply #353 on: June 24, 2018, 10:21:12 PM »
Aug 16 - 23, 2015

I wrote most of these notes during or right after my trip but never ended up posting it because I was hoping to do it with pics and all but kept pushing it off. I'm looking to go back to Costa Rica to visit the parts that I missed, so as I was re-reading this entire thread I figured I may as well post this now:

Background - Booked flights through someone's United travel bank here on DDF at a 15% discount so we paid about $935 for 2 flights that cost just north of $1100.

Sun - We Uber'ed to Newark at 5 am for $60 (after $20 discount). Went to United lounge in Newark as our flight was delayed about an hour. Flight was uneventful, however, when we landed we discovered United had left behind DW's suitcase, which had all her clothing and most of our food. Our meat for 2 BBQ's was in there etc. The guy by the baggage counter promised he would have it sent to our hotel later that night when it arrived. So we went through customs with our remaining suitcase and the customs agent combed through our bag and triumphantly pulled out a bag of cucumbers that we weren't allowed to bring. Thankfully, he missed our bag of chicken and some other food. We then rented a manual transmission mini jeep from Alamo with heavy fees (under 25 & mandatory liability). There are no street names or addresses in CR so we dropped pins everywhere to be able to return the car to the proper location. Then we settled in for an unbelievably scenic 2 and a half hour drive up to the cloud forest of Monteverde. The last 10 miles of driving are up an unpaved mountain and is nearly impossible to navigate without a jeep. Luckily our mini jeep was up to the task although it was very nerve wracking driving on the side of a cliff on an unpaved road especially when you have buses coming the opposite way! We arrived at our hotel (El Establo) and it was unreal. Way better than expected. Tremendous grounds. Very tastefully done buildings and rooms. We were upgraded to a honeymoon suite with an amazing view from our porch and a loft with a sitting area, beautiful bathroom and it was only about $130 a night! We just relaxed that night, took a little walk and drove to the supermarkets and souvenir shops. We didn't get our food yet so we had microwaveable meal mart meals for supper.

Mon - We woke up a little late and unfortunately our suitcase had still not arrived. I called United and they promised they would send it later that day. Our lens solution was in the delayed suitcase so we bought a little travel bottle. What we didn't know is that it was only meant for use with a special case and putting our lenses in felt like inserting jalapeno peppers under our eyelids. After washing out our eyes numerous times we went to the concierge and booked a zip lining tour for 12 pm. We then went to town to buy some clothing and souvenirs for which United would reimburse us as a travel expense due to losing our luggage. We got about $200 worth of free stuff including a hammock! (claimed as sneakers ;) We returned to our hotel and went to the amazing zip lining tour. The whole thing was about 2 hours after which we ate lunch and booked a horseback riding tour for 330 so we could catch the sunset at about 5.
The horse back riding was also really cheap - like everything else in Costa Rica - only $30 each for a 2 hour ride through the mountains. Really, really gorgeous especially once we hit sunset. It was a lot of fun also. We even got to gallop for a few minutes, although they don't normally allow that. Still no suitcase that night so we ate what we had with us.

Tues - We woke up to a great surprise - our suitcase! Only problem was all the meat, chicken, hot dogs cold cuts, cheese etc were completely spoiled and the whole suitcase stunk! So I called United to yell at them and they offered a $150 voucher which I said to send me but I still want to speak to a supervisor about further compensation. It was a rainy day so we cancelled our big hike in the national park and instead did what turned out to be a really cool hike on our hotels grounds. The day ended turning beautiful and the drive to Manuel Antonio was really nice. We stopped on the side of the road by a famous bridge where there are many crocodiles in the water underneath. Really cool. Then we found this random Israeli store with "kosher" food by Jaco Beach. Needless to say we did not eat there but it was an interesting place. We finished our 4 hour drive in Manuel Antonio by our awesome villa complete with furnished balconies to eat on and a private pool surrounded by rainforest trees and plants, and a hammock and lounge chairs outside the pool. It was on a private gated street that only us and the owner had access to. We made omelets and macaroni for supper as we were really starting to run out of food.

