Tiffany's Travels

On our flight in first class!

Ethan and I went to Costa Rica last January. I never got around to writing a post about it because we had very limited internet at our resort. Also, I literally stepped off the plane and went directly to school, and I've been crazy busy.

We booked our trip through Matt Stengl at Stengl Johnson Cruise and Travel. It was around $4000 for both of us for the entire trip (not including our upgrade to first class), which included airfare, transportation from the airport to the resort and back, the cost of the resort itself, as well as all food and drinks. That's actually a pretty spectacular deal, because food and drinks can really add up on trips.

Heck yeah,
free champagne

We left Grand Forks on January 5th; due to some scheduling conflicts, we got to fly to Costa Rica in first class! We were able to board first, got free champagne and it was so much roomier! We felt really fancy, and definitely like special newlyweds, even though it had been five months. The food was really, REALLY good too, but I don't think that was first class specific.

We arrived in Costa Rica around 10pm. Remember, we came from a very horrendous and frigid winter in North Dakota...we stepped outside and it was about 70 degrees! I was so excited and happy. Even at night, the weather was beautiful! A man was standing outside with a Delta Vacations sign, and he was our transportation to our resort.

our bedroom

We stayed at the Riu Guanecaste in Libera, Costa Rica. When we arrived at our hotel, we checked in and grabbed food from the buffet quickly, as it was about to close. After we ate, we headed up to our room. The room was fantastic! It was very large, with a beautiful bathroom and a spectacular view.

Our one and only complaint was that our "king sized" bed was actually two twin beds pushed together. The floor was tiled, so the beds constantly slid apart. We just snuggled up tighter, but it was pretty annoying.

our patio facing the mountains

the view from our patio!

The hotel was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The only enclosed rooms in the resort were some of the restaurants and the bedrooms. The bedrooms had central air conditioning that automatically turned on and off as you opened and closed the doors, so no one wasted energy by blasting their air conditioning with the patio door open. The lobby was completely open with no ceiling or doors. Birds and other wildlife were frequently wandering around different parts of the resort.

For the first few days, we literally did nothing but relax and enjoy our resort. We woke up naturally around 8am, had breakfast, and then headed down to the pool.

Paradise :)

Ethan reading
by the pool

The whole hotel was like this,
completely open!

Ethan brought the Game of Thrones book series that I had gotten him for Christmas, and I brought a few books as well as my tablet with several free Kindle books downloaded onto it. We alternated between sitting by the pool, sipping our free drinks, and reading our books, and floating around in the pool with our free drinks, talking about how awesome the trip was and discussing our future; my upcoming graduation, his job prospects, our future kids, and possible future travel plans.

Panoramic photos of the four pools

It was so refreshing to spend time with just the two of us, no electronics (my Kindle app doesn't count!) and no other people or distractions. We really enjoyed the quality time together.

Panoramic photos of the four pools

They served lunch by the pool every day at noon, so we basically stayed at the pool from 9am until around 3pm, before we headed back to our room for a nap before dinner.

the "swim up" bar;
a bar right in the pool!

There were a variety of activities offered by the pool every day, from water aerobics, to Spanish lessons, to ping pong tournaments. I did the water aerobics a few times and it was pretty fun. I also attended a Spanish lesson; I'm taking Spanish this summer as well as playing Duolingo, a language learning app, on my phone. I'm hoping if and when we go back, I'll be almost fluent in Spanish!

The resort had 5 restaurants;

Liberia, the gigantic buffet place with so many options it could make your head spin! This was basically open from 6am - 10pm. It was probably our favorite place because the food was amazing!
La Toscana, the Italian place. I had a pesto which was pretty good. Ethan didn't care for his lasagna. But really, you don't go to Costa Rica for their Italian food.
Furama, the Asian restaurant. Kind of the same deal as the Italian place; Costa Rica is the place for rice, beans, fish, fruit, and pork, not eggrolls.
Tucan, the fancy restaurant. This one required a reservation and was a sit-down served dinner. It was pretty good!

this iguana was just
wandering around!!

There was also a fancy steakhouse, but we never got around to it because it required a reservation and we never had time to make one.

All week, the weather was 75 and sunny, sometimes with a light breeze. It was absolutely beautiful the entire time we were there. Every night, I would facebook chat with my mom, to check in so she knew I didn't get eaten by a shark or kidnapped or something (she worries about those kinds of things). When I connected my phone to the internet, my phone went off with winter weather/wind chill warnings for Grand Forks, and I was just so happy to be in a lovely tropical climate.

That was one other mild inconvenience of our resort; we were allowed 60 minutes of internet, once a day, only in the lobby. I really only used it to check in with my mom and download books onto my Kindle, and I enjoyed our overall disconnect from technology, but I didn't realize until halfway through the week that it was only once a day; I thought it was 60 minutes total. Again, only a mild inconvenience.

A couple of times we went to the beach, but the sand was hot and there weren't drinks so it wasn't quite as comfortable as the pool. The view was awesome though. I picked up some seashells.

the beach!

