Costa Rica or Nicaragua for Honeymoon??

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m trying to plan my honeymoon…for months we’ve been saying we’d go to Peru to hike the Inca trail but unfortunately the earliest we can take time to get away is by about late October, and both of us would prefer to push the honeymoon off till Thanksgiving break in order to maximize our vacation time and go for slightly longer than one week. This is not an optimal time to hike the Inca trail, and while I’m willing to do a trekking honeymoon, I draw the limit at trekking in the rain or during less-than-ideal off peak weather conditions. I’d rather go in summer of 2014.

I’ve honed in on Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Costa Rica seems like it’s further along in developing its tourist economy, has more packages to make our life easier and lots of adventure activities that we’d both find interesting (he wants to rapel down a waterfall/I want to take surfing lessons). Nicaragua seems like it’s more laid back, a little bit more off the beaten path, has fewer options in terms of pre-built packages, is cheaper and fewer well-established adventure activities?

Any thoughts or recommendations? I have my eye on Nicaragua but I feel like I’d be getting what I want (surfing) and he wouldn’t have as many options for adventure activities save for hiking up the Ometepe volcanoes which I know will be a big selling point. Do they have the ziplines etc. etc.?

I should add that I am ever so slightly nervous about contracting leishmaniasis, which I’ve read a few accounts of Nicaragua being higher risk for.

2

Never been to Nicaragua, but Costa Rica is gorgeous (with pockets of extreme poverty). There are mountains, rain forests and beaches, so any preference can be accomodated. I went on a humanitarian trip and spent most of my time in a and around San Jose, but we did venture into the mountains and rain forest one day. We even took time to zip line through the canopy - amazing fun! Didn’t get to spend any time on the beaches, but from what I have seen and heard they are beautiful and contain some top notch resorts. I would go back for a vacation in a heartbeat!

3

I’ve never been to Costa Rica or Nicaragua, but I am perpetually wooed by the various Groupon and Living Social deals resorts there offer. The plan is to head to one or both in the next year or so.

That said, last year, we went to Belize and had a fantastic time. Have you considered Belize? I hadn’t, not until I stumbled across a Groupon for Maruba Resort in the jungle. If you like off the beaten path and different, Maruba might be the place for you— personally, I freaking LOVED it. We saw and hiked around tons of Mayan ruins, saw all kinds of awesome jungle animals, and got some fantastic massages at their little spa. It’s a resort, but only in the loosest sense. You can check out photos and reviews on TripAdvisor, but it was an all around great time.

We stayed at Maruba for 5 nights. Our package included breakfast every day, plus a whole mess of spa treatments. For two people, the total cost was $799 for the Groupon. I know that I’ve had friends go to the resort since (who also loved it!) and the resort honored the Groupon package even if they didn’t have it-- you just have to ask.

We combined Maruba with a stay at another resort, farther down the coast of Belize: Hatchet Caye. This is a place I found out about on Living Social. It’s a private island resort with only, I think, 8 rooms. What this means is that there are never more than 16 guests on the island. . .which is awesome. The rooms are all beautiful little bungalows with granite and nice sheets and flat screen tvs, very well appointed and more traditional resort style, but the tiny size of the island keeps everything incredibly personal. The best thing about Hatchet Caye is the water activities. They’ll take you out snorkeling every day if you want- I’ve never seen so many turtles and sharks and rays in my life. Even the snorkeling at the resort is amazing-- just a mile of coral in every direction, alive and bright, teaming with fish. The dock also has these lights they put on at night, which attract eagle rays-- I could sit there all night and watch this. . . herd. . . of rays swim around. It was amazing. The food was also amazing!

Hatchet Caye is all inclusive-- save for drinks. We did 3 or 4 nights there and our package included a snorkel tour, all the food, and transportation to and from the island (you have to take a tiny plane from Belize City, then an hour on a speed boat to the island). We paid $1599 for two people for this, but it was well worth it.

Airfare to Belize fluctuates, but by watching it on Kayak for a month or so, we got it for about $500 a ticket, round trip from LAX.

What I really liked about Belize is that it’s gorgeous, unspoiled natural beauty, plus tons of history. Since it’s not really on the radar of most people, we were more or less alone at most of the monuments and sights, which is definitely more my style. I’ve been to Machu Picchu and while it’s hands down the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, you’re basically surrounded by people the entire time you’re there. Definitely do MP when you get the chance, but if you’d like to see some awesome ruins up close and personal-- or go on some amazing hikes in the jungle, consider Belize.
Anyway, I wrote pretty comprehensive reviews of both places on TripAdvisor. If you’d like me to PM links to my reviews, I’d be happy to share!

4

Haha…I was wondering when someone would mention Belize!!

I’ve been to Belize and he’s been to Hawaii…both with our exes, so I’d rather not go to either for our honeymoon and focus on some place that’s new for both of us. But I totally agree, Belize was absolutely awesome!

I’ll let you know which one we head to though…I am ever so slightly in favor of Nicaragua and I suspect he will strongly lean towards Costa Rica. We are going to get at 1 air ticket free because I have 120K miles on United right now, but that means the non-free ticket price can’t be controlled as easily. Fortunately both countries are pretty cheap to fly to overall so if we find a good package maybe I’ll save my miles for some domestic travel, like to New Orleans or Cali.

5

I went to Costa Rica for my honeymoon and loved it (we also had an unscheduled stopover in Nicaragua because of weather and that was all I needed to see there). In fact, I plan on moving to Costa Rica in the next ten years. Costa Rica is a world-class tourist destination and the oasis of central America. Nicaragua is a true 3rd world country. I would go to Nicaragua some time but not for a honeymoon especially if Costa Rica was the other choice. They are neighbors but extremely different in their level of development and general safety. Pick Costa Rica hands-down. That is what it is there for.

