Costa Rica With Kids (Part I): Why Costa Rica and Booking Logistics

For years, I have heard amazing stories of friends traveling to Costa Rica as the ultimate adventure destination but as someone who generally shies away humidity and bugs, I’ve never been particularly interested in traveling to Costa Rica. I’m also not one who loves heights, so zip lining (which seems to be Costa Rica’s number one adventure activity) is not something that would be enticing.

Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua, Panama, and ocean.

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A few years ago, however, reviews started popping up about the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo (or “Andaz Papagayo” for short) as the ultimate couples destination.  Instead of touting horseback riding, zip lining and surfing, the reviews of the Andaz suggested stunning views, impeccable service, and relaxation — all of which I can get totally be on board with. Although my husband and I briefly explored the possibility of visiting the Andaz as a babymoon in 2014, the lack of economical flights to Liberia (the airport closest to the Andaz) quickly eliminated it as an option. Over the years however, I’ve read a number of reviews from other travel bloggers who have traveled to the Andaz Papagayo, heartily recommending it not only as a vacation destination, but as a family vacation destination. Suffice it to say, my interest in Costa Rice stemmed almost 95% from my desire to experience the Andaz Papagayo and Costa Rica quickly rose to the top of our “to visit” list.

Booking Flights:

Last August, I received an email alerting me to a flight deal from DC to LIR for less than $400 per  person. A quick call to my husband and less than an hour later, I found myself in possession of four roundtrip reservations to the Costa Rica for the Spring of 2018 for under $1,600 for our family of four.

To take advantage of the deal, however, we had to book two separate one way plane tickets: (1) United from Reagan Airport to Liberia and (2) Copa Airlines from Liberia back to Dulles Airport. The flight to Liberia necessitated a four hour layover in Houston, which I wasn’t thrilled about, and I didn’t appreciate that our return flight was to Dulles Airport, which is about an hour away from our house (instead of a quick 15 minutes from our house to Reagan Airport), and that it would land at midnight. Despite the less than ideal flight routing, the affordability of the flights was a definitely plus, so we went ahead and booked.

Unfortunately, circumstances changed and my husband was not able to travel with the rest of the family to Costa Rica! Instead, he would be flying to/from Los Angeles instead. I briefly considered scrapping the entire trip when this complication arose, but over Christmas, we booked him a separate roundtrip flight from LAX to Liberia on United using points.

Pro Tip: My husband’s newly booked flight had him departing the night before our original departure time, arriving in Costa Rica nine hours before our original arrival time. As our four outgoing tickets were originally booked on United, I feared that having two reservations in his name would cause an automatic system cancellation. Knowing that he would be en route by the time the boys and I showed up to begin our trip, I called United and had them bifurcate his ticket from our reservation so that the boys and I would not have to worry about automatic cancellation of our entire reservation. The United agent I spoke with confirmed that this would have been an issue had I not called, and all she had to was split his ticket off our original reservation and then cancel his flight. Although the agent noted that the original fare could be used for a future flight, she also noted that because our original ticket was so inexpensive (less than $125 for a single one-way trip on United from Reagan to Liberia), it was not worthwhile to attempt to use it since it would necessitate a $200 change fee. Regardless, I was happy to have taken care of this in advance as the last thing I wanted was to show up at the airport and find that our entire reservation had been cancelled due to the logistical issues requiring a new ticket for my husband.

Booking Accommodations:

Almost immediately after I booked our flights to Liberia, I went to book our room at the Andaz Papagayo. Our hope was to book a suite using Hyatt points (transferred from Ultimate Rewards points), but even in August 2017, there were no suites available on points for our March/April 2018 trip. Knowing that we would be traveling with a not quite four year old who would still be needing his nap, I knew that a standard room was simply not an option. I quickly hatched the idea to book two standard rooms, assuming that we would just get connecting rooms and all would be fine.  At 15,000 Hyatt points / night, the redemption rate for a standard room at the Andaz is a steal. I was only given the option of booking king rooms online using points, so I reserved two king rooms, thinking I would simply request adjoining rooms at some point.

The view from one of our two king rooms.

Unfortunately, when I reached out to the concierge in early December (nearly four months prior to our stay), I learned that there are very few rooms with double beds on the property and because double beds are the only ones with adjoining rooms, there were very few adjoining rooms available. Over the course of the next four months, I conversed with the concierge via email on a number of occasions and was, each time, told that there were no adjoining rooms availability. The concierge was very helpful, however, and had us placed in two king rooms located next door to one another. Ultimately, this set up, although annoying, ended up working out great for us as we used one room for showering and storing our stuff and the other room stayed clean for our evening sleeping. This also worked great when my little one needed his afternoon nap and, in fact, may have worked better than a suite because we could close him off to sleep with one parent while the other parent stayed with my older one in the other room.