Something that kind of surprised me was how nice everyone there was! I would think working at an all inclusive resort, they must have so many rude and entitled people that they'd be just kind of polite at best.

Every single person we encountered was incredibly friendly. Always smiling and friendly, asking how the food tastes, how the drinks were, asking us how we were enjoying their country. Not just the resort staff, but everyone else we encountered outside the resort as well. I absolutely loved it!

Ready to go on our adventure!

After several days of rest, relaxation, and quality time, it was time for an adventure! Ever since I was fifteen years old, it was a dream of mine to go zip-lining in Costa Rica. Ten years later, I finally got to go! This excursion was not included as part of our vacation package, and was approximately $180/person. There were several different options, but I loved the one we chose. It was an all day excursion that included a variety of activities.

They picked us up early in the morning and drove us to the zip-line course, about an hour or so away. To get to the zipline course, we rode horses up the mountain! I love horses, I don't think Ethan does.

Making our way up the mountain on our horses!

After we got to the top, they strapped us into our harnesses and gave us gloves to wear with a thick strip of leather across the palm. The instructors explained how to zip-line, how to control our speed, and other safety measures. You keep one hand on the harness, and the other on the cable (which is why you need the gloves). To slow down, you simply pull down. The instrucors didn't even wear gloves; just the thick strip of leather.

strapped in and ready to go!

The course consisted of 11 zip-lines. I was simultaneously excited and scared. I'm terrified of heights! I thought I would get that stomach-dropping feeling like you get when you ride a roller coaster, but that wasn't it at all. Instead, I just got this rush of excitement and a feeling of awe. It was seriously so beautiful, the pictures don't even do it justice!

Unfortunately, after the zip-line course, I didn't get a chance to take more pictures, which is a shame! But we were doing a lot of water activities and my camera isn't waterproof.

Once we'd completed the zip-line course, we went down a water slide. It was a mile and a half long, and oh boy was it fast!! There were a few turns where I legitimately thought I was going to fly out of it!

The longest zip-line

After the slide, it was time for lunch. I wish I had taken pictures of this meal, because it was honestly the best thing we ate the entire trip!

It started off with plantain chips, served with a black bean dipping sauce. Then a fresh salad with a creamy yogurt dressing served with a spinach and squash soup. I really, REALLY need to find a recipe for that soup because it was incredible!! The main course was chicken with some kind of amazing creamy sauce, vegetables, and a sweet candied plantain side dish. For desert, a lemon sorbet. All of this food was grown (or raised) on the property and the meals were prepared from scratch.

Ethan, coming in hot!

When we were finished eating, we were taken to a mud bath and then we relaxed in a hot spring. Again, I really wish I'd had my camera. This hot spring was surrounded by the most beautiful trees and there was wildlife everywhere!

Finally, after an exciting but exhausting day, we boarded the bus to go back to the resort. After returning, we grabbed dinner and headed up to bed because we were so tired.

If you go to Costa Rica, I would HIGHLY recommend this excursion (I'll update this post with the name).

bug bites

Fun fact: we remembered sunscreen (though Ethan did still burn); however, we did not remember bug spray which was a huge mistake on our excursion. Ethan wasn't bothered by the bugs at all, but man did they love me! The bug bites itched like crazy, but they didn't look like mosquito bites. The picture on the right was actually taken a few days later. They looked a lot worse the day after I got them. Ooh they were terrible! I'm lucky I didn't catch anything.

We had considered going on other excursions, but we were definitely happy to just relax for the rest of the vacation. I really, REALLY wanted to go snorkeling, but we were told the waters were too choppy for us to go out.

The sunset on our last night

We spent the last night on the beach, enjoying our last sunset in Costa Rica. We read our books by the fading sunlight. Although we're excited to travel to all sorts of other places in the world, we talked about how much we'd really like to make visiting the Riu in Costa Rica every January because we just loved it so much.

The next morning, we checked out of our resort and we were taken back to the airport. Unfortunately, they got us there very early and we had to sit and wait for about two hours before boarding the plane.

Our trip back home was not quite as nice as our trip there. We flew first class back to the US and there were entirely too many children sitting in first class! I love kids, but I can't stand them on flights. The girl in front of us spilled her drink on the floor and it soaked my backpack (luckily my electronics weren't damaged). I was not happy.

We landed in Atlanta around 7pm and were supposed to fly out around 9pm. Our flight kept getting pushed back and pushed back; we wouldn't have gotten into the cities until around 2am, and our connecting flight was supposed to leave at 7am. We decided to reschedule our flights and spend the night in Atlanta. We stayed at a REALLY nice Holiday Inn a few miles from the airport. It had a shuttle, so we had easy and free transportation to the hotel and back to the airport.

The last leg of our trip was pretty uneventful. We got back into Grand Forks around 2pm. The worst part was the first step off the plane...remember, how it had been 75F and sunny all week in Costa Rica? Now I was in Grand Forks where it was -10F.

This trip, overall, definitely gets a 9/10 rating for me. I would recommend this resort to anyone and everyone! I really hope we do get to make this an annual vacation!