Just returned from the Riu Palace Costa Rica and wanted to share a little info. Looked around a fair bit online before I left re. cigars but there wasn't a ton of recent information. Granted, my experience was limited to mainly tourist areas in the northwest province of Guanacaste, but here's what I found.
For one thing, it's a fairly non-smoking country, seemingly almost on par with Ontario. The resort was amazing, but almost completely non-smoking, other than a single ashtray halfway to the beach and a small area out front. At the airport, you had to walk a fair piece away from the terminal and down by the road to smoke (not that I did).
The beach was public, so I enjoyed a few cigars (which I brought along) down there and a couple more on our balcony, even though that was supposedly a no-no.
Some CCs, mostly tubos, available in hotel shops, though prices were high, along with Costa Rican puros, again at fairly high prices.
Of course there was the expected guy on the beach selling all Cubans, including a 25-count of Behikes for $80, that I just couldn't bite on
:-)
Did see a guy on the beach later that got sucked into a fake box on Montes though.
During an excursion, we stopped at a large shop geared to tourists that had a large walk-in, again seeing CC tubos and clubs, as well as local smokes. Picked up a 5er of CR small panatellas, for about $15USD.
Airport seemed to be a crap shoot. Local sticks at prices comparable to those in the US, as well as a mix of CCs all over the board. 5er of Sig 1s was $65 and a single RyJ Churchill tubo was $50. As was the case at the airport in Jamaica, I highly questioned the pedigree of what was offered.
There was a custom rolling desk at one shop at the airport but no roller. Guess maybe because it's the off-season there.
So I guess the morale of the story is if you want to smoke, bring along what you like and check with your resort/hotel re smoking rules.
I'll post up a review of the CR puros I picked up after I break into them.
As a side note, I found it odd I didn't see a single Nicaraguan cigar, even though we were only 45 min south of the border.
If anyone has details about other spots in the country, please add to the thread.
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