Following the advice on the Surfers Guide to Costa Rica by Mike parise (what was he thinking when he wrote the book) I used the above mentioned travel agent to buy a package for my first trip there.
The trip was awesome but the CRTRE service was horrible to say the least.
The package only included the first week rental car, the first two nights and the last one in San Jose before departure, yet they managed to make those quite unpleasant.
I (over)paid everything more than a month before the trip, and I received a voucher (a simple piece of paper that said “prepaid voucher”), yet both the rental car company and the hotel denied having received any money from CRTRE, just a reservation, and tried to charge me for their services. I had to contact CRTRE in a hurry and the next day they finally got their money from crtre. Same thing happened on my last night in san Jose, except this time I had to shell out the cash because Mike Brooks could not be reached. Back home (3 months ago) I contacted him again to get my money back, we exchanged a few mails but so far I haven’t seen a dime.
Moral of the story, don’t go to Mike Brooks because he’s a crook, better yet, don’t use any travel agent, they overcharge everything and good luck reaching them from down there if you need any assistance.
everytime I cruise down south, I just fly from the hip. My first trip was for 3 months and I never had trouble finding a place to stay. Granted, some were a bit manky. But still was never without a bed. Now I just rent a car at the airport (booked ahead of time) and camp when not in a room. Its easier to find breaks than humping boards onto buses. Mo’ cheapa too.
i’m born and raised down here - American, but carry a Panamanian passport too, and my type of American has been here for generations, some since the 49er days 19th century. Since about the early 80s there’s been another type of American… regular Stateside types (and Canadians and Europeans) that started going to Costa Rica - many of them good people, developing business along the way. nothing wrong with that - but there’s another type that is the most sickening type of opportunist… and we’re really starting to regularly see the type here in Panama… and they think they can pull their shitass antics down here… and the truth is some manage to pull it. if you do go Nica - CR - Panama be careful with some of these types of ‘operators’.
Frankly i agree with whomever above said he goes ‘from the hip’ to CR or where ever- that’s the best way. you will get along fine. When i was in the military stationed in Japan, i just bought tickets to Indo, and figured it out along the way ( where to stay, rent a pushbike, boat trip, etc) Mo’fun that way too.
I can only speak to the Nicoya Peninsula, but my buddy and I and our wives did 3 weeks in Costa Rica by winging it and had no problems with lodging, food or finding uncrowded surf. We did reserve a room near the airport (Hampton Inn) for 1st and last nights and rented our 4wd toyoya in advance, other than that we were playing it by ear and it was great. we’re talking about doing it again.
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Mike. I rented a house right at the Almond Tree at Playa Hermosa from him last year. He was great to us and gave us a great deal on a really nice house. The housing was the only part of the trip we used Mike for though.
I dont travel anywhere for only 5 days bro. Your barely going to get out of San Jose and back. Best bet is to just go to Jaco for 4 days. Day trip to Manuel Antonio, hermosa etc… JamRock is to hit or miss… go to puerto rico if Caribbean is your steeze.
Going back to CO around that time for 10days and crashing J’s dads condo slopeside in Winterpark… so… no, I wont be joining you.
soulstice go to jamaica and stay with billy mystic at jamanaisa in bull bay . you will not have to deal with any crowds the rooms are cheap but very comfortable. the food is good, the red stripes are cold, the herb is green, the water is blue and the groms are stoked out of there mind.
Moral of the story, don’t go to Mike Brooks because he’s a crook, better yet, don’t use any travel agent, they overcharge everything and good luck reaching them from down there if you need any assistance.
I know you’re trying to do good with the warning and thanks but…
Be careful…
if the above statement affects his business in any way and he can prove it
you and swaylocks would be open to a defamation of character libel suit for damages
and if he’s the way he you just described he’ll pursue it…
free speech is an illusion…
The demise of the surf industry as we know will be due to litigation…
Moral of the story, don’t go to Mike Brooks because he’s a crook, better yet, don’t use any travel agent, they overcharge everything and good luck reaching them from down there if you need any assistance.
