[DAVID ORR]

Hi Jim,

I am a recent arrival in CR but have been told the following about the question you ask. One way around the “gotta have a return ticket” thing is to buy a return trip ticket the day you leave so you have a return trip itinerary, then cancel your return trip ticket within 24 hours of the purchase for a refund. I’ve been told that, despite the airlines saying their ticket is non-refundable, by law they must refund your ticket if you cancel within 24 hours of purchase. I think I saw that on this site as well. Just another option.

Dave

[DAVID ORR]

Jason et al,

We have landed! Dawn and I arrived from Denver, CO on April 30th after flying out of Denver in a snow storm. Great to get away! So I thought I would share a couple of our experiences with the forum readers.

First, and as far as my wife is concerned, foremost, we were able to get our dog into the country with us. She is a German Shorthaired Pointer weighing about 50#. Doing that was not as easy as we had been lead to believe. Ultimately we managed it though with much less expense than using a transportation broker (first bid was $8500 without airfare for the dog). There are many pieces to the puzzle of getting a dog here, at least one that is not considered by the airlines as a “support animal”. We originally booked our flights on SWA since they are now servicing Liberia Airport. Unfortunately, SWA will not fly pets in cargo so we had to rebook Dawn and Lexie on an airline that did. Then not all international airlines are flying into Liberia, and with San Jose being some 4+ hours from Liberia, we didn’t want to arrive in different cities. American Airlines only flew pets in cargo to San Jose so they were out. United Airlines flew into Liberia and would fly pets in cargo so we rebooked Dawn and Lexie on an UAL flight at a much higher fare than SWA. Then we had to contend with the USDA regulations, Costa Rican regulations, and scheduling with our local vet to get all of the vaccinations, deworming, etc. done on the exact schedule that the govt. agencies and airline had lined up. And, UAL required the vet certificate (by the way, CR now requires you use theirs, not the USDA APHIS 7001 form) be no more than 10 days from departure, not as far out as 14 as CR allowed. This meant two trips to the vet for the vet certificate after trying to split the difference and finding out UAL wouldn’t budge on the 10 day limit. Then off to the USDA to “endorse” the vet certificate. We were able to visit an office in Denver (Lakewood actually) personally and avoid any back and forth via snail mail for corrections. Actually the USDA was very helpful and accommodating and even accepted a fax of the rabies vaccine lot# from our vet which was left off the CR form. Then there were the kennel requirements. My wife had been warned repeatedly by United’s PETSAFE people, they’re the ones who handle shipping pets in cargo, that if the kennel was not large enough they would not let the dog fly. The requirements are kind of ambiguous on their website so we decided to visit the cargo facility at DIA to get an OK ahead of time (didn’t want my wife and dog being denied travel as I was in the air on my way to CR already). Good thing we did, the kennel we’d bought, which was plenty big enough as far as we were concerned was not tall enough. They said it needed 3″ of clearance over the dog’s head when they stood erect. Holy cow, or at least you’d think Lexie was a cow because they wanted a kennel that would fit a Great Dane. And the largest kennel they make wouldn’t fit in the aircraft. Fortunately we worked with a very nice cargo supervisor by the name of Penny and she helped work things out. We got the next size up (500 size) and they approved it. The cargo shipment was about $465 so all in all we spent about $1000 getting our Lexie to CR. She already seems to be enjoying the Pura Vida life style so I guess it was worth it! (I know, long story but I’m sure there are others out there thinking about bringing a furry family member who will want details. If you want more connect with us at dorrs305@msn.com).

Secondly, we planned to rent, as recommended, when we got here so we started looking around online months ago. We had planned to take a short term rental or VRBO and then find a long term place once we were on the ground in CR. But, we soon realized that the vast majority of rentals (both long and short term) were not pet friendly. We reached out to Jason Holland and got a few recommendations (see above) for real estate companies to try and ended up using Palm Real Estate in Playas Del Coco. Again we found pet friendly rentals few and far between and had mixed reports on whether or not more properties would be available after we arrived as it was going to be going into the low season. We kind of panicked and opted to lease one of the few pet friendly 3br places we could find. It looked fine online and all they required was a deposit of one month’s rental so we went for it. Fast forward to April 30th and we were very disappointed when we arrived at the house. The 7 home complex was virtually vacant, only a caretaker and his son lived there, no other tenants, and the home was not up to the standard we’ve become accustomed to (clean, non-broken appliances, working A/C, clean furnishings, etc.). To our Palm Real Estate agent’s (Mauricio Brenes) credit he quickly agreed that the property was not as represented and suggested we look for another. We are still in negotiations with the owner of the property to get out of the lease and we’ve, with Mauricio’s help, already found a beautiful condo in Play Hermosa. It is going to cost us $300 more a month ($1650) but it is beautiful, although we will be giving up a beautiful view. Oh well, life is a compromise, even in Costa Rica.

We’ve had many more positive experiences in the 1 week we’ve been in CR but I will elaborate in a later post as I’m sure this is already getting too long. Suffice it to say, although we had a little rough start, it has been everything we were hoping for and then some so far since then. We’ve met many wonderful people, both expats and Ticos, and look forward to our new life here in Costa Rica.

One last tip, as we’ve repeatedly told our children, the best way to make new friends is to check out a local church. We found Hope Fellowship in Coco and it may well have prevented us from turning around and heading back to the US.

More to come later,
Dave & Dawn Orr

[DAVID ORR]

Thanks Jason. We’ve contacted some of these already but you’ve included a couple of new ones so we will check them out. We are finding very limited pet friendly properties so far. We had one in Potrero slip through our fingers but the man we were working with out of Canada is going to be there any day now and will keep looking for us, kind of the word of mouth route with him. You should have our email so please let us know if you hear of anything. We’ve already rented out our home here in Colorado starting May 1 so we are full speed ahead.

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