Costa Rican Casinos

Wifey and I recently returned from an adventure to wonderful Costa Rica. It was a great vacay, and if you haven't visited, I highly recommend this paradise for a relaxing time.

We visited several casinos in both San Jose and a small beach town called Jaco. We had to give em a try. There is a fairly large casino just a few blocks for the international airport in San Jose called Fiesta. there are rows and rows of slot machines, mostly of the IGT video type. Some take US dollars and some take local currency. Gotta be careful, because some machines will take dollars, register them as local at a great loss to you. Pay outs are about the same, meaning that they're slot machines, and unless you get a lucky hit, you're just playing video games. I don't recall any table games in this casino, but we also weren't there very long. They do present a little buffet line, mostly of the finger food variety for snacks. Drinks available at the bar.

There is a smaller version of this casino in Downtown San Jose. it also has the video type slots, and also a few VP machines. As I recall, this one takes local currency. VP paytables are mostly very poor. Best I saw was 8/5 JOB. Otherwise, worse. No table games. No snacks aside from a popcorn wagon. Drinks available. Also some some other very small casinos in the down town area, mostly nestled in little out of the way places, small little rooms with a couple or three dozen machines. Dark, smoky, and run down. Not many locals in those, but several tourists grinding away.

Jaco has a few casinos available. A couple of them were very small, filled with machines. Amapola resort had a small casino with a few table games. Looked at them, but didn't play. Poker tables are available, but didn't see anybody playing. 21 games available but they have some slightly different rules, and it's definitely not the blackjack you find in Vegas. Some other rather random table games that I didn't take the time to study. Morgan's Cove has a slot machine room, filled with video slots. A couple of reel slots. Neither place is much to talk about.

Hotel Cocal has a larger casino with a variety of games, but the place is known as a local single tourist hangout. Larger selection of hookers than there are slots. Needless to say, wifey didn't let me play.

Croc's casino is a larger facility in their new resort. Very clean, well lit, much classier place. Nor was it infested with ladies of the day/morning/night/whatever. Several table games available including BJ, poker and roulette. Machines are also variable currency, local and USD. VP available, but again with poor payouts. Restaurants available just outside the casino. Much nicer facilities than any other we visited in CR, and it looks like it caters to tourists and patrons of the resort. We tried our luck here a couple of times. Had some fun, but no wins to speak of.

Had great fun on the vacay, and didn't go there with the intent of much gambling. Still, it was interesting to check out the different places and kind of mentally compare them to what we are used to in the US. Not quite a gambling mecca by a long shot, but still, you can get your fix here if needed.

Nice Report, Thanks for the info

Very interesting! Aside from gambling, what kinds of things did you do there? I've always been interested in going to Costa Rica.

Thanks, folks. For Euro:
You may really enjoy Costa Rica. Extremely tourist friendly, inexpensive and relaxing. Most communities have somebody that speaks about every language.
We particularly favor the Pacific Coast, and the inland area around Volcano Arenal. Wifey and I have been going to CR about once a year for the past 15 years, and it's our choice for vacation spots (aside from Vegas).

