New Flights to San Jose Announced!

Great news for anyone planning a Costa Rica vacation at Del Pacifico! In the past couple months, 6 new non-stop flight routes have been announced between North America and San Jose, Costa Rica. 

United, the world's largest airline, is adding 2 new weekly routes to San Jose. Non-stop flights from Washington's Dulles Airport and Chicago's O'Hare Airport will begin in April.

JetBlue will begin daily non-stop service between Ft. Lauderdale & San Jose on June 27th.

Air Canada has launched a new discount getaway airline, Air Canada Rouge, which will operate non-stop flights from both Montreal & Toronto to San Jose beginning in July.

Sunwing, a Canadian discount airline, has already begun a new non-stop route between Toronto & San Jose.

All of this seems to be good news for the tourism industry in Costa Rica! See you here in 2013!

Book your stay at Del Pacifico here or call us at 888-960-ALMA or +1-410-727-6444 for help planning your trip!

Del Pacifico on Pinterest

Are you totally obsessed with Pinterest too?

We are loving this latest craze in the social media world. Pinterest is a visual pinboard- a place to gather all those articles and images you come across on the web in one convenient place.

We have set up a Del Pacifico Pinterest account- you can check us out on Pinterest here for Costa Rican recipes, activity ideas for your next Costa Rican vacation, travel tips, destination wedding ideas and much more!

5 Tips for Combining Your Vacation with a Real Estate Scouting Trip

Many pre-retirement Baby Boomers like to combine their dream eco-tourism vacation in Costa Rica with a preliminary scouting trip to see what's available in Central American real estate. This is very easy to accomplish, but some advance planning can help you to best utilize your time.  Here are some tips: 

1)  Call our US office at +1-410-727-6444 to get an overview of the current market and also to talk about your objectives and some reasonable expectations.  We can help get you up to speed on the different regions of Costa Rica  and the terminology. Unless you're an Indiana Jones wannabe, the odds are that you will want to either look at the Central Pacific region (where the Del Pacifico and Los Sueños resorts are located), the Nicoya peninsula (Guanacaste and where the Four Seasons resort is found) or the Osa Peninsula (down near Panama- very pretty, but also very hot and very, very humid). If you're looking to retire full time in Costa Rica, you might want to look in the Central Valley (the areas around San Jose) This is popular with US retirees who want to live full time in Costa Rica because of the very mild weather and proximity to good hospitals.

2) Come stay in either a condo or house at Del Pacifico or at our Alma Del Pacifico Beach Hotel & Spa. We can arrange to have a rental car delivered to you; take 1 full day to explore the Central Pacific coast.  We can help you with an itinerary and can give you the scoop. Since there is essentially just one road, it's very easy to navigate the area.

3) Should you work with a Costa Rica real estate agent? Not really for your first visit. The level of professionalism and ethics is much different than in the US.  We'd recommend that on your first time, you look around the larger resorts such as Del Pacifico and Los Sueños and get a feel for what's available and whether it meets your needs.

4)  Plan a half day to tour Del Pacifico. Given some advance notice we can arrange a leisurely horse back tour of the resort, ending up at the beach bar at Alma Del Pacifico. Since sunset is pretty much at 6 PM year round, don't plan a real estate tour at 4 PM! The sun sets quickly.  To arrrange a tour, call our local office +1-410-800-4773 or our US office +1-410-727-6444.

5) Remember, we are here to help so give us a call (410-727-6444) or shoot us an email with your questions.

Foodies in Paradise...the Locavore Movement in Costa Rica

The New York Times(September 9, 2012) recently ran an article talking about the locavore or "farm to table" movement coming to Costa Rica. What condescending muck!  With a 12 month growing season for fruits and vegetables and  being right on the Pacifico Ocean, Costa Rica was locavore before locavore was cool.

Our ocean view Pavilion restaurant at the Alma Del Pacifico Beach Hotel & Spa has been getting rave reviews on Trip Advisor and our chef just uses local ingredients. Aside from wine (we get many fine wines from South America) about the only exception to this on the menu is our imported angus beef for that staple of the American teenage tourist diet, the 1/2 pound hamburger. Our menu regularly features fresh yellow-fin tuna, red snapper, and mahi mahi. Our onsite garden provides fresh herbs & vegetables for our restaurant- you  can't get more local than that!

C'mon down and chow down with us!

All Clear At Del Pacifico!

Everything is fine after the recent quake! The epi-center was up in Guanacaste  and all we got in the Central Pacific was a rumble and virtually no damage. In fact, Fernando reports that our total losses were one bottle of an orange flavoured liqueur which fell off the bar. 

Think about it,  a 7.6 quake and very little damage in the entire country and no damage at Del Pacifico. Why? Because Costa Rica has very stringent building codes and enforces them. Second, as our owners know, the construction at Del Pacifico has been done to a very high level.  This is a good example of why Costa Rica is different than buying real estate in another country like Nicaragua, Ecuador or Belize.

Thanks for the many calls and inquiries but we're happy to report all is well.  I just wish I had a video of Fernando running up the hill seeking higher ground when he heard that their was a Tsunami warning! (It was cancelled very quickly).

Now is he time to be planning your winter vacation so give us a call and we can help plan your dream trip!

Barry