Air Connections / Domestic Flights
Costa Rica has a good, economy-priced national domestic flight network, offered by SANSA and NATURE Air. Both offer a safe and modern fleet complying with all technical requirements and well-trained pilots. They serve almost all important regions with one or more daily flights. You can get all necessary information about itineraries and rates in our office or at one of our Insiders Travel Shops & Info Points, located at all mayor destinations countrywide. Important: Please be aware, that there is a baggage weight limit of 12 kg + small cabin bag on all domestic flights. Excess luggage will usually not be transported because of overweight risk for the aircraft. On fully booked flights, your excess luggage will not be transported for this safety reason.
Bargaining
It is not usual to bargain at supermarkets and shops, where all articles wear clearly declared price tags. However, on local markets, this is different. You can try to lower the price and sometimes the salesmen even expect you to bargain.
Clothing
Please be aware, that you might visit volcanoes at a level of about 3’400 meters, that you will discover rain- and cloud forests, where it is almost sure that you will get wet and that only a little later, you will enjoy warm or even hot climate at one of the Costa Rican coasts. Therefore, it is very important to prepare the right clothing for your trip. It might get quite cold at higher levels and you will be happy to dress yourself with a jacket or a pullover. It’s also recommendable to pack up a light raincoat. For your jungle visits and during dusk and dawn, we recommend light and bright clothing covering your arms and legs as mosquito protection. Your shoes are also very important on your trip. Light hiking shoes are a must when you walk in the jungle. Many hotels and lodges offer rubber boots for your excursions into the jungle which are very useful for shorter hikes. However, for longer hikes we recommend the use of hiking shoes, even if they get dirty. Otherwise and in general you will wear light summer cloths all year round. If you visit churches, people expect you to ware appropriate cloths. Topless or even naked sunbathing is undesirable and not appropriate in Costa Rica
Complaints
If you unhappy with one of our services or if you have a complaint, please let us know immediately. You may contact your guide or our ARA Tours office in San José. That’s the only way for us to get a chance to correct and change justified imperfections. We hope you understand, that sometimes things are not working out fast enough in Costa Rica and that we all need a little patience.
Deposits
Hotels and especially car rental companies will ask you to leave a deposit with your credit card. You will have to sign an open credit card voucher, that means without any amount on it. The hotels use this kind of security deposit to enable you signing your restaurant and bar checks instead of paying cash. At the end of our stay, the total amount will be charged to your credit card. The car rental companies need this security deposit to be able to charge any damage caused to the car. Please remind to use the open credit card voucher to make your final payment by inserting the amount, or to destroy the voucher before you leave.
Diseases / Vaccinations
We are almost sure that you have already been informed well before your departure to Costa Rica about possible diseases and vaccinations. We would like to point out, that it is always your very own decision to consume medicine or a preventing medicament. Our information does not replace professional advice of a doctor or a vaccination institute and their information has priority always. We would just like to point out some possible dangers you might face on your Costa Rica trip. There is a very low but existing risk of malaria disease in Costa Rica, mainly near the border to Nicaragua and close to the Panama border. Malaria is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. You can protect yourself against mosquito bites by using appropriate cloths and mosquito repellent. Most doctors recommend buying an emergency medicament, which you only use in case of a malaria infection. There is another disease in Costa Rica, with very similar symptoms as malaria. It is called dengue fever and there are no vaccinations or medicines against this infection available to date. Dengue fever is transmitted by a mosquito bite as well and there are two types of the disease. The less dangerous, but more spread is the classic dengue type. Symptoms of the classic version are high fever for about 5-7 days, strong headache, pain on the whole body and eyes and sometimes vomits, diarrhoea, bleedings and itching. The patients are prescribed a lot of bed rest and it is important do drink allot of water. Painkillers are also prescribed, but it is important to not use Aspirin, because they could cause more bleedings. The other and more dangerous type "dengue hemoragica" is very rare. The symptoms are similar to the classic version, but in addition to that, patients suffer of inner and external bleedings, swelling of the face, respiration problems, circulation problems, sweating, tiredness and loss of appetite. A doctor must attend the patient immediately. The second type is especially dangerous for those, who already have been infected once by the less dangerous classic dengue. Dengue fever mainly appears in poor and dirty city districts of Puntarenas, Limón, Siquirres, Guápiles, Santa Cruz, and very rarely in Alajuela and Heredia. As soon as dengue fever appears, the ministry of health takes immediate action against mosquito breedings and the disease can be controlled within a very short time. Protect yourself against mosquitoes by using appropriate cloths and mosquito repellent. For your information: from 1994 to 2002, not one single ARA Tours client has been infected by dengue. This indicates, how low the possibility for infection is.
