I was having a leisurely breakfast my first day in San José, Costa Rica at the Bougainvillea Hotel. The breakfast buffet was good but nothing special – I had my usual ½ plate of fresh fruit accompanied by gallo pinto, some toast, a Costa Rican tortilla all drowned by some hot black Costa Rican coffee. The coffee was so good that I had three cups! After finishing breakfast, the waiter came over to the table and asked me to sign for the bill, 7200 colones ($13USD). Somewhat startled by the bill, I told the waiter that I thought my breakfast was included in my room rate – this is relatively standard with hotels in Costa Rica. He said one moment, senor, let me check with the front desk. About 5 minutes later, he returned to the table and advised me that the breakfast was extra monies and not part of my room rate. No problem, I said and signed the bill. If I had known in advance that the hotel was charging me for breakfast, I definitely would not have had their breakfast buffet for $13USD! No way!

Later on when I questioned the front desk manager about this, she apologized for the misunderstanding and said “Since we are giving you a 5% discount on the room rate for being travel industry professional, we have to charge you for the breakfast.” I didn’t complain, and I told her I would appreciate any break she could give me. Smiling, she told me before leaving that she would give me a 10% discount on my room and all my meals. I thanked her for her graciousness.

What is the lesson from this incident? In Costa Rica, if you’re eating meals at your hotel or at any upscale restaurant or café that caters to tourists, be prepared to pay about the same amount of monies as you would at a similar establishment in the USA. If you’d like to cut down on your dining expenses, I suggest that you go to either a local cafe or to one whose clientele is not geared exclusively to tourists.

In my case, paying $13 for a breakfast buffet at a first class hotel in the USA would be considered average but most people would agree $13 for the same buffet in Costa Rica is somewhat expensive. Keep in mind though, that in most instances breakfast is usually included in the room rate! If you’re wondering, how much a decent breakfast would cost at local café/restaurant in Costa Rica - I would say from $3.00 - $7.00USD.
And I have the receipts to prove it!

Tags: breakfast Costa Rica, dining Costa Rica

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under Costa Rica, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.