Juliet Johnson

Dear Fiona
Thank you so much for arranging our holiday, as you predicted we were both absolutely enchanted by Costa Rica.
On the organisational front everything went perfectly all the drivers and guides were excellent and despite problems on the roads 
all the transfers went very smoothly and on the one occasion when a driver was delayed Walter very quickly put an alternative arrangement in place.
 
The hotel in San Jose was fine and we really liked the Mwamba Lodges particularly Trogon Lodge what a beautiful place. Although I was sad not to see a Trogon we 
sighted with help, 2 pairs of Quetzals and a loan female (quetzal!) which were wonderful.
 
Our time in the Arenal area was rather spoiled by rain, but it was fine the day we went to visit Ethical Forestry  the driver I think was very interested too by the experience as
he accompanied us on the visit round the tree nurseries and plantations. The drives across the country were wonderful and we saw much magnificent scenery
 
After our initial surprise at the size of the Parador Hotel, much bigger than we expected we swiftly became accustomed to the luxury of the place and particularly enjoyed our
swims in the Fragatta pool which always seemed cool and refreshing. The little beach we could walk too was lovely too. There were a lot of people in the Manuel Antonio National park but by going a bit earlier and walking 
the slightly longer trails we were able to get a sense of how wild it must have been. We managed to see  the obligatory sloths and Monkeys and although the board walks made it seem tamed they were jolly useful and saved us tripping over creepers and tree roots.
We enjoyed swimming from the park and the public beaches and it was lovely to have the use of the shuttle bus.
 
As I said everything was terrific in Costa Rica, the BA flight to Dallas was wonderful and the transfer through the airport there was fine and the American Airlines flight to Costa Rica was ok too.
However our return journey was not as succesful because Miami airport is appalling,  we arrived on time and made our way to immigration where there must have beeen at least 2000 people trying to 
get to the hall where we had to use machines which read our passports,fingerprinted and photographed us, these machines were cranky and even the few operatives,about 3, to thirty machines had difficulty getting them to work.
We had only reached this stage by the time our plane was scheduled to leave for London at which point American Airlines came to look for the 60  passengers who had failed to show up for the flight, then followed a terrible 
hustle passed other irate passengers as they tried to assist us through in dribs and drabs. The flight was delayed waiting for us for nearly 2 hours
 
I realise that we had an inexpensive flight with American Airlines but once we reached plane the customer care from the flight attendents was perfunctory to the point  of rudeness, it was impossible to even get a drink of water
during the night flight. 
 
I hope none of your other travellers have this disappointing experience, however nothing could take away from the wonderful holiday we had in Costa rica, which Brian and I do thank you very much for arranging  so well and at such short notice.
 all good wishes
Juliet Johnson