6

We went to surf camp on our honeymoon in Costa Rica and had an amazing time. Safari Surf School has a totally deserved great reputation - we even returned two years later for a repeat trip, we enjoyed it that much. In the same town is the longest zipline in CR.

Many of the surf instructors and staff go to Nicaragua frequently; its also supposed to be very nice although there are far fewer English speakers and just less infrastructure, period. There’s really no reason why you can’t go both places though - the short hop on Nature Air from Costa Rica to Nicaragua is not terribly expensive.

7

I spent 6 months in Costa Rica and loved it. It has four very distinct weather zones, both wet and dry tropical jungle (the wet one is what most people think of when we hear “jungle”, the dry one looks more like the deciduous forests of temperate zones), much more of a middle class than one might expect before visiting it and a very strong tourist industry. The roads can be scary - make sure to get the weather report before heading to any of the volcanic areas, as they’ll mention closed roads. I loved the Barrahonda caves, despite having a real bad time with the ladder (I hate being tied, safety harnesses make me feel more anxious, not safer, and the ladder was set sort of backwards; maybe they’ll have changed it by now).

If either of you two hates cilantro, be warned that both places use it generously. And do not ever eat any fish other than ceviche: the locals don’t, so it will be overpriced and likely not to be anything you couldn’t get much better back home.

Oh, and Shag? I’m officially envious of your plans to move there. Pura vida!

8

My in-laws spent February in Nicaragua, mostly in Granada but they did a side trip to San Juan Del Sur. It was hot and dry, SJDS was far more touristy and upscale than Granada, and there was a lot of crushing poverty.

9

Costa Rica. I have a friend from there and he and his family plan to retire there. I hear it’s beautiful, and everyone speaks English and everyone has a maid, and even the maids have maids. I’m trying to talk my husband to move there but he’s Mexican and has family in Mexico so he’d rather go there. He has no feelings about Nicaragua.

10

I’ve been to both places and I would recommend Costa Rica. I was in Managua, Nicaragua for a few days (not for leisure though) and there’s just seemed to be a whole lot of nothing. Costa Rica there are beaches, zip-lining and just generally better suited to receive visitors.

11

“English for tourists” in most cases, though: they can give directions, point you to the toilet or recommend an attraction/hotel, but have never learned how to talk about the weather or about food (normally, waiters at a restaurant will know a few food terms but won’t be able to actually describe a dish). And yet, one of the guys at my job was an American who’d lived in the country for over 6 years and refused to speak a word of Spanish, so evidently it’s doable.

12

Hmm, I’m taking note of the fact that Costa Rica seems to be the overwhelmingly popular answer. Looks like Nicaragua is still more off the beaten path than I had imagined.

I do know there are new hotels popping up in Nicaragua but I agree that in Costa Rica it seems like we can travel around more easily due to a reasonable amount of development in all three of the major areas (cloud forest, volcano and beach). Plus it’s not that expensive a trip anyway for me to be concerned about the price differential. I think at this juncture it’s a matter of ease of arranging stuff + the diversity of adventure activities…there are just lots of established companies in Costa Rica that even if I booked everything from scratch it would be really easy to go about doing it myself. As it is, I’m thinking of a flight + hotel package and then booking our excursions and activities ourselves.

Maybe we’ll do a cheap vacation down to Nicaragua one day anyway, I found a lot of cool stuff from Ometepe to San Juan del Sur to Granada.

13

I would go for Costa Rica. Many Tourist attractions, National Parks and all such reasons are obviously there but personally speaking, I just love those beaches. It just makes you question yourself that how can a place be so stunning. There is calmness about Costa Rica which appeals to me. It is your call but my vote goes to Costa Rica, hands-down.

14

If you have only been to Managua, then you can’t say that you have been both places. Managua is a busy, crowded capital city not on the beach or in the middle of nature. That is like saying you have been only to Mexico City, and so therefore you can’t recommend Los Cabos.

I don’t know if I’m too late to weigh in but I think the lack of votes for Nicaragua is simply that most folks haven’t been there! Nicaragua has tons of zip lines, and actually has more national parks than Costa Rica. The options for volcano hikes go well beyond Ometepe as well.

Yes, it is more laid back and less developed than Costa Rica. It’s up to you to decide if that’s a good thing or not. November is a great time of year to visit either place. If you decide to go in October, I wouldn’t recommend anywhere in Central America as it’s still rainy season.

Depending on how much money you want to spend, there are plenty of nice ecolodges. I would recommend checking out visitnicaragua.us as they have lots of packages of different types, but thankfully no all-inclusives like Sandals. If you’d rather not do a package, start at gotonicaragua.com for ideas of where to go.

A few places worth checking out are:
[ul]
[li]Totoco Eco Lodge on Ometepe[/li][li]Morgan’s Rock Hacienda[/li][li]Mukul Resort (this is the one that’s been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal twice this year already, and was in Vogue Magazine)[/li][li]Pelican Eyes Resort[/li][/ul]

If you want a truly laid back experience, look into Las Penitas on the Northern coast, or Monty’s Surf Lodge in Jiquilillo.

Also look on vrbo.com for some house rentals as well.

I travel to Nicaragua several times a year, if you want to know more you can also contact me at nataliehastings AT gmail.

15

I was in Nicaragua, but that was in the 1980s and I would not be able to make any up-to-date recommendations. I doubt the accommodations I had would be up to snuff for a honeymoon anyway. But it is a gorgeous country, I can tell you that. Really beautiful.

I have not been to Costa Rica, but I know there is a thriving American “colony” there and have known people who loved the place. Never known anyone to dislike it. One old anthropology professor of mine was always going down there to live for months at a time, even taking along his 80-something mother.