Duty-free Articles
Before departure, you can buy duty-free articles at some small shops inside the airport. However, the choice is very limited and prices are not really better than outside. We recommend buying your alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and souvenirs before your departure.
Embassy
Should you be in need to contact your embassy, please contact us immediately and we will get you in contact.
Emergency
During weekends, on public holidays, and at night we offer an emergency contact phone number for our clients. In case of an emergency, please dial the mobile phone number 8381 35 21 and you will be attended by the ARA Tours Duty Officer. Please use this phone number for real emergencies only and in case that your guide or hotel reception staff can’t help out. Should the mobile phone temporary be out of the reception area (this happens sometimes in Costa Rica) or out of order for any other reason, please dial 2232 04 00 and leave your message indicating your name, calling time and contact number on the answering machine. The Duty Officer will contact you as soon as possible.
Food And Beverage
All the diversity of food and drinks of Costa Rica will definitely be described more detailed in your travel guide book. We would just like to provide you with some precaution measures here. Although tab water is drinkable except on the Caribbean coast and Puntarenas city, we recommend drinking bottled water to be on the safe side. If you want to be consequent, you should also to renounce to ice cubes made out of tab water. Many places prepare their ice with treated water which is without danger. At all cosy and simple places on the Caribbean coast, we recommend to order your meat well done. Besides, there exist not many dangers and you can enjoy fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood without any worry. Costa Rica is a very hygienic country, and the health ministry applies very strict rules for restaurants.
Information On The Road / Internet / Where To Book
A growing amount of our guests are travelling in Costa Rica on their own by rental car, collective bus or public transportation. However, allot of questions appear on the trip: where can I find a hotel of my taste, which tours and activities can be made on spot and where can I book? It is very important to choose local tour operators and activities carefully to guarantee your safety. They must have an official license, prove an appropriate insurance coverage and fulfil some ethnic rules for operating legally. Unofficial sales people, mediators and supposed “guides” waiting for you at bus and gas stations or at restaurants are not trustworthy, even if the tour or activity is offered for some dollars less. Therefore, we recommend to visit our professional advice centers called insiders Travel Shop & Info Point” for profound information about local tours, activities or hotel bookings. By the end of 2003, all our travel shops will be operating and you can find us at La Fortuna/Arenal Volcano, Monteverde, Liberia, Tamarindo, Quepos/Manuel Antonio, Puerto Viejo (Caribbean Coast), as well as at some hotels in and near San José. In addition, insiders Travel Shops & Info Points offer Internet access and you can buy your local souvenirs or basic travel articles there.
Luggage
We recommend traveling with 2 pieces of luggage: one main suitcase and a smaller backpack or bag for your excursions and short multi-day roundtrips. If you have booked a roundtrip including overnight stays in San José on or after the trip, we suggest taking only the necessary things with you and leaving the main suitcase at your San José hotel. This makes the loading and unloading of busses, aircrafts, and boats on your trip easier and faster. In addition, there is a baggage weight limit of 12 kg + small cabin bag on all domestic flights and for Tortuguero boat excursions . All San José hotels offer a safe storage room and at almost all of them this service is free of charge.
Mobile Phones
Unfortunately, telecommunications development in Costa Rica takes very much time and the technology is not up to date. In December 2002, the existing TDMA network has been complimented with a GSM network operating on 1’800 Mhz. If you own a tri-band mobile phone covering this frequency and your country of residency had signed a “roaming agreement” with the Costa Rican telecommunication institute, you should be able to use your phone in 80% of Costa Rica. Local SIM cards are not available yet, but it is planned to offer them very soon. It’s also promised, that the systems for transmitting international short messages (SMS) will be ready soon. Several providers rent out mobile phones. However, the deposit and the phone costs are very high. If you are interested in renting a mobile phone, please contact our office.
Money / Currency / Change / Credit Cards
The local Costa Rican currency is called Colones (Columbus). Surely you have been informed before your trip, that you can change US$ in cash or traveller checks only to colones. Should you have arrived with another currency, such as Euros or Pounds, you can change them only at the headquarter of a bank in San José or at Financiera de Londres which will take a significant amount of time. For changing money, you must bring along your passport (or a copy of it). We highly recommend to never change money on the street with any type of “flying agent”. We suggest changing your money at a private bank, such as “Bancrecen”, opened from 09h00 until 21h00. They offer a good and fast service. Changing your money at a state bank such as “Banco Nacional” or “Banco de Costa Rica” may take more time and they are only opened from 08h00 till 15h00. Our airport guide will tell you the actual exchange rate on the arrival transfer to your hotel.
