I love Fodors because I can go to the Europe or Carribean or Latin America forum and find 100's of ideas for my son's honeymoon. I bring them ideas and am a self appointed travel consultant. They have no time. After reading trip reports I seriously think Costa Rica is where they would love to go. Since I have never been there can someone on this forum give me a sample itinerary for 2 active 28y/o's who have lived together and want a few days of beach time, but would rather see amazing sits and be active. They are getting married in November and want to take about 8 to 10 days. Is there anyway they can do this on about $2,000? Thanks in advance. If $2,000.00 is too low, what's about right for nice, clean, safe, but not luxe?

The most popular combination for first-timers is Arenal and Manuel Antonio - that would give you a lot of outdoor activities, as well as the active volcano and also beach time. I'd recommend hitting the national park in MA and the Cano Negro tour out of Arenal to see wildlife. If they want a splurge, the Peace Lodge is very honeymoonish and only an hour from the airport.

Thank you for your reply. Is this easy to book on our own, or should we use a travel agent. What about a package? Gate1travel has a fly & drive. What would you do? Thanks in advance.

Depending on the time of year and airport, they're probably looking at:

$700-1000 on airfare

and

$75-$150 a night in lodging.

So, if you put it at $100/night lodging, you're looking at anywhere between $1500 to $2000 just on air fare and lodging.

You should also then budget about another $50-100 a day for activities and food.

Also, a rental vehicle will be another $350-$400, or they'll need to pay for ground transportation if they go anywhere.

If you're on a budget, the Peace Lodge in the Central Valley is probably too splurgtastic. It's over $200 a night.

Any trip involving 8-10 days will run over $2000.

You can book everything on your own via websites.

Keep in mind that you probably can't honeymoon in the US for cheaper, and that Cancun or Europe would be twice as expensive.

To give you some idea of a budget, here's how our February 2008 trip ran:

Air fare (2): $750

Rental vehicle: $400

Central Valley Lodging 3 nights (Orquideas Inn, incl. breakfast): $300

Pacuare Rafting trip (2): $190

Poas National Park (vehicle): $25 (roughly)

La Paz Waterfall Gardens (2): $60

Two nights lodging in Arenal (Arenal Observatory Lodge, incl breakfast): $240

Cano Negro tour (2): $100

Baldi hot springs (2): $42

Two nights lodging in Monteverde (Arco Iris honeymoon lodge): $360

Ranario tour (2): $20 (roughly)

Morning tour of MV reserve (2): $50-60 (roughly)

Guided Night hike (2): $30

Three nights lodging in Montezuma (Ylang Ylang, incl. bkfst and dinner): $495

Zipline tour (1): $35

Curu tour (2): $130

Of course, there's a lot of food costs, fuel, etc etc.

z, I wasn't sure if your budget includes airfare. I would definitely book everything yourself - it's easy to do and will probably save you money. You can book with all the hotels directly. We hired private drivers to take us from place to place, so we didn't have rental car charges. To give you an idea of costs, it was $120 to be driven from the SJO airport to Arenal/La Fortuna. For dinners, we usually ran about $25 for the two of us.

I would first find out whether they feel comfortable driving in Costa Rica--which is the biggest adventure of them all--before making any firm plans.

Some people can't imagine driving there, and some people can't imagine not having a vehicle.

www.skyauction.com

Has good CR adventure package tours
also air good Papagayo lodgings all at
amazingly good prices much cheaper
than doing everything a la carte.

If budget is a consideration might
go that route.Just booked R/T air
$289/tax great deal.Add an adventure
tour can still get in for around 1K
per person.

Thank you for all your suggestions. Now I'm going to study all my options (including airfare) and present them with a plan that makes sense and that won't bankrupt them! I'll let you know what they decide on. Your help is invaluable.

Check out Villa Caletas (near Jaco)...it is one of the most beautiful views/sights I have ever seen...it would be a nice treat for a night or two...or even just a special meal....VERY romantic!

z, also check out tripadvisor.com; that's a wonderful source for checking out hotel pictures, costs, etc. Good luck!

I used a TA to book everything and found it didn't cost me anything more than if I'd booked on my own. I am a math nerd, and I always want to get the most value for my dollar, so in my usual fashion I did some research and prepared a very detailed spreadsheet based on proposed locations and accomodations. I did not share the spreadsheet with the TA, but rather asked for suggestions on where to go, how to travel, etc., and then prepared another spreadsheet to see what I thought it would cost if I booked it all myself.

I know I could have done it all myself, but I felt more comfortable having someone to call if something went wrong. And you know what, we did contact our TA while in Costa Rica. Not because anything went wrong, but because we had such a great driver and guide on one leg of the trip that we wanted to request them for another leg of the trip. And guess what, we got the driver we asked for!

Our TA arranged transport from location to location. We had 12 people, so this price may be irrelevant. The driving portion of the trip was around $1,500. That was for the following:
-12 people in a 20 passenger van with plenty of room
-transportation from Orquedias Inn to Peace Lodge (1 night) with a stop at Doka; our guide also toured the park with us at Peace Lodge. I am not sure if these side trips/guided tours were supposed to be included or not (we thought we had only paid for transportation for this leg), but it was really wonderful to have a guide explain so much.
-transportation from Peace Lodge to Arenal (2 nights), with the driver and the guide staying with us for the duration. The driver is also a guide, it's just that he didn't speak alot of English so he drove the van while the other guide explained things en route. We had both guides for the hanging bridges, a hike to the volcano, and the LaFortuna waterfall hike. Our group of 12 split up on several occasions, and they picked up/dropped us off wherever we wanted to go. Each group always had one of the guides with them. The guides even picked up and dropped off laundry for us in town. Each afternoon and evening we went into town for lunch and for dinner, so in addition to all of the activities, they carted us around quite a bit.
-transportation from Monteverde to MA (they did not stay with us while in MA)with a stop at Tarcoles;
-transportation from MA back to Orquedias.

I know the price/person is low because of the number of people we had, but I don't think we could have done this any cheaper with rental cars, and we really loved not having to drive around. We also saved alot of money by not having to pay for guided tours while in Arenal.

This is one reason (and there were many) I am so glad we used a TA. I would never have thought to organize transportation and guides this way. Because we had the same guides for several days we got to know them well. The adults talked non-stop about how knowledgeable Roiner was, and the fact that he stood up the entire time in the van, facing us, explaining Costa Rican history, flora and fauna. The kids absolutely adored Johnny and all screamed in excitement when he was the one who picked us up in Monteverde for our ride to MA. The adults felt like the kids not only had a fun vacation, but a learning experience. We had meals with them, one night sat out on the balcony at LI drinking beer with them, and all got to know at least two Costa Ricans on a more personal basis than we would have been able to do if we'd rented cars and driven ourselves.