Costa Rica Trip Experience

Dates: July 14-19
Hotel: Andaz Costa Rica Resort at Peninsula Papagayo
Airline: United
On the Trip: Me, my wife, and our 11-y/o daughter

Pre-Trip:

You have to buy insurance, and I don't mean travel insurance. You have to buy a specific type of insurance specifically related to COVID. If you go with the companies based in CR, then you can get away with getting only $20,000 worth of medical coverage. If you go outside of CR, then you need to get a minimum of $50,000. We went a CR company, Sagicor, and for the three of us it cost a total of roughly $200. Below is what you get for the $200.

Coverage Summary (per person)

Medical Expense, including medication: $20,000.
Lodging expenses due to Sanitary Isolation: $4,000 (max. $300 per day).
Sanitary/Funerary Repatriation: $18,000.
Pre-existing condition medical expense: $300.
Loss of Passport: $100.

You do NOT need to take a COVID test to get in to CR, but you do have to fill out a Health Pass inside of 72 hours of entry. It needs to be filled out for each person going, and you have to enter the policy number of your COVID insurance from above. Once you do this, you will be emailed a QR code for each person. You will have to show this to customs in CR.


Trip:

I booked everything with points through Amex and the best option was United. As for the flight down, everything was pretty easy. Arrived at ABIA 3-hours prior to departure and it took about 30-minutes to get through check-in and security.

From there it was a quick 40-minute flight to Houston, a quick 45-minute layover, and then about 3.5 hours to Liberia (Daniel Oduber International Airport). It's a small airport.

Customs

It was a bit of a shite-show. There weren't many agents at stations, so it took us about an hour to get through. Once at an agent, they wanted to see passports (obviously), your Health Pass QR code(s), proof of COVID insurance, and your travel itinerary. I had everything printed out so just gave the agent a folder with everything he needed.

Transportation:

We booked a private shuttle ahead of time, which made it nice and easy once we grabbed our bags and gout out of the airport. The normal guy with our last name was waiting and after a 30-minute ride in a nice, clean, air-conditioned van...we arrived at the property.

Hotel:

To describe the hotel, you have to start with the Peninsula Papagayo. It's a massive gated property that is home to Andaz, Four Seasons, Inspirato homes, and other private residences. Once on the property, you then go through another gate to get into the Andaz, so you definitely getting a feeling the property is safe, but I didn't get the feeling at all on the drive there was anything to worry about.

There are normally three restaurants on the property, but during our stay only two were open (Chao Pescao and Rio Bhongo), as the other was undergoing renovations...supposedly. Both were open for dinner, but Chao was definitely the "nicer" option for dinner (it was not open for lunch or breakfast). It's a tapas style with dishes from Central and South America. The food was great and they have live music every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night. Rio Bhongo was the breakfast and lunch place - it was fine, nothing awesome.

We decided to have dinner at the Four Seasons our last two nights. First, as a family, we tried Pesce, an Italian place that was pretty good with a nice selection of fish and meat. Second, just the wife and I went to La Reserva - it's a Latin American rum bar, but also another Tapas place. Oddly, it was the only restaurant we ate at the entire time that was entirely enclosed with A/C, and we were the ONLY people in there eating and drinking. No idea why nobody else was partaking, but it wound-up being a nice experience for us, as we had the place to ourselves.

The Andaz also normally has three different pool areas but, again, only two were open. I think the closures of the other restaurant and pool were due to slower-than-normal bookings. The one that was closed is typically the adults only pool, so they made one of the others adults only, and the other more "family". We had no issues with our kid, as she had a great time in the pool and made a couple of friends over the days we were there - it was nice that another family from Austin was there with a daughter the same age.

There's also a nice spa on the property. I got a 1.5 hour massage that was great, and then enjoyed the steam room and plunge pool after.

The property also has two beach areas - one is a shuttle or boat ride away (The Andaz Beach House) where they have a restaurant, along with a bunch of different activities (snorkeling, jet ski, lounge chairs, etc. The other beach area is "on the property" just walking distance from the pool area and had access to the same activities as the Beach House (just no restaurant as the Rio Bhongo was walking distance away.

The hotel offers a bunch of activities for kids and ours did a three hour canoe tour through the mangroves and bay around the property where her and a couple other kids got to see some nurse sharks, crocodiles, monkeys, and other wildlife.

The wife and I did an hour long mixology class that was pretty cool as we got to taste a bunch of local ingredients and alcohols they use to make drinks there. We also got to select from everything and make a couple of our own drinks.

Our room was great, but like most of our vacations...the room is really just where the clothes are kept and where we sleep, but it was nice and had a great view of the bay.

Four Seasons - along with a couple dinners, the Four Seasons also runs the golf course on property. The Ocean Course at Peninsula Papagayo was in great shape and had some amazing views from a bunch of holes. You can rent clubs and shoes from there - I took them up on the club rental as I didn't want to drag my shite down there, but I brought my own shoes...I wasn't going to rent shoes.

Getting Back:

Within 72-hours of heading back you have to get tested. The Andaz had a room setup on the property for us to take our tests and we had our results back that night after taking them around 11:30 AM that morning. Through United, I had to upload the documents received from the testing center. I then printed out those same documents at the hotel so I had them ready to show anyone that needed to see them at the airport. As it turns out - only the airline looked at them, but they still needed to see them even after uploading them in their system.

Getting back in country was painless in Houston as we have Global Entry.

You may notice we did not do any jungle excursions, volcano tours, zip-lining, etc. That was on purpose as all we really wanted to do on this trip was relax, and we did just that. We loved CR and are already looking forward to getting back...to do the other things we didn't do on this one.

Pura Vida!

The Lobby:



From the Room:



From the Golf Course:





From Andaz Beach Club:




From Chao Pescao:



Our Mixology Class:



Monkeys!