Credit cards are accepted in major cities, hotels, restaurants, and shops all over the country. Some smaller businesses and those without phone connection might not accept credit cards. In smaller shops, it can also happen that they charge you a 7% fee to cover their credit card company commission. VISA is accepted with priority, while you might have some problems with MASTERCARD. So if you have a MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS or DINERS CLUB credit card, we recommend carrying always a cash reserve on you. Please ask before consuming if credit cards were accepted.
Pharmacy / Medical Attention
Medical care in San José is highly developed and in good conditions. San José has several public hospitals and also some private clinics offering European or US standards, such as “Clinica Bíblica” (Tel: 2257 52 52) or “Hospital CIMA” (Tel: 2208 10 00). Both private hospitals also offer a pharmacy opened 24 hours, where all important medicine you might need are available. The pharmacies can be reached by the same phone numbers as mentioned above. Other pharmacies can be found all over San José, but they are only open during the day and their product range is limited. Medical care outside San José is also good. Every major city has it’s own public hospital and each mediumsize or small village has a pharmacy, an ambulance and a doctor. In case of an emergency, please contact our office or the emergency phone number outside the office hours.
Post Office / Phone Calls
San José main post office is located at Calle 2, Avenida 1-3. Opening hours are from Monday to Friday 08h00 to 18h00 and Saturdays from 08h00 to 12h00. At all major cities You can also find local post offices (Correos de Costa Rica). Your post cards and letters will take 1-3 weeks to arrive at their destination., All mail first goes to the main post office at San José, before it will be delivered to the airport. Therefore, it does not make sense to take your correspondence to the airport for faster delivery Some larger hotels offer blue mail boxes where you can deposit your post cards. Postage for a post card to Europe costs 115 colones and a letter up to 20g 130 colones. (Changes are possible). Costa Rican post offices also offer phone and fax service. There are blue public phones all over the country. Some phones work with coins of 5-, 10- or 20 Colones only. More and more public phones accept prepaid cards only. “199 – Tarjeta Colibri” prepaid phone cards can also be used for international calls.
There are no area codes in Costa Rica. The country code for Costa Rica is ++506. If you want to call home, these are the country codes: Belgium 0032, Denmark 0045, Spain 0034, Finland 00358, France 0033, Holland 0031, Italy 0039, Norway 0047, United Kingdom 0044, Sweden 0046, all followed by the area or city code without the 0 at the beginning.
Questionnaire
In your travel documentation, you will find a questionnaire and we would very much appreciate if you could complete it before your return flight and hand it over to our airport guide. This important help enables us to improve our services and to check the standard of our providers. Voluntary, you can mention your contact data on the questionnaire, which allows us to provide you with important and interesting news from Costa Rica and Central America after your return. We would like to thank you very much for taking your time to fill out the questionnaire.
Reconfirmation Of Your Flight
It is imperative to reconfirm your return flight at least 72 hours before departure. If you have booked a transfer to the airport through your operator, we will automatically reconfirm your flight. If this is not the case, please give us a call and inform us about your flight data. We will then reconfirm your tickets. You can also visit one of our insiders Travel Shop & Info Point offices all over Costa Rica for reconfirming your flight.
Return Flight / Airport Taxes
Please take note, that all US airlines require your presence at the airport 3 hours ahead of your departure time. All other airlines require 2 hours prior departure. If you have booked an airport return transfer with us, we will respect these rules accordingly. You will find the hotel pick up time on the transfer information sheet in your travel documentation which we handed you over upon arrival. We are aware that the early check-in times result in a longer, uncomfortable waiting time at the airport. However we can’t act against the policies airlines establish. In case there will be any change on the check-in times, we will of course change our pick up times rules again.
You will have to pay an airport departure tax. The amount is currently under negotiation and might change without prior notice. However the amount will be between US$ 17.— and US$ 26.— for the departure tax. In addition, airlines request currently a US$ 6.— fee as safety charge and for terminal use. All taxes and charges must be paid in cash, US$ or Colones; no credit cards are accepted.
Safe
Almost all hotels provide a safe in your room or at least at the reception. This service is often free of charge or available at a small fee. We highly recommend using the safe in your room or at the reception everywhere in the country.