On the pacific coast, a little town called Jaco is a beach goers haven. Its a funky little surf community, with great beaches for miles and miles on either side. About a 90 minute drive from the main airport in San Jose. 40 or 50 decent places to stay, ranging from boutique hostels to 4 or 5 star all-inclusive accomodations. Lots of beachfront places with bar/grill restaurants. My wife and I enjoy this beach villa more than any other place just becuase it's so carefree and relaxing (we are 60 somethings, so we're not in to the hard party scene, but it can be found in Jaco). It's a 15 minute walk from the most remote hotel to the center of town. Prices are right. We have found that between airfare, food and accomodations, we can visit CR for less than a the cost of a week in Orlando or Los Angeles, and have a better time. Food is extremely tasty, nutritious and plentiful. can get a plateful of local cuisine so big it's hard to finish for 5 or 6 USD. Of course, you can also get a BigMac for 8 bucks if you must. It's hard to beat a cup of coffee that was roasted before your eyes, then ground and brewed. It's also hard to beat drinking a large glass of fruit juice that was a whole pineapple a minute ago, or produced from a mango the size of a football. Cab fare after dark is about 2 USD to get to anywhere in town. Locals are more than pleased to call a cab for you. Roads are decent, and easy enough to drive. The beach is surrounded by rainforest and jungle. Wildlife abounds. Everywhere we've stayed, we've had iguanas (some up to 5 feet long) and scarlet macaws as neighbors. Surf is excellent, some of the best in the world. Unfortunately, hard riptides along with the surf. The area hosts international surfing competitions a time or two a year. Easy access by car or tour excursions to excellent wildlife refuges and national parks. Can see breeding grounds for ocean turtles, or many varieties of monkey, crocodile rivers, mangrove forests, all kinds of unusual tropical fauna. Can also canoe the rivers, deep sea fishing, nature walks, zip lines, etc. Depends on what you want to do, but you can probably find it. We prefer just walking along the beach, enjoying the ocean, eating and maybe tipping a cold one. Temp ranges from mid seventies at the worst to upper 80s at the warmest. Very humid on the coast. Nobody is in a hurry in Costa Rica, so you can plan on an hour for a "quick" lunch.

In northern interior are wonder volcanic rain and cloud forests and jungles. A little town called Fortuna has 30 or 40 excellent hotels and resorts. Some of them are fed by natural hot springs from the volcanic activity, water consistently about 104 degrees--perfect hot tub temp. It's inland, and rather isolated from the population centers, but still wonderfully friendly for visitors. Have been able to spend hours watching howler monkeys cavort in the jungle canopy from our porch. Again, accomodations range from simple hostels to 4 and 5 star resort facilities. The drive to FOrtuna takes you through the heart of the rainforest and cloud forest. It's not that far in distance, but takes about 4 hours on the narrow winding roads, but is well worth the investment in a rental, just to be able to stop and take it all in. Temps are extremely moderate, but may range in the upper sixties during the rainy season (July to Oct). Expect a rain everyday, even in dry season.

The main city, San Jose, is an experience all by itself. A central part of the city hosts most of the the visitors to the country. Many luxury hotels in this area. Many museums available with a wealth of native artifacts. The National Theatre is site to behold. The main avenue is pedestrian only, covers about 10 blocks from end to end. You'll find everything from little dives the locals frequent to top of the line international hotels. An outdoor central mall is the central gathering place, with street performers, hawkers, buskers, beggers and thieves. The Central market on the other end of the paseo has a goliath indoor facility, at least a city block square. A person can get lost in there, just looking at the stuff for sale. Everything from clothing, trinkets, foods, butcheries, restaurants, coffee shops and cobblers. A person could furnish their entire home, top to bottom without leaving the El Mercado.

Excellent security and pronounced police presence everywhere we went in CR. Never once felt threatened or insecure. Most places have huge open air gather places, such as restaurants, bars, verandas, breezeways. Helps keep everything cool and open. Always somebody available to help when needed, or to haggle when needed. I think that, in large part, it has become cultural to welcome visitors there. A huge portion of their economy is tourist based, and I've never been to a place so welcoming to visitors. Of course, I've run in to a few snots along the way, but that's been the exceptions in my experience. It's well worth the trip to visit there.

Check out that trip advice site. There are excellent reviews for most of the facilities there. Having been to many of them in Jaco, San Jose, Fortuna, Quepos, Tamarindo, and other locations, I'll avow to mostly accurate reviews, if you can overlook the occasionally disgruntled visitor that expects a doorman, roomservice, servants and maids as average accomodations.

Hope this helps give an overview to the area. Having been to many places around the world, CR is my favorite outside of home. But that's just MHO.

Wow - that sounds amazing. Thanks for all the details - I'm going to show all this to Connie; sounds like a place we need to visit!!

Good to know, but personally for me, there's no place like Vegas. And Vegas sounds infinitely safer to be carrying cash around in too.