Booking the Rental Car:

Rental car insurance is a government monopoly in Costa Rica and thus, every rental must have liability insurance from the INS (Instituto Nacional de Seguros). The mandatory insurance costs anywhere from $10-$20/day, depending on the vehicle you rent and provides only minimal coverage (it does not cover your rental car at all, only damages to other people, their cars, or property). Thus, if you want coverage for any damages to your rental car, you must purchase supplemental collision ($15-40/day, depending on rental car company and vehicle) or, if you have it, rely on your credit card’s rental car coverage.

As I’ve written about previously, our Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers primary collision as an included benefit. Prior to our trip, I spent hours reading reviews and researching various options before finally choosing Vamos Rent-A-Car, the rental car company that we selected. Priceline.com and various independent car rental websites were willing to rent me a car for the entire week for as little as $100, without any insurance. Reading numerous online reviews, however, I feared that we would suffer the same experience as many: showing up and being held hostage at the rental car line and being told we needed to add on hundreds of extra dollars of coverage to our car. Of all the car rental companies I researched, Vamos was the only one that allowed me to: (1) select the mandatory liability insurance and (2) waive the collision insurance during our reservation. As an added bonus, Vamos also included one free child car seat rental and a free cooler. Although the quoted price was just over $300 and thus $200 over the least expensive option I could find online, I valued Vamos’ transparent booking process (and the numerous positive online reviews didn’t hurt either). Moreover, after reserving our vehicle, I emailed Vamos to confirm that our credit card collision coverage would be sufficient and within hours, received a reply that it was fine and would be accepted. My husband reports that he had no issues when picking up the vehicle and that the final estimated price was the quoted price online.

Our Vamos rental car!

Why book a rental car?

I’m sure you’re asking — why book a rental car? The honest truth is that even though we built an entire vacation around staying at a resort, we are not actually resort people. My husband and I (and our kids) get antsy if we are in one place for an extended period of time and, traveling with young kids means that we have very little desire to be stuck on hotel shuttles and guided tours.

That being said, the Andaz offers shuttle services from Liberia Airport to the hotel. The prices are:

Private Transportation:

Liberia Airport to Andaz Peninsula Papagayo – $140 one way

Andaz Peninsula Papagayo to Liberia Airport – $140 one way

Shared Transportation: (Minimum 2 Guests)

Liberia Airport to Andaz Peninsula Papagayo – $45 one way – per person

Andaz Peninsula Papagayo to Liberia Airport – $45 one way – per person

Shared transportation will only be shared if there is another guest from Andaz arriving at the same time you do. If you are the only guest requesting shared transportation, the cost will be $90 (as the minimum is 2 guests)

To that end, utilizing the cheapest transport option of a private shuttle for our family of four ($280 round trip) from the airport to the hotel, the cost of the rental car was essentially the same as taking a shuttle to/from the airport… but we would not have a rental car available for us to use for the duration of our stay. Although the hotel does provide free shuttle service to the Marina Papagayo and the Andaz Beach House, it was a no brainer that we should rent a car purely for the flexibility and it would cost only a negligible amount over simply taking a shuttle to the resort. Note: it ended up costing us $338 to rent the car for the duration of our trip.

Finally, if you are staying at the Andaz and would like the option of a rental car, but do not want to rent a car for the duration of your stay, the concierge can arrange for day rentals. The quoted price is $90 to $120 / day, depending on the vehicle.

Pro Tip: I’m a bit of a car seat junkie and almost always insist on bringing our own car seat on trips. For this trip, my intent was to utilize the IMMI GO Child Car Harness. Unfortunately, when my husband arrived at Vamos, he learned quickly that the IMMI GO’s LATCH attachments would not work with our Costa Rican rental car. This being our first international rental car experience with a car seat that wasn’t just a simple booster, we had neglected to consider that international cars may have different attachments. Luckily, Vamos was great and provided us with a rental car seat for my not quite four year old. Note: Vamos’ original quote included one free rental car seat. We had selected a booster seat for our nine year old as our “free seat,” which was provided, but when the attendant stuck around and noticed that my husband was unable to get the IMMI GO to install properly Vamos quickly supplied us with a convertible car seat and did not charge us extra.

Snug as a bug in his Vamos car seat.

Continue reading Costa Rica With Kids (Part II): Getting to the Papagayo Peninsula…