Safety
Costa Rica is known as a comparatively safe country to travel through and you can move around with few restrictions if you respect some general and international safety rules. Given the fact that safety is a very important issue for many of our clients, we have dedicated a separate chapter on safety chapter on page 10. Please refer to this page for detailed information.
Shopping / Souvenirs
On your trip through Costa Rica, you will always find shops and stands selling T-Shirts and cheap jewellery. For real shopping, we do recommend the city centers of San José, Heredia, Alajuela and Cartago. That’s where you can find large shopping malls, such as Mall San Pedro, Multiplaza, Centro Comercial Cariari (all in and around San José). A huge selection of T-Shirts, jewellery, ceramic articles, hammocks and wooden handicrafts, such as the colourful Sarchí oxcarts, can be found at Plaza de la Democracia and at El Pueblo in San José downtown. Please make sure not to buy articles made out of protected hard wood. Most handicrafts are made out of coffee-tree-wood and you can buy them without any doubt. It is absolutely prohibited to export any tortoise-shell articles, any kind of living plants (seeds no problem), animals and all original pre-Columbian and indigenous objects. Airport controls are very strict.
Taxi
As long as it is not raining, there are enough taxis around in all major cities. You will recognize them by the red colour of the car and a yellow triangle at each of the front doors. The official airport taxis are painted orange. We highly recommend using these official taxis only. All taxis must have a taximeter. Please do insist that the driver activates the taximeter before departure. If he doesn’t, it is preferable to change taxi or to negotiate the rate before you leave. Prices can vary very much. This is to give you an idea:
- Airport – San José downtown: approximately US$ 15.--
- Short distance San José downtown between US$ 1.50 and US$ 3.--
Theft
As everywhere on our planet, you can also become a victim of theft in Costa Rica. For detailed information about safety and prevention, please carefully read page 10 of this brochure. In case you of a robbery, please inform the hotel manager and/or ARA Tours immediately. You then need an official police report issued by the local police station. This is imperative to declare the damage to your insurance company. If your tickets and/or your passport are stolen, it is always possible to replace these documents in San José. However, it will be necessary to present the official police report for a replacement of these documents. Everything goes faster and easier, if you can show copies of your documents. Should you become a victim of an assault, please stay as calm as you can and do not offer any resistance. If you panic or offer resistance during an assault, the use of violence is very probable and it’s not worth it to risk your health for some replaceable documents or articles.
Tips And Taxes
A 13% sales tax will be charged on your bill for any article, service, meal or drink you purchase. An additional 10% service charge will be added to your restaurant bills. So it is important to check out before you order, wether prices stated in your menu include taxes and service charge or not. If tax and service charge is excluded, you have to add a 23% to the prices. If the taxes and service charge are included, this is usually marked clearly in the restaurant price list. In case you have been satisfied with the restaurant service, you can add a voluntary additional tip. This should be around 3-5 % of the total amount. On all lodging, an additional 3% tourism tax will be charged together with the sales tax. All taxes are subject to change.
Transportation / Transfers
We are pleased to organize your domestic transportations and transfers around the country. Please be aware, that the organization of transports and transfers takes some time and that we should receive your order early enough. Costa Rica offers many different means of transportations, for example public busses. However, they take quite allot of time to reach some regions. You can also choose collective bus transportation, exclusively operated for tourists. This is a very economic and comfortable way of transportation, because they pick you up right at your hotel and will drop you off at the reception of your next hotel. Those buses operate with a fixed schedule and run with a minimum of 2 participants.
In Costa Rica, you can also move around by airplane easily. We especially recommend this kind of transportation for clients with a limited time budget. Flights are safe and low priced. We would be happy to advise you on all the possibilities at our San José office or at one of our “insider Travel Shop & Info Points”
Underwater Currents
In Costa Rica, strong underwater currents may appear without warnings at all Pacific or Caribbean beaches. In addition, all coasts are a surfer’s paradise, which means, that there are always good waves. Please be aware of these two facts. It is very important to follow the advise of the local population regarding the situation in the ocean before you enjoy a swim in the sea. Please respect huge waves. They have an energy you hardly can imagine before. Please try to never loose ground under your feet. Should you be taken out to the sea by a strong current, it is vital to stay calm and let float your body first. Never try to swim against the current and safe your energy. In any case after a certain time you will be drifted to land again.
Voltage
Costa Rica offers 110 volt and you need an international adapter for switching to the US system.
