Trip to Costa Rica

Costa Rica | Mar 13 - Mar 20, 2018

Costa Rica is a beautiful country with extremely welcoming and genuinely nice people. Overall we had a nice vacation in Costa Rica but mostly because we were able to roll with the things we found disappointing. We found that all the tours/adventures booked for us by Randall were excellent. The tour guides were extremely knowledgeable and the tours/adventures themselves were well executed. The guides were always on time and went out of their way to be welcoming.

The accommodations were from OK to terrible. The Country Inn in San Jose was fine. There was no real restaurant to have dinner at night. The casino next door that did have dinner, was not an appropriate place to have my young son visit.

The hotel in La Fortuna, was serviceable. We did not enjoy the bunkhouse feel of the room. Although the grounds were nice, the hotel room was just ok. Again, there was no restaurant for dinner and we had to walk to town in the dark when we arrived, not knowing where we were going.

Finally, the hotel in Puerto Viejo, the Cariblue, was terrible. Even though we switched rooms, the second room had roaches, had a shower that didn't drain well, curtains that didn't provide privacy and was generally built with old shoddy materials. It was really depressing. And although it had views of the ocean, they were across a busy road with loud motorcycles, construction trucks and other vehicles. It was very loud all night. We did call Coast to Coast about our disappointment, but nothing was done. We felt trapped and frustrated.

I have to say that in my dealings with Randall prior to our trip, I felt he tried very hard to meet our expectations for our trip. However, we obviously were not on the same page (with him or Kim Kim) regarding what I wanted for our vacation in terms of accommodations and beach feel. We expected to stay at much higher quality hotels, like at the Tabacon where we enjoyed the hot springs. And, the Caribbean side was not what I was looking for during the "beach" portion of our vacation. We found the Caribbean much more suited to the "surfer" crowd and was not appropriate for the family vacation we wanted. It was a real party scene and not the tranquil wide open beaches we were hoping to relax on. Most of our tour guides told us that that would be found on the Pacific side. We were really upset that we spent most of our time on the Caribbean. Also we also did not realize that we would be in a van for over 12 hours (at least 4 hours through a congested commercial area that was not very attractive) getting from one location to another. I wished that had been made clear.

In terms of our dealings with Coast to Coast in Costa Rica, I have mixed reviews. Our driver, Jose, was always on time, was very knowledgeable and stopped at restaurants he knew along the way for lunch/snacks. We really appreciated that. However, we did not enjoy being in his older, loud van for 8 hours. We also found him to be an aggressive driver and he seemed upset when we told him to be more careful. We also found him moody, especially after the trip back to San Jose, after we had complained about our hotel to Randall. This made for an unpleasant ride back.

I put the blame on Kim Kim, Coast to Coast and myself for not discerning or appropriately communicating what we were getting/asking for. You should let your customers know that you provide middle of the road accommodations for a middle market. I will not recommend any of your companies to my friends.

Debra Hernandez