We were finally heading back to Costa Rica! With flights confirmed and rental car booked we were all set to leave at 3am on a Saturday. This gave us time to pick up my mother-in-law and then pick up my mom and get to the airport around 4am for our 6:30am flight. The shuttle from long-term parking took longer than expected but we still made it through security by 5:15 and had plenty of time to get to our gate. Leading up to this trip I was much more nervous than usual. Not sure if it was because I had built up Costa Rica so much from our prior trip, worried about some reviews we read on our Airbnb, worried about coordinating with a larger group and wanting everyone to have a great time. Whatever it was, it was definitely more stressful leading up to this trip than any of our prior trips. I think some of it may have also been that I really wanted a great vacation. After the car accident earlier in the year and not having any other trips for a while, I really wanted to relax and have a great time with family.
Our flight left BWI on time, we had a one hour flight and then landed in Charlotte, after a quick 1.5 hour layover we were back in the air for our 4 hour flight to Liberia airport. We had heard some horror stories about Liberia airport randomly closing or having to divert flights, luckily we didn’t have any issue and landed around 11:30am local time (Guanacaste is 2 hour behind Eastern Time). Just so happened that when we landed we saw the rest of our group that had decided to fly non-stop, there flight left a couple hours after hours but landing times worked out perfect! Getting the rental was a breeze and we started our drive to Playa Del Coco. Directions took us down 21 and then East on 151 into town, there were definitely some poorer neighborhoods and run down housing along this route. If you take 254 to 159 it is a longer drive but much more scenic and you get to see the outskirts of Playa Hermosa.
We got to the house around 2 and our check-in wasn’t until 4. We also realized the host didn’t speak any English, so we used phone apps to translate….it worked great! They let us park the cars inside the gate at the house and we walked to a nearby cafe for lunch. Yummy Cafe is owned by an expat, food was ok and reasonably priced. After ordering milkshakes, Hope remembered that she didn’t like them in Costa Rica because they are made with condensed milk and taste artificially sweet…and not as creamy as in the US.
When we walked back to the house, al garete, we were able to get the keys and start moving our stuff inside. After the lead-up to the trip and worrying more than usual, everything worked out great. The house met our needs and I love all of the outdoor living space. The pool was shallow (3ft) but plenty big enough for us to relax and gave us another spot for those that didn’t want to go to the beach. There was tons of seating between indoor and outdoor dining tables and the bedrooms accommodated our group of 12. The only adjustment we had to make was moving the top bunk from one room into the bunkbed room so that all 5 kids could sleep in the same room. After getting settled we headed straight for some snorkeling at the beach!
Sunday we walked around town, explored some shops, and spent some more time snorkeling. While in town we checked into the dive shop and went to Coconutz for lunch. The service and food were excellent! The kids had seen a rock/island from the beach on Saturday and they were determined to swim out to it. All of them did great on the swim and the scenery was incredible! Starfish of all different colors and sizes, chocolate chip starfish with large brown spikes, a ton of sea urchins (more to come on those in a future post), also a ton of puffer fish, trumpet fish, coral angels, and then when we were swimming back to the beach we saw a small ray. After walking around town and swimming in the ocean, and knowing we had to wake up early for scuba diving the next day, we all went to bed pretty early.
Rich Coast Diving did a great job getting us all fitted on Sunday so on Monday morning it was easy to show up, have some coffee, and walk straight down to the boat. Our only recommendation is to know what your comfortable with and don’t feel pressured into wearing different attire. They really wanted us in wetsuits and fitted us a couple of times, but the water was 84F at the surface and 82F at depth. I felt that we would be comfortable without them and I was so glad I didn’t wear one. It would have been hot and miserable and changed the whole dive experience. I did have Hope wear her rash guard but otherwise we were fine in bathing suits.
After walking down to the beach we got a small john-boat and they took us out to the larger dive boat that was anchored in the bay. Our Divemaster was Federico and he was working with Jorge and Rainbow. Hope loved that one of our divers was a girl and now she has added this to waterfall repelling and rock climbing as one of her future jobs! With having the younger kids and them being new divers, we stayed around 36ft for both dives. Federico did a great job explaining the dive, going over hand signals and air checks, how we would descend and ascend, and what to look out for. The scenery was beautiful and the highlight for me was seeing an octopus. It was also great seeing how excited Hope and Kole were and being with them on their first “real” dive. I’ve said this in other reviews/posts, but Rich Coast did an amazing job and I would highly recommend them…especially if you have kids in your group. Checkout our Facebook page for some videos that Hope took and edited! Hope really wanted to see a shark but we didn’t see any on the first dive, she was really hoping for better luck on the second dive. In between the dives they had fresh pineapple, angel food cake, and sweet tea for a snack. It was all delicious!!! For our second dive we had Jorge as our Divemaster, it was actually his final checkout dive to get his Divemaster certificate. He did an equally great job and Federico was great at not looking over his shoulder too much. About 3/4 the way through the dive we saw a nurse shark tucked into some rocks. Hope was so excited, she kept giving me the hand sign for shark and then clapping her hands under water. I was also happy on these dives that none of us had any problems equalizing and the kids did amazing with keeping all their gear together.
After getting back from the dive we had lunch at Soda Jardin Tropical. Lunch was good and the soursop smoothies were delicious but service took forever. Autumn got the chicken tenders which were good, Hope really branched out and tried the chicken and rice and ate the entire plate. My shrimp tacos never disappointed, that was my go to meal at every restaurant and they were always amazing! The most memorable part of lunch was when a Mariachi Band walked in and we paid them $10 to sing Happy Birthday to Hope…she was so embarrassed but it was a memorable and amazing parent win 😊!
In the afternoon we went to Ocatal Beach for a little variety and to check out another location. While we were snorkeling my sister mis-judged her surroundings and ended up kicking one of those long spiny sea urchins. Luckily the spine didn’t break off in her foot but it was still pretty painful and she was done for the day. After exploring the waters and rocks around Ocatal for a bit, we went back to our house and snorkeled out to the rock/island again then hung out around the house to enjoy the amazing sunset.