I know you’re trying to do good with the warning and thanks but…
Be careful…
if the above statement affects his business in any way and he can prove it
you and swaylocks would be open to a defamation of character libel suit for damages
and if he’s the way he you just described he’ll pursue it…
free speech is an illusion…
The demise of the surf industry as we know will be due to litigation…
It’s the next pot of gold…
unless his statements are true…which would be very easy to prove. besides, it’s generally settled that open, uncensored forums for communication carry no liability unless the owners of the forum are directly responsible. swaylocks is in no danger of being sued, and neither is whoever started this thread (assuming that he is being entirely truthful).
being in an industry that has to deal with this all the time…
you must tread carefully UNTIL criminal charges are filed and the court case has been finalized with a judgement in your favor. OTHERWISE if there are any financial damages attributed to your direct statements you are open game for litigation.
kind of makes you wonder how much you don’t know because we won’t tell you because this problem…
Meanwhile may folk will continue to suffer until the above events have been finalized…
USually damages have to be significant before a Fed agency or State Attorney’s general will step in…
Best bet is a licensing agency of some sort but that just leads to relocation of the problem.
tort law 101 – the truth of your statements is a defense to libel.
you can sue anyone for anything, and if a civil suit was filed for the statements made, and those statements were in fact true, then the suit would immediately be dismissed. in fact, if someone does get sued…let me know…i’ll write and file the response to the complaint myself.
tort law 101 – the truth of your statements is a defense to libel.
you can sue anyone for anything, and if a civil suit was filed for the statements made, and those statements were in fact true, then the suit would immediately be dismissed. in fact, if someone does get sued…let me know…i’ll write and file the response to the complaint myself.
Thats all fine and dandy but is swaylocks the place to discuss this? Do we really want to have a situation to test your legal advice?
Moral of the story, don’t go to Mike Brooks because he’s a crook, better yet, don’t use any travel agent, they overcharge everything and good luck reaching them from down there if you need any assistance.
I know you’re trying to do good with the warning and thanks but…
Be careful…
if the above statement affects his business in any way and he can prove it
you and swaylocks would be open to a defamation of character libel suit for damages
and if he’s the way he you just described he’ll pursue it…
free speech is an illusion…
The demise of the surf industry as we know will be due to litigation…
It’s the next pot of gold…
unless his statements are true…which would be very easy to prove. besides, it’s generally settled that open, uncensored forums for communication carry no liability unless the owners of the forum are directly responsible. swaylocks is in no danger of being sued, and neither is whoever started this thread (assuming that he is being entirely truthful).
Everything is true and I have all the receipts to prove it,
crtre is not a real business anyways, from what I experienced it’s just mike brooks that does everything himself in a quite unorganized way.
And yes I’m trying to do good with this, I found the guy through a popular guide and other people could go through the same trouble, if he was just another expat scammer I would have probably saved myself the embarrassment.
never pay for anything of significance with cash unless you’re trying to hide it from the government (but they will find out sooner or later) or your significant other…
Secondly, if you transacted this with your credit card hopefully a mastercard, then take all your correspondance and documentation to your originating financial institution and file a merchant charge back. As long as you have documented proof that you attempted in good faith to get this resolved and proof that you never received services contracted for or as contracted for, then your issuer will have to process your request and credit back your account provisionally within the specified federal guidelines that govern them.
The financial institution that provides credit card merchant services to this company will then have to charge it back to the merchant’s account at their bank or take a loss on behalf of the merchant. These procedures are all well documented and understood by those who participate in the global Visa or Mastercard issuer or acquirer networks. There may be some impact to your account fees or status with your issuer depending on the value and or if the issuer considers you now a potential risk.
Just an additional notes is that Visa is a merchant focused network and will question and challenge more claims than Mastercard which is more of an issuer bank based organization. And what ever you do don’t use a debit card as that transaction is considered a cash transaction by the banks. Being able to challenge a disputed transaction after the fact would be much more difficult if not impossible. That’s the whole premise of the credit card system, to build a network of trust where customers can trust merchant and merchants can trust customers.
Once you’ve done the best you can, then why not let the good people at the card networks do the rest of the work, cause that’s what they are there for. Even though people take advantage of them all the time. Like a good boardmaker who never really gets paid for what they do…