Luxury Costa Rica Vacation Review: San Jose, Manuel Antonio National Park, Arenal Ziplining, Drake Bay Fishing, Zapote Festival

If I knew then what I know now, I would have planned it myself and probably saved a decent amount of money (for example, Drake Bay Wilderness Resort offered either a 10% or 20% discount for cash paying customers. If we had set it up ourselves, we would have found that out and saved $400 on just those accommodations). But I didn't know then what I know now, so at the end of the day it helped having our travel agency.

My biggest complaint and what I would have changed is I would have only spent one day in San Jose. Maybe it was the Christmas holiday? Maybe San Jose just doesn't have much to offer? Either way, it was easily the worst part of the trip. What is annoying is that we explained to our agency that we wanted to be in San Jose just long enough to see the bullfighting at the Zapote festival, yet they had us in San Jose for two nights with the understanding we couldn't see the bullfighting til the night after Christmas (Day 2 of our trip). Well it turns out the bullfighting was available on Christmas Day, and that's when we saw it. We couldn't find anything about timing out from the States, so we were relying on our agency's expertise in country, which apparently wasn't very accurate. Overall we still had a great trip, but this definitely resulted in a lost day for us.

Travel Company's Comments

Dear Clinton,

I appreciated your taking the time to write a review in Zicasso and was happy to hear that, overall, you had a great trip to Costa Rica. 

However,  I was disappointed to read that you were not 100% happy with the services we provided for you.  Our company has been in business for over 25 years, and we work very hard to give all our clients individual attention and care.

You might remember that you booked your trip very late, and hotels were filling up fast (many were already completely full!).  We used our contacts in Costa Rica to find available space for you, but as I explained to you, there were not a lot of options, and you made it clear that you did not wish to spend a lot of money on the hotels, so the options we found seemed pretty ideal.  

In the case of Drake Bay, you got the very last room they had available.  They might have given you a discount had you shown up to the hotel and paid in cash (we have no control over how a hotel wishes to run their payments for walk in clients), but they required a 100% pre-payment, so I am not sure that you would want to travel in Costa Rica over the holidays without a guaranteed reservation!

I did advise that we do not recommend 2 nights in San Jose, but you had requested we book the first 2 nights there so you could participate in the Zapote festival.  You asked us for a lot of information about that free day in San Jose, and we did sent you numerous communications about the festival before you traveled, although your visit to the Zapote festival was arranged on your own and we did not provide any services for this.  I feel it is unfair to say the information we gave you wasn’t very accurate – it was provided by our manager in San Jose, who has lived there his entire life.   Like many festivals around the world, the schedule is something that may evolve before the festival begins and often is not published but passed around by word of mouth.    

Travel agents and tour operators make travel easier for our clients.  We have years of firsthand experience in the countries we operate in, and we try hard to keep up-to-date with changes in accommodations and tours.  We want to lessen the stress that sometimes goes along with travel.  I understand, though, that some people prefer to plan their trips by themselves.  I enjoyed working with you, and I wish you well with your future travels.