From May earlier this year, British airways finally started flying directly from London Gatwick to San Jose, Costa Rica. Do you know what that means ?! No more 26 hour travel time door to door. What a relief.
As a , what I like to think of as frequent flyer between England and Costa Rica I make the journey once a year for a month to relax in England during our down time in the diving season. The trip invariably starts with a 3 hour trip to San Jose, time, in the airport, followed by a 3 – 5 hour flight to the US. This is then followed by a fantabulously fun layover for a few hours topped off with a 8 hour approximate flight with a large time change to the UK. As you can imagine, by the time you arrive you are a walking zombie and you haven’t even got to the door!
The alternative is to fly through Madrid or Amsterdam which is a 10 hour flight first, followed by a layover in Europe and then a short flight to London. Again, completely doable just not particularly fabulous, and by the time you get back and settled it’s over a day and you are wiped.
So, after this little outline you can only imagine my excitement when British airways announced that they would be flying direct to San Jose from Gatwick. With the growing popularity of Costa Rica as a destination I guess they felt that it was time. So, from this end, flight leaves at 5pm, giving you the whole day to get to San Jose in a relaxed fashion. The flight is 10.5 hours but no changing of planes, you just get comfortable knowing that when you arrive it’s the UK. A full night flight with a chance to really get some sleep. Coming back (or for most people I would think heading out!) it is a mid morning flight arriving at 3.30pm in the afternoon in Costa Rica. No days lost. I counted my door to door time and it was just 17 hours. Still long I know but beats 26+ that’s for sure.
One thing to think about, in your planning is that they only fly back and forth twice a week, Saturdays and Wednesdays, so plan accordingly.
Thank you British Airways for finally doing a direct to San Jose, you have made my life easier, especially when you thrown in unexpected freebie upgrades : )