Costa Rica!

So a few months ago Mark and I booked our flight to Costa Rica for an AMAZING price ($395 RT per ticket!). Since then we have been researching and deliberating about where we wanted to stay. I have a moral dilemma with going to Third World countries to stay in fancy resorts while having the locals wait on me hand and foot. After visiting El Salvador last summer and seeing the extent of the poverty there, I vowed that I would never become one of those tourists. But here I am now, with a ticket to Costa Rica for my honeymoon. And I'll admit it, I kind of want to stay at a nice place. I've justified my decision because tourism is the main benefit to the economy in Costa Rica and that means my money will just go into helping the economy there.

So, Mark and I narrowed the choices down to a few resorts that we liked. All-inclusive seemed to be our major concern, as it is so much easier when you don't have to find places to eat. We had a resort all settled on Saturday, but chose to sleep on it for the night. We were a little iffy on the decision as the per night price of staying there was extremely expensive. Sunday morning I woke up, went to my computer to research a little bit more and suddenly I discovered a fantastic resort that was resonably priced. Needless to say, we booked it.

We are going to on the pacific coast in Costa Rica, about 2 hours from the San Jose airport, to stay at the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean and Golf Resort. We are staying all-inclusive, which not only includes food and drink but it also includes transportation to and from the airport (worth almost $500 in either car rental OR taxi fare), and we are entitled to various activies around the resort. Some free gambling too, which will be fun. Mark and I went ahead and booked it, then we went to campus and printed out all of our itineraries/menus/conformations/etc. We're also looking at some zipline canopy tours through the rainforest, a trip to the Arenal Volcano, horseback riding on the beach and ATV tours. There is certainly a lot of things to do in Costa Rica, so we have high hopes for a good time.