Travel Day to Costa Rica

The girls have been playing in a hockey tournament in Whitby since Friday morning, so the last few days we've been up with them at 6:00am, 5:30am and today 5:00am...they've been awesome, but I'm expecting a nuclear level breakdown today at some point from one of them.  The girls have been winning at the tournament, they're in the finals today at noon so we should be able to find out shortly after we land how the team faired in the Final game.  The team is short 6 players for today's game, 3 due to injury and 3 due to vacation (because Sophie and Paige brought Myah with us to CR this year!), and we're playing another team that's undefeated in the tournament so we're hoping they do well today, but regardless its been a great tournament.

We met Jim and Maria in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel at 5:45am and took the monorail over to Terminal 1.  

Jim met the girls and I last night at the hotel for dinner, where I learned that Jim has never been on the monorail before and doesn't know where Viscount parking garage is, he and Maria always take a car service to the airport or do Valet at the terminal where they park and detail your car while you're away.

We followed Maria to her Super Elite counter and got all checked in, then followed her to the Super Elite security line and finally into the Lounge where she talked her way into me and the 3 girls being free in the lounge.  She never specifically said they were her children, but it was implied.  LOL.

We were in the lounge long enough to have some food and drink and then went to the gate and the flight was boarding so went straight onto the plane where the girls got settled in. 




I'm in the row just ahead of them.  Sophie wanted me to ask the person who was on the aisle across from her to switch with me, but it was a family of 3, so I couldn't.  I ended up having an empty seat between me and the guy in the window seat, so at the end of the flight as we were landing, when it was a little bit bumpy Sophie moved over to the seat beside me for landing.  On the airplane I went to use the washroom and got there to both doors opening at the same time.  On the right a guy was coming out, on the left a man was coming out holding an iPhone with earbuds in his ears..so naturally I went to go in the one on the right thinking 'if you've been watching a movie on your phone I don't want to go in there', but as I reached for the door the guy who came out said to another person standing, stretching his legs at the back of the plane "Don't go in there.." pointing to his bathroom.  I asked that guy if he was waiting for the bathroom, to that point I hadn't seen him, he said no.  I said "Did he just say not to go in one of these?  Which one?"  He pointed to the one the guy had come out of, so I had to go into the one with the iPhone guy which I'm not sure was the lesser of two evils.

As soon as we got off the plane we went through customs.  I was a little nervous because I have Myah and so had separate documents for her for customs but also the Travel Authorization signed by Steve and Julia - but to make matters worse as soon as we got to the counter Sophie started whining and crying that she had to go to the washroom and I'm like "Sophie, you'll just have to wait" very calmly, about 16 times and she continued.  I'm thinking to myself that this is probably one of the signs that someone is trafficking kids, get to the counter and cause a distraction to get through as soon as possible and I'm totally getting pulled into a dark, windowless room.  The second problem with this is the bathrooms are outside a set of sliding doors and the duty free is inside the set of sliding doors and once I exit I can't get back in!  Maria is in duty free and Jim is standing outside so I ask him if he can escort the girls to the bathroom while I go buy booze.  Duty free I would say is 50% cheaper than in the supermarket and you can get 5L per person.  So I bought 2 tequila and 2 Ron Zacapa for pina coladas (so smooth and we're totally worth it).  The tequila is $24USD and the Ron is 2 x 1L bottles for $91USD.

Oh, and the girls did it!!  Whitby Tournament of Heroes Champions - 6 players down!

When we get out Jim already has all the luggage, so Maria and I quickly use the washroom as well and then we go to the Alamo counter and get on the shuttle.  Alamo is really close, and I make sure I'm in the seat that is first out of the car so that I can get in to the counter first, the process was very quick and they accepted the insurance certificate I had my credit card company send me so the car rental just went from $405USD to $752USD for the 2 weeks for a 7 passenger SUV.  Its smaller than the Nissan Pathfinder we had last year but we got all our stuff in and then went next door to a restaurant for lunch before driving to Flamingo.

The first car I passed on the road Maria gave a little chuckle. I looked at her and she looked at Jim, and I said “oh, I remember, Jim drives like an old granny”. He said no, he drives like he cares about the welfare of his passengers. Lol. 

Arriving was easy as well, because we rented the same house last year the guy at Special Places of Costa Rica, the rental agency, just handed me the keys and said "have a good time", we didn't have to do the walk through or anything.

When we got here there have been some positive changes - they got new cushions for the outside furniture, or just recovered them, so they look fresh.  They fixed the sink in the kitchen and put a plastic meshing down to protect the concrete and they changed the cushions as well inside in the living room area - the 3 things that we mentioned last year that could use a little updating.

Girls room

Its HOT here, so after quickly unpacking in our rooms we changed into swim suits, made a pitcher of pina coladas and hopped in the pool!  

While unpacking we realized Myah didn’t bring any underwear, but she and the girls are all the same size so she can get by until Jay can bring her some when he arrives on Thursday. Julia texted back...

Mom and Dad's condo building is basically next door, there is one house between us and them, but they say the pool at the building is COLD, it must be much shadier because there is no heater on the pool.  Ours is amazing, its warm and exactly how we remember it.  

The girls had some virgin Pina coladas. I matched their cups to the boogie boards Mom and Dad picked up for them. 

Myah drinks hers like Mom does. The straw doesn’t come out until it’s gone. 

After another pitcher of pina coladas we are getting dressed and heading to Angelina's for dinner.  Mom made a reservation for us at 6pm.  

On the way there Myah said “I’m nervous”. About what?  “About everything”. She must have been feeling a bit anxious about being away. She also saw a sign and tried to figure out what it says in Spanish. I said “You’re funny, it says Economy Rent A Car”. She said “Of course I’m funny”. 

They changed their menu slightly, now the tuna tar tar, which was so good as the special last year, is on the menu full time.  It was so good again.  Then I had a small lobster pizza, which is an appetizer, for dinner.  Dad had the burger (no longer a wagu burger, but still delicious), Mom had the pork chop which was really good, Maria had a prime rib sandwich, Jim had a pizza and the girls had a pizza too.  After dinner we came home and went straight to bed.  Myah FaceTimed with Julia.  She and Paige are sleeping together in the girls room tonight and Sophie is sleeping with me until Jay gets here on Thursday.  But Myah was upset after talking to Julia, so she ended up sleeping with me and Sophie slept with Paige - after a back rub and a little pep talk she went right to sleep.  She's so awesome, I'm so glad that she (and Steve and Julia) felt comfortable coming with us, its very brave for a little 9 year old to be away from her parents for 2 weeks. The girls will have an awesome time together. 

Fast forward 10 hours later and we woke up at 5:45am this morning - back on CR time.  LOL, bed at 8:45pm last night (late night for us) and up with the sun.