www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Hola neighbors,

Making my first trip to CR on the 21st. Here in Panama there are a couple services that have made arrangements with the airport customs and immigration people. For about $50.00, someone meets you when you get off your plane, and they literally walk you right past customs and immigration. You sit in a little lounge, drink a cerveza, fill out your forms. They take the forms and your passport through customs, and bring you out to the front of the airport through a little back hallway.

About 10 minutes later someone else shows up with your luggage and you're outta there, tourist card filled out and passport stamped.

It's an incredibly cool service. (If you're coming to Panama drop me a PM and I'll give you the name of the service I used. Don't want to post it on my first post here - looks too much like spam.. ).

Does CR have any service like this? I *hate* waiting in lines and doing the whole customs thing..

BTW - thanks for the board - TONS of great info here. I've been reading for about 4 hours now.. my eyes hurt and I forgot to eat dinner

Nope. It's really not that bad even when it's busy. The are pretty good about opening additional lines to move people through quickly.

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[url=http://www.amishrakefight.org/gfy/]

Thanks Spanky.

It can take an hour or two here. They really do have the manana attitude..

The biggest delay at SJO can occur at immigration. When 3 or 4 flights arrive within a few minutes they can get overwhelmed. They recently added more booths to help alleviate the problem. Customs usually flows fairly well with a 4 or 5 minute wait at most.

Basically it's all a matter of timing and unfortunately you have no control over that.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

This sounds like gravy - thanks for the info

FusionX

I used the service the one time I went to Panama as well, it made life very easy though it probably was not really necessary....

Want to hear the MUY TICO EVENT OF 2008:....

STOP: SJO International rolls out all these new gates so that you no longer have to take a bus...

Stop: SJO International has no walking bridges to the plains so you walk down the steps and through the lower level or vice versa...

Stop: SJO International due to all the extra gates & Flights add 6 Immigration booths that are actually in front of the 12 they have making it about 18 in Total 4 for Nationals and 14 for Tourists.

Stop: 4 Planes arrive Sat 12/29 AA from FLL / Iberia from Spain, Taca from god knows where / And another plane 5 hundred people hitting Imigration at once........

GREAT 18 BOOTHS NOW TO HANDLE THIS INFLUX OF TRAFFIC STOP 6 Agents in the booths....

Only in SJO MUY TICO!

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"Success isn't having $$ it is knowing how to Spend It"

Wrong!

Try coming in at Dulles which has something like 30 booths for immigration. Full flight off of Taca and another comes in behind us. Two freaking customs agents. We landed at 10:30, I got home at Midnight and I live 5 minutes from the airport. Dulles customs is the worst.

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[url=http://www.amishrakefight.org/gfy/]

Fusionx,

I know of a "VIP" who came into SJO for a business meeting. He was greeted at the gate by a representative of the institution he was to visit. The representative told him that because of the importance of the visit, the rep was allowed to meet him at the gate and to escort him through the process. However, when it came to immigration and customs, all the rep could do was to walk with him through the line and was unable to obtain any additional special privileges or short cuts. This indicates to me that SJO has no equivalent to the Panama system.

A similar system for Costa Rica would be nice though, especially if the airport could contract with Zona Blue for entertainment during the short waiting period!!


Ciaociao

Anybody notice the new lights they have over the booths, letting you know one is available? When I got here three weeks ago it was a big step up for efficency, but problem is nobody pays attencion to the damn lights. Be alert and look for them; I think they are lighted numbers if I remember. Watch for em' and Poke the people in front of you - hey you are next up!

Best that I've seen it in the last five years arriving mid-day. Now, if they'd lose the about 5 miles of zig-zag trafic control ribbon - now we're cookin' with gas