Semana Santa or Holy Week is the perfect time to NOT Come to Costa Rica. Those who do not understand Latin America culture are often surprised when planning a trip around Easter.
From a Costa Rican perspective Semana Santa is sort of like Christmas and Spring Break rolled into one vacation package. Expect to see long lines in restaurants, hard to book hotels at tourists destinations, traffic jams of epic proportions, and most importantly a lot of girls on vacation.
The result is that San Jose in particular is a ghost town with absolutely no talent of any interest among the bars and massage parlors for at least three days. Expect that the general level of talent downtown drops off for two weeks.
The sale of alcohol will be totally banned for two days in an effort to limit the partying of the locals. So there still determined to travel to Costa Rica, should be sure to stock up at the duty free store in the U.S. based airport.
Otherwise, the only other option is a few really hard up “street vendors” in front of the Del Rey who might be able to sell a bottle of “something” for a higher than reasonable service fee.
Joining the party at the beach without a girlfriend lined up in advance is a bad idea. Finding a Tica who will really spend the holiday with a foreigner in front of all their friends and family usually does not work out unless the relationship is long-term and already established.
The lone single male tourist at the beach during Holy Week is clueless and NOT cool. The girls will be with their “real” boyfriends, husbands or at least their family.
