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With Deals Like These, What’s A
Little Rain?
By JONATHAN RAND, Kansacity.com
MANUEL ANTONIO, Costa Rica - It
pours here every afternoon in
June. Starting about 4, torrents
of rain play a drumbeat on tin
roofs. They don’t call this the
rainy season for nothing.
The only people who don’t call
this the “rainy” season are
Costa Rican tourism officials.
They’re hoping tourists will
drop the description, too, even
if it means denying the obvious.
From May to mid-November,
umbrellas are a necessity.
But tourism is Costa Rica’s
leading industry, and there’s a
push to lure more visitors
throughout the year. Hence the
rainy months are officially
called the “green” or “low”
season.
“We have two seasons,” one of
our guides, Alex, said last
year, poking fun at this spin.
“Wet and less wet.”
Costa Rica actually gets little
rain between mid-November and
April. So the dry season is
especially popular for Americans
escaping winter.
Yet good weather isn’t the only
reason for Costa Rica’s
popularity.
The tourist industry is
sophisticated, Costa Ricans
generally are friendly and
honest, and the nation is
politically stable and
relatively prosperous.
So why visit during the rainy
season? It’s cheaper and less
crowded.
Hotel rates take a significant
drop during the rainy season and
sometimes even during the early
and late dry season.
In the popular Arenal Volcano
area, for example, rooms at
Tilajari Resort Hotel cost
us$76-us$100 between May 1 and
Oct. 31, a dip from us$86-us$120
during the dry season. Hotel
Verde Mar on Manuel Antonio
Beach charges us$60-us$90 a
night from April 16 through Dec.
14 and us$80-us$110 the rest of
the year. Visitors literally can
save money for a rainy day.
The weather seldom gets
oppressively hot or humid. And
you’ll be amazed by how little
bug spray you’ll need. A
mountain resort at which our
family stayed last summer was so
mosquito-free that it didn’t
even have screens on its
windows.
Nobody will deny that rain can
ruin a vacation. If a steady
diet of late-afternoon rain
makes you gloomy, or if you plan
on camping, you may want to
avoid Costa Rica’s rainy season.
But if you don’t mind carrying
an umbrella or waiting out the
rain with snacks and drinks at a
seaside restaurant, you might
want to take advantage of a
bargain.
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