Next Stop: Costa Rica. First, We Need to Finalize Our Hotel

The boys and I leave in two days. We are taking the Red Eye, flying from Salt Lake City to Miami, and then onto Liberia, Costa Rica. Dave will meet us there. His flight is much the same. He flies from San Francisco to Houston to Liberia. I know, crazy, right? Thanks to a boatload of dusty British Airways Miles, we are able to make this trip. (We have these miles 1. because of the very high tax BA charges to fly through London, which makes Europe travel difficult and 2. because of the recent mileage rate devaluation. 3. The Plus. BA airways miles still work for lower Hawaii flights, by the way.)

And really today I was going to write about feelings and values. I was going to start with this:

Last night Kyle (age 15) told me it is hard to be away from his friends.  “Mom, next week is the last week of school and that is when all the fun happens.” I get it. I get it so much that we postponed this trip because of  “all the fun that was happening last week.” What do we value? Kyle understandably values his friends.

Dave values coming home each week, Eli values being included, and I value being a mom.  We all value being this crazy unit of four. When it comes to travel, however, Dave and I value things a little differently. We both want a nice hotel, and what I am coming to realize is that what we define as nice is very different.

 
And as I plan our upcoming trip, we are right back in our what-we-value-in-a-hotel conundrum.  Alas, I need to put the touchy feely feelings post aside while never forgetting that this transition is very hard for our boys. In this moment, however, I need to get down to business. We only have two days!

Here it is. Dave and I appear to want the same type of hotel room, like visiting Arenal Volcano near the town of La Fortuna, Costa Rica. We both think an exotic styled hotel would be cool.  I found one. Then Dave did not want to pay the extra person charge. I do not blame him. I thought it was a rip off until I saw that all the hotels have an extra person charge. Even though Dave does not think he is picky, he is. He is stubborn and willful (just like me). I knew he would not cave so I kept looking.  Then I found The Tree House Hotel Costa Rica. What is more exotic than sleeping in a real life tree house with koati and toucans? When I sent him the hotel information, he was now willing to go all out. What? My hotel has a volcano view, cute cabins, hot springs, butterflies, and goats!

Ah-ha, this is the moment when (once again) I realize that Dave and I define (value) “exotic” and “special” a little differently.  The nudge is, “how do we both feel satisfied?” Do I cave? Does he cave? Do we turn into passive-aggressive-monsters; monsters, who up front say things like, “No, I just want you to be happy.” And once there, pout and backend each other with phrases like, “do you know how long I have dreamed about feeding goats along a hot spring? Sure, at Dave’s hotel, I can see toucans and koati, but where are the goats?” No. We find a way to compromise. I would like to say compromise gets easier, and sometimes it does. Dave and I are older. We are more set in who we are. We are both busy.  We both also acknowledge the first world variety of our issues. We know we are lucky to travel. We are grateful we get to chose. Nevertheless, to make both of our Red Eye flights worth traveling to a jungle in the middle-of-nowhere, we must find a hotel we both like (or at least won’t hate each other over).

I promise there will be enough unforeseen issues on our journey. What I have learned is that ahead of time (yes, before we leave the country) we must  do everything in our power to work through these issues. Ultimately, I caved (just a little because the hotel seems pretty cool).  I chose the Tree House (of horrors) Hotel. Right now I keep texting Dave (who is in a meeting) to see what tree house cabin he wants. “Do you want the Frog or the Sloth?” I know he hit auto-response: “I’m in a meeting. Text me.”

Fights in the jungle suck! And not having a hotel room sucks even more. I do put my money where my mouth is.  If I am going to write about travel, and claim to have all this travel knowledge, I better be able to learn something myself, right?  Finger pointing kills a trip (and probably a marriage).  Therefore and even at the risk of losing our room, I mean cabin, I absolutely will not commit to the Tree House Hotel Costa Rica without Dave’s triple-checked go ahead (and human texted response). I will let you know what he decides.

Hilarious Update:

Dave called and texted me. I was in the shower. I called him back. I heard his voice. Yay! Both of us have decided to wait. We think both hotels have their pros and cons.  We promised each other we will make our reservation before we go.