Hotel Grano de Oro San Jose Costa Rica

Image by Costa Rican Resource via FlickrAfter visitng many hotels and dropping groups off almost on average 40 weeks out of the year at hotels in Costa Rica. The Grano de Oro has given our guest a 100% satisfaction rate. I think it is because they have kept it nice and small, kept the staff full, and excellent service. Hope you enjoy the blog and if you have comments on the Grano de Oro would love to hear them?

The Pozuelo cookie is one of the best cookies Costa Rica has to offer. The family Pozuelo in Costa Rica is a well-known family for generations having started the very successful Pozuelo cookie factory which still sits in the center of San Jose. The Pozuelo family wanted to be close to their cookie factory as most people do, the smell is amazing. The family lived in the center of San Jose in a beautiful home that has now been turned into what we consider the best hotel in San Jose, Grano de Oro. Here we will tell you why?

San Jose is filled with some nice hotels just like any capital city. You can find the big Marriots, Real Intercontinentals, and the list goes on which are all great places but if you stay in them chances are you have stayed in something similar before. The Grano de Oro offers something just a little bit different and almost reminds you of a unique place in Europe where so many times you find a great place to stay that is not one of the chains.

Grano de Oro is in the center of San Jose five blocks from the Central Park La Sabana. It is completely refurbished but the history behind the whole city is left on the walls through pictures, antiques, and even the people who come and eat in the restaurant. San Jose is not one of those capital cities that is a must-see for tourists. However, when you stay at Grano de Oro you really feel the history as you hear about the coffee boom and the different buildings and places of San Jose. You leave this hotel not only saying to yourself what wonderful rooms, food, and service but you also gain an interest for this capital city which if you look deep enough does have some interesting history. For tourists, San Jose is sort of over shadowed by the volcanoes, rivers, and rainforests of Costa Rica but hotel Grano de Oro lives up to its name as being just a little “Grain of Gold” tucked away in the capital city of San Jose.

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$$$$ Secrets of Costa Rican Tourism $$$$

Image by Jake Wasdin via FlickrI love how the system works and if you are a big company or a taxi driver working the airport exit you pretty much run on the same system. The right way to run is to charge the tourist for the service you offer and what it is worth, NOTHING MORE & NOTHING LESS. I'm writing this post for the travelers that come to Costa Rica on a budget and end up traveling on there own. If you decided to travel with us it might not be the cheapest trip you can find but we can promise you that you get what you pay for as far as guiding knowledge and service which you can tell by their testimonials.

Everything is run off commisions here. This is good and bad. It is good because it gives a chance that everyone gets a piece of the pie. It is bad because in some cases you see a tourist buying a cake when all they should be spending is for a piece of a pie.  (Although I have seen tourist take this a little too far. Ive seen taxi drivers charge a correct fee and tourist think it was too much just because they figured they were getting charged too much because they were a taxi. Yes, there are tourist who get ripped off but there are also honest people also and lets not forget that. Actually there is a lot more honest people than dishonest ALOT!) If you rent a car and go to a zipline dont be afraid to talk the price down a little bit the chances are you can save yourself a few bucks. Im not telling you to not book your tour from tour desk or hotel reception, these people need to make a living after all also.

There are a million places to do tours in Costa Rica from rafting to ziplining and it never hurts to ask to bargain down the price. If you feel you are paying too much it never hurts to ask someplace else either. This also goes for hotels also. You can always ask for a discount at hotels. Most places deal with a net rate and a rack rate.

There are many types of tour companies that just make their living off commisions which is fine its just like some of the more common sites you probably will buy your airplane ticket sites from. There are other companies like ours that charge for the complete package from reservation services, guide services, and a tone of extras, and just a whole pakcage from start to finish. Hope this blog helped give you a little understanding of how some of economics of Costa Rican tourism runs here.

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The RIU Resort Guanacaste Costa Rica

Image by colros via FlickrI happen to be not a huge fan of all-inclusive resorts. After moving down to Costa Rica and becoming a bit more involved with the environment and the simplicity of how many of the families live in the rural areas I have a little different view on all-inclusive resorts. Although I can't say the same for everyone.

There is a new large all-inclusive resort in Guanacaste and the one good thing about it is that it is about 6 hours from San Jose. It is called RIU Resort which means I dont have to drive by it on my daily commute. I happen to feel Costa Rica is not a country that really needs all inclusive resorts. It just doesnt make sense for the vibe of the country.

I was reading this one honeymooners blog on his visit to the RIU resort which you can read here and I love the part where he says it is a cruise ship that never leaves port. Well that is good to know considering cruise ships are the single most largest polluting peices of junk to our oceans we have (except for BP I guess). So I guess if you absolutely have to stuff your face for 24 hours then an all-inclusive is better than a cruise. 

My point is if you are coming to Costa Rica there is so much to do and you are missing so much. I always here the excuse its our first time, we dont know Spanish,  drinks and food is whats really important to us. Well if that is whats important they save yourself a few hundred bucks and drive down the street to the  Waffle House with a bottle of Whiskey in your coat because they run 24 hours. But if you want to experience Costa Rica for what it really is get out and meat the people and the places. Pump your smiles and dollars into the part of the country it should be going!

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2,000 Trash Cans

Image via Wikipedia Costa Rica is doing the best it can to clean up litter in the country. San Jose, the capital, is installing 2,000 new trash recepticals in the city. They wil be near parks and bus stops. City Hall says that there is no excuse for litter.

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No, Not my Address!

Image via Wikipedia The one thing you do not want to hear in Costa Rica is the question: “What’s your address?”

Addresses in Costa Rica are basically the directions to your house. Giving someone your address is like writing an essay. For example, my address is San Jose de la Montana, the main road out of Barva, 200 meters before the church, on the right, with the wooden gate. That is what you write on the envelope of you letter, in Spanish. Other addresses are even more involved than that. A couple that Mary and I met at immigration started to give us their address on the back of an envelope. They ran out of paper. We settled for their phone number.

We moved recently, and I do not even know my new address. It has something to do with so many meters passed the two bars and around the bend, the first right. That’s why I got a P.O. Box.

However, this address system, as convoluted as it sounds, is amazingly efficient. I have had to find several people using this address method, and I always found them without a problem. If you can’t find them, then all you have to do is ask once you have gone as far as the address will take you. It seems like all the people in Costa Rica know one another. They even know me, and I do not speak the language very well. An American friend of mine could not quite get to my house using my address. So after he got to my village, he stopped in the grocery store, which also serves as a welcome center, and asked if anyone knew me.

“Si, he is the gringo hombre,” the clerk replied. “He lives back there.”

San Jose, the capitol, is going to spend over a million dollars to put numbers on streets and houses. Taxi drivers love the idea, but will it work for the general public? I’m not so sure. I still think people are going to say, “I live a hundred meters past the Shell station on the right, next to the Dairy Queen.”

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