Driving to Arenal on arrival day
 

Hello,

We're about to reserve a rental car for our trip to CR (Tricolor) and I just want to be sure our plan for the day of arrival is reasonable. Our flight arrives at noon on Sat., 7/14, and we have reservations that night at Lost Iguana. We are hoping that we'll be on the road by 2:30 or 3:00 and will arrive at LI by around 6:00. Is this plan reasonable?

My husband was put in touch with someone who owns property in CR. He said we wouldn't get there before 8:00, and advised us to stay in San Jose the day of arrival. I have no desire to see anything in SJ, so I'm anxious to get out of there, and also want to take advantage of already being in the Arenal area on Sunday morning, rather than still trying to get there. On the other hand, I've read in the Fodors info that the mountains tend to fog over by midafternoon. I don't want to get us into a situation that we'll regret. My family's safety is more important than a night at LI. But I thought my plan was reasonable based on reading many posts here.

Also, any tips on driving out of San Jose? I think that's the driving part I dread the most. My husband has driven in Paris so he thinks he can manage, but I think it won't be pleasant! Or will we avoid driving in San Jose by heading straight to Arenal?

Thanks for your feedback. Happy 4th!

Very reasonable. Depending on where you pick up your rental car, there really should be no reason to go into San Jose - something I'd definitely pass on myself, plus it's out of your way. Not sure what your husbands friend means by not getting there til 8pm. From the airport to Fortuna you're looking at 2 1/2, maybe 3 hours. Plus, unless there are a lot of planes arriving at your time, you should be out of there pretty quick, even with checking luggage I think the longest it's taken me is a half hour.

I think you'll arrive in plenty of time.

We just returned from C.R. The drive to Arenal isn't as bad as it sounds. We went thru the La Paz area on our way and it was a beautiful drive. Really only mountainous roads the first hour. Be aware, your plane may be delayed. Ours was, 3 hours! We stayed at Hotel Buena Vista in Alejuela. Super nice and helpful people, nice hotel with wonderful views. They picked us up at the airport, no extra charge. They may be able to call tricolor and have your car delivered the next morning if you need.

Oh no, a three hour delay would blow the plan for sure! I guess we'd better have a backup plan in place, hotel possibilities etc. Which airline were you flying and from where? Do you know what caused the delay? I've read here that this is a good possibility but I'm always optimistic, maybe too much so.

We were there in May. Our plane landed around 11:30 or 12:00 and even with a fairly long delay at immigration (their computers went down!) - we had no problems getting to Arenal before dark. We also rented our car from Tricolor. It was our first trip to Costa Rica, so we had no experience driving there, and were prepared for the worst. But the drive wasn't bad at all. We got directions from Tricolor on which way to head out from their office, we had a good map and we had directions from our hotel in Arenal. One thing we also had that really helped was a small Costa Rica pocket spanish guide. This helped with road signs etc - we speak little spanish and it helped to be able to read the signs! :)

The ride was around 2 1/2 hours and we drove at a leisurly pace. It was beautiful!

Enjoy your trip!

Hi ShellD, thanks for your response. I feel much better about it after hearing from a few people here. Can you tell me where you found your map? We are looking for one online and haven't found one we like yet. Thanks for the suggestion about the pocket Spanish guide. I'm hoping our daughters can help us out on that since they've been taking Spanish in school for years now but we probably should get the guide as well.

Thanks for all the help and reassurances!

My fiancee and I are actually doing the same thing for our honeymoon, except we are arriving in Liberia around noon, renting a car and driving to Tabacon. Based on how long it takes in Liberia to get backs, customs, then renting a car from Ace (Toyota Rentacar), can anyone ballpark our time of arrival in Arenal? Thanks.

ITMB sells a good road map of Costa Rica available at Amazon.com.
Ours has served us well through the years.
It includes elevation coloring as well as park reserves, beaches, etc.

freshman - the map I got was just at Barnes and Noble and it's by Borch. I picked it because it's sort of plastic coated and I figured it wouldn't get messed up in the humidity and all the travel. It was a very good map - much more detailed than many we saw. Also, I brought our Moon guidebook with us which we used when we were in La Fortuna and other smaller towns and that helped to navigate in those areas. For example, I needed to get some medicines and it listed all the pharmacies and had a street map. It also lists all the restaurants on the map. It was perfect. I'm sure any of the travel guides would be perfect, and I had three :), but that was the one I tossed into my luggage at the last minute! My tips would be get a map, the pocket spanish guide, a costa rica travel guide and directions from the the airport to the hotel, which I just printed off the hotel web site.

Have a great trip!

No problem at all...driving time is about 3 hours...your plan is 100% reasonable!!

Some people have the tendency...to said things about Costa Rica that are not rtue at all..some times I read posts and I have to go back to the title...to see if is about Costa Rica...the way some people write some posts...they belong better to the deep Amazons...or Zambia ...

A nice late afternoon drive to Arenal...is a great experience!!

R.A Luis

Just buckle up and enjoy the ride in paradise!!