Wed - We went to the beach about 10 min from our villa. Gorgeous sunny beach with mafia style parking - guy "watches your car"  (read: doesn't break in) as long as you tip him after or book an activity through him. So we went surfing for 2 hours with a one hour lesson for $35 each!! We also saw a sloth in the trees behind the beach. We went for a night swim about 9 pm and then went to bed. In CR you need to always go to bed early so you can wake up early and have a full day before the rainstorms hit.

Thurs - We went to the national park in the morn which was pretty cool. We saw groups of howler monkeys and iguanas and lizards all over. Since we got there so early, we were done by like 12 so we went to the beach and went wave jumping for 2 hours. When we came back the guy "watching" our car said he saved our car from being broken into & showed us how the "perpetrators" tried getting in through the unlocked trunk! I didn't want to tip the thief so I just quickly drove away as I knew we weren't coming back to that beach. On the way home we saw tons of monkeys jumping in the trees and all over the telephone wires. We came back and went swimming in our sunny pool, ate some more omelets :), watched some tv and then we went out to find a bar or something. Its pretty dead there at night aside from one or two bars which were really sleazy and there wasn't even a movie theater, so we just stopped off on the side of the road to watch a local soccer game. When we came back to our car we realized we had parked in a spot by a drug dealer reserved for his customers! We realized when we saw people going into the forest one after another and coming out 3 min later!

Fri - We drove about 3 hours to San Jose and arrived at our hotel - Marriott Residence Inn around 3 pm. We went shopping in the mall that our hotel was in and checked out the area. We had to figure out the directions to chabad as there are no addresses. We ate the meal in the rabbis house and it was really nice with good food. When we got back to our hotel we realized we had forgot to turn on the ac but no one spoke English so it took about 20 min before they told us the technician had already left and the temperature controls couldn't be unlocked without him.

P.S. We ended up receiving $205 from United for expense reimbursement and an additional $400 compensation voucher. We also got $125 from chase as we had booked the flight on a chase United card and we got our entire Marriott stay refunded due to the a/c debacle.

Offline tzvicoco

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #354 on: June 26, 2018, 01:07:18 PM »
Do I need to get an SUV w/ 4wd for the roads around Arenal/La Fortuna/Rio Celeste?

And is Waze sufficient for navigation or do I need to get the rental car navigation system?

Offline PBaruch

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #355 on: June 26, 2018, 06:20:53 PM »
Do I need to get an SUV w/ 4wd for the roads around Arenal/La Fortuna/Rio Celeste?

And is Waze sufficient for navigation or do I need to get the rental car navigation system?

We used Google maps on phone and it worked great.
What do you do after your dreams come true?

Offline mordechain

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #356 on: June 26, 2018, 09:52:38 PM »
For Arenal and La Fortuna I was perfectly ok in a corolla

Offline Jm1248

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #357 on: June 26, 2018, 10:06:14 PM »
I am looking into going back to Costa Rica this summer. Last time I visited, I stayed in Monteverde, Quepos/Manuel Antonio, and San Jose. What are my best options for this time around - I am thinking that I should go to Arenal, Guanacaste etc... What should my itinerary look like if I am flying in on a Sunday and leaving on Thursday?

Offline guywhican

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #358 on: July 26, 2018, 01:12:56 PM »
My family is looking to do 10 night trip to both Panama and Costa Rica in January.  Want to use an up-to-7-night Marriott Vacation package hotel voucher.  Which hotel would it make sense to stay at:
- must be a home base for day trips (beach, rainforest, hiking, etc)
- must be walking distance to shul

Thank you.

Offline chompsterama

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Re: Costa Rica Master Thread
« Reply #359 on: September 06, 2018, 02:19:07 PM »
Perhaps you already booked (I'm a bit late here), but use the filter function here.  It'll give you all sorts of ideas on which you can and might want to book.  https://www.marriott.com/hotel-search.mi?filterApplied=true&filter=false