Hello!
I am finally taking the time to write all about my HONEYMOON! My husband and I got married in October 2020 and we were so thankful we were able to have a scaled down wedding and still have a special, meaningful day with friends and family. Since we are both teachers, we decided to wait to take our honeymoon until about 3 weeks after our wedding on our Thanksgiving Break . We wanted to go somewhere warm, but also wanted to immerse ourselves in culture and adventure. We landed on COSTA RICA!
As much as I love planning trips myself, I really wanted to use the help of a vacation planner for our honeymoon. We decided to go with Costa Rica Vacations to help plan our trip. They were amazing and spoke with us frequently to create and tweak a custom travel itinerary for us. They also arranged transportation between the airport and other locations for us, which was a huge reason I wanted to use a travel planner.
Day 1
We flew out around 10 AM from Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta and arrived at San Jose Airport after a four hour flight. We had a driver meet us to take us to our hotel where we would stay for three nights. The drive was about three hours and we stopped at a grocery store on the way to get some snacks since we hadn't eaten since that morning. My husband speaks conversational Spanish, which was helpful on our trip.
Then we arrived at our hotel: Arenal Kioro Suites and Spa in La Fortuna. We absolutely loved staying there! We checked in to our room, and although we had a direct view of the Arenal volcano, it was cloudy, so we couldn't see it yet. We enjoyed the different weather patterns throughout our stay. We could sometimes see the entire volcano and sometimes it was not visible at all. We rested at the hotel and had dinner onsite at the restaurant.
Day 2
On the second morning of our trip, we got ready for our first excursion that was booked by Costa Rica Vacations. We had a shuttle waiting for us outside the hotel lobby to take us to our coffee farm tour at Arenal Vida Campesina. Because Costa Rica had recently opened for tourists again since the Covid shutdown, we had the whole tour to ourselves. We were so impressed with the tour. It was so much more than coffee! We had a tour through the vegetation on the farm, learned about different plants, and had a chance to grind a sugar cane and coffee beans. At the end, we were treated to a delicious meal and beverages, made fresh in front of us. Highly recommend!
After the amazing coffee farm tour, we decided to book an additional excursion that was not part of our original itinerary. At Arenal Kioro, we booked a hanging bridges tour at Mistico Arenal. The transportation was provided and we had a wonderful tour guide take us through the rainforest and share his knowledge of all the wildlife we never would've noticed on our own. This tour also included hiking through the hanging bridges with rainforest sights and sounds. It was an unforgettable experience!
We had dinner at the hotel again and then rested up for our next adventure.
Day 3
This was the last day of our stay at Arenal Kioro before we headed to a new location for the second leg of our trip. We ate breakfast at the hotel, where we chose between "desayuno Americano" or "desayuno tradicional." I opted for the traditional Costa Rican breakfast before we got ready for our next excursion: ziplining! Ziplining through the rainforest is a MUST DO activity when traveling to Costa Rica. We met our driver in the parking lot and he took us to the location with Go Adventure. The weather wasn't ideal; it was rainy and chilly. However, we still had a blast! The guides were so knowledgeable and made us feel safe as we zipped through the trees. At the end, we had the option to repel down the side of a cliff. That was awesome as well!
After the ziplining experience, we ate lunch at the hotel by the pool and then changed to get ready for the ON-SITE HOT SPRINGS! This was one of the most incredible parts of the hotel. We didn't have to leave the property to enjoy a natural hot springs pool all to ourselves. This was our last day for leg 1 of our honeymoon. We enjoyed dinner, drinks, and dessert at the hotel restaurant before we packed up to get ready for our next destination....THE BEACH!
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