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Published: December 1st 2006
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THE GANG
Our entire group, together with Miguel from Vargas Tours NOTE: This is a review I posted on a travel forum before starting this blog.
We visited Costa Rica over the Christmas period in 2005.
Occidental Grand Papagayo Resort, Papagayo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
We have just returned from a glorious 14 nights at the
Occidental Grand Papagayo.
The dynamic of our party was quite varied- 3 families comprising of 6 parents (in our 40’s), one child of 10, 3 teens of 16 and five 17-19 year-olds. 15 of us in all.
We are from the UK and go away together in a group every Christmas. Traditionally, we choose the Caribbean (all-inclusive resorts) but this year we decided to be a little more adventurous - so glad we did! As there is no direct flight to Liberia from the UK, we flew via Miami, which meant a stop-over each night outward and return.
Arrival - The immigration at Liberia is the fastest ever! We were out of the airport with our bags within 30 minutes of the aircraft touching down. However, Liberia is a very basic airport so don’t plan on spending too much time there when it is time to leave!
Resort- First impressions of the resort were
View
Typical beautiful view mixed. It was a lot smaller than we were used to, but this actually became an advantage. It had a more intimate feel as a result.
The Rooms - Pretty good. 'The parents' had paid a little extra for an Ocean View, which was a spectacular thing to wake up to every morning.
Clean, spacious and comfortable. Let’s face it, this is not the sort of place you are going to spend much time in your room, apart from sleeping, showering, dressing, etc! We had no problems with ‘lumpy pillows’ as mentioned by another reviewer below. In fact, our kingsize bed had a total of 8 pillows to choose from (6 more than we needed!).
The Beach - I am a keen snorkeller and found this aspect a little disappointing. At low tide, the beach is super, but there is very little of it at high tide! We did have some fun taking kayaks and paddling over to the next bay where there is a lovely beach bar.
For the first time on my vacation, I spent more time at the pool than the beach. However, contrary to expectation this didn’t seem to bother me at all. The
SURFERS
A few of us tried our hand at surfing! pool volleyball was always great fun to be involved with, and allowed you to make new friends. The only cautionary point I would make is that you need to get down early to ‘reserve’ your prize position (preferably a place with a little shade!)
The Food - overall it was very good. The buffet always combined a fine choice with good quality. The Italian restaurant, as many here have noted, was excellent and the Oriental was ‘good’. However, it is the dining system that created our biggest complaint and problem. The reservation process is ridiculous, particularly if you are trying to accommodate a large party.
The first week we stayed there (pre-Christmas) it wasn’t particularly busy but, despite repeated requests, we were unable to persuade them to move a couple of the tables together so we could enjoy an occasional ‘group’ dinner.
However, the puzzling thing is that in the second week - their busiest of the year - they seemed to be happy to assist with two groups of a similar size to our own!
Every time we saw the Guest Relations desk, they seemed to be fielding complaints about the Reservations system from someone. It’s a shame
BULLRIDING
This was the temporary arena where the bullriding events took place. Great fun to watch (and harmless for the bulls, by the way)! as this was the only flawed aspect of the entire resort. Someone below mentioned a ‘rude man from Guest Services’ - I know exactly who you mean: he is still there, unfortunately!!
The Staff - Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Genuinely warm, friendly people who are rightly proud of their country and we were privileged to have been shown around by a couple of them on their night off! We found that if you treat the staff with appropriate respect, then it is reciprocated. Combine this with decent tipping and you have the ideal formula for an enhanced experience! Unfortunately, there seemed to be a number of people who believed giving a tip entitled them to treat the staff like lackeys…. This does not go down too well, believe me!
I reiterate - the staff are fantastic (with the singular exception mentioned above).
The Trips - I will say this once, but it is the most important point I want to make in this whole review: You MUST make the effort to see as much of this beautiful country as you can; therefore organising some trips is absolutely essential!
We did a little research beforehand and reserved our tours with
LADS
The three boys, pensive at the Bullriding arena Michael and Ricardo at
Vargas Tours - so glad we did!
Not only were they and their guides phenomenal, the trips gave us several unforgettable experiences that the teenagers in our party will remember for the rest of their lives! I really cannot stress how important it is to do this.
The tours we attended were:
1. The Buena Vista Mega Combo. Despite the hype-ridden title, it certainly lives up to the description. If you only have time for the one tour, it should be this one! I won’t go into a description of these as they can be seen on the above site, but needless to say it fulfils (and probably exceeds) any expectation you may have… and mine were pretty high to begin with!
2. The Beach-hopping tour. We combined this with a Quad-Bike tour and some of the group opted for horseback-riding. We followed this with surfing lessons for the ‘younger generation’, which was one of the highlights of the vacation for them!
3. The Palo Verde River Tour. Monkeys, Crocs, Birds and a real flavour of the wildlife generally.
4. The Sunset Sail. What a way to end the vacation! Not only viewing the most spectacular
ZIPWIRE
Steph trying the zipwire, hundreds of feet above the cloudforest. sunset ever, but also having schools (shoals?) of dolphins swimming by our boat and then the actual sunset framing the silhouette of 3 whales jumping and diving into the Pacific! Unbelievable.
One final point to make about the tours is that the Costa Rican roads are not the best (understatement), so be prepared for some bumpy rides!
In summary, I would say that Costa Rica is up there with the best places we have visited (and that includes Hawaii, Maldives, Cuba). The resort itself I would suggest is a four-star rather than the advertised five. However, the minor foibles of the Grand Papagayo are more than offset by the warmth and charm of their staff. Very, very highly recommended.
Oh and one last thing - although it was the dry season and there were very few mosquitoes, we did get bitten many times by those ‘no see-ums’. Very irritating so make sure you take good bug spray and also a decent anti-histamine cream to treat the bites.
The motto of Costa Rica is ‘Pura Vida’ and that pretty much sums up the culture, attitude, beauty and people of this wonderful place. Can’t wait to go back!!!
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Reet
non-member comment
Great start to your blog!
Hey Gary, love the new blog! See you in Thailand! Reet x