It seemed like we both had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off at 5am. Tough to get up. We had an hour & a half to shower and pack up and eat something downstairs at the breakfast buffet. No problem. Keith was there waiting in the lobby when we walked out of the elevator with our bags at 630 and we jumped into his Suburban and off we went for the hour ride to ATL. Traffic was much better than he anticipated and we arrived sooner than Keith had expected and we got a good parking spot and walked right into the Delta check in lobby. Checked our bags, and our boarding pass again indicated TSA Precheck and we sailed thru security, although I kept getting caught at the metal detector even though I had removed everything metal from me. So they ran me thru the full body xray and patted me down before letting me go. Who knows what that was about. Maybe my zipper or something.
At this point it was about 0730 and DL 353 was at 1009 so we got something more to eat at a Starbucks, coffee, juice, granola bar, then I headed out for some walking to loosen up my back. When it was 50 minutes out from departure I headed back, and met up with Wendy and everyone else in the group, as we were all traveling together. Again we waited until last to board, this time we were in row 27. BUT the good thing was we had 3 seats for the two of us, no one in the middle.
And it was an Airbus A320 which was my first Airbus ride. The knee room was tighter but I could put one leg in the aisle and the other under the middle seat in front so I had no issues. Wendy had stopped at a shop in the airport and bought some earphones to plug into the seat to listen to movies or music(she didn’t have them from Seattle to Atlanta so the movies available weren’t an option for her; I brought mine along but listened to podcasts on my phone instead). So of course the airbus didn’t have screens! She was disappointed. Awwww.
The flight to LIR was 3.5 hrs but uneventful, and there were 2 other flights that landed at the same time so quite a jumble of people going thru immigration. After that, Costa Rica Customs was more or less a joke; we grabbed our bags, ran them thru an xray machine and off we went. Never saw any customs officers or dogs.
Maria in our group had arranged transportation for us all and a small bus was waiting. I had peed on the plane right before we landed and thought I was good, but it was almost two hour ride and the pavement was not great, and it was a bit of a kidney buster.
It was warm and very humid, my glasses fog up coming out of A/C. But it was cloudy and breezy so modestly comfortable. Check in took awhile upon arrival at the J.W. Marriott Guanacaste resort which sits right on the beach not too far from the town of Tamarindo.
We got keys to our room 416 and were told they would deliver our bags to us, but they mis numbered my backpack and sent it to another room in our group. I had to ask them to locate it and they did. It was Emily who had received but she was in the shower at the time the guy walked in to retrieve it! But no harm done.
At 630 we all met down in the Sabanero Steakhouse(their premier restaurant) for the company dinner. This is where Keith spoke a little about how the first part of the year looked quite bleak, but the 2nd half of the year more than made up for it, and turned out to be a very good year. He passed out bonuses to the other staff, and we all then enjoyed great food and conversation. Even though it was a steakhouse, I had a breaded and fried Seabass(C.R. is known for its very fresh seafood) with pasta. They served fresh baked bread as well, and Keith ordered what must have been 10 or so bottles of red and white wines. Mixed types. There were three bottles left over so we got one of them, an Italian Pino Grigio. We put it in the room fridge and would later enjoy it.
At 9pm we were the second ones to excuse ourselves for bed, and headed up to the room. I needed to shower and crawl into bed, but I also had to review my presentation to be confident in what I was going to say. The plan was to meet at 0700 down in the main restaurant by the p0ol for breakfast and present my information at that time. So after a quick review and a few notes, I turned out the lights and believe I promptly fell asleep. The A/C was left on all night and while cool blowing air tends to make one feel cold, the feather bed and feather comforter were more than warm enough and I was sweating and damp a few times during the night. But I slept well.