Originally Posted by
duketaylor
Considering a vacation to celebrate graduation of our kids. Looking for help. Thanks in advance.
First of all, great choice! I took my family to CR on Spring Break a few years ago and it was one of the best choices we made. Costa Rica is really split into two vacation sections - the dry area by the ocean and the wet area by the Arenal volcano, which is the largest volcano in the country. Many people spend some time in each but we spent our entire vacation by the ocean. Depending on the time of year, you should check because certain times of year you will have a good amount of rain at Arenal. By land size, CR has the most volcanoes of any country in the world so even if you stay by the ocean there are excursions to small volcanoes.
We stayed in Guanacaste at the all-inclusive Hotel Riu Palace Costa Rica. Great staff, wonderful hotel, and I highly recommend it. Note that it sits right next to the Hotel Riu Guanacaste, which is owned by the same company, but I heard is a bit run down, although I did not see inside so I can't confirm. Don't be confused - they are two distinct hotels even though the names are so similar.
No matter which part of CR you stay, or if you decide to spend a few days in each, the benefit of the country are all of the excursions you can do. We left the hotel a few times to do horseback riding, ATV riding, zip lines, natural hot springs and mud baths, and even went to a place where they rescue monkeys. One excursion had a water slide down a volcano that took about 15 minutes to walk up and a good 3-5 minutes to go down. My kids (at the time 12 and 15) loved it.
Every day at about 3pm at the hotel the entertainment staff came out and tried to get kids involved with different games and tournaments (ping pong, pool volleyball, etc.). My son can be a challenge and gets bored easily, but between the excursions and the pool activities, he was always occupied and by bed time he was exhausted. The hotel also has several restaurants that you need to make reservations for for dinner, as well as the main buffet. I thought the food was fine, but not winning any awards. Pretty much what you'd expect from an all inclusive. There's also evening entertainment every night, but we were mostly too tired and went to bed.
Ping me directly if you want more info. As you can tell, I highly recommend the country and the vacation.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016