Royce Family Jungle Adventure!! pt 1

Our family returned late last night from a great family vacation in Costa Rice. Being concerned about posting that my house was empty for the past 11 days I didnt want to update my blog until I returned. Now I plan to post away! I plan to post various aspects of how we travel the way we do with resources, experiences we had and pictures of the trip. I will be doing this spread through multiple posts so if you read my blog check back often. Also, you will be able to click to any of my kids blogs to the right and see the trip through their eyes. Both Kristi and Rachael posted from their I-phone while we were there. And I am sure that Jennine and Bekah will also be sharing.

Pt1 -- Why we travel & finding the DEAL! --
Rod and I had our 4 children very close together- 2 boys and 2 girls in a span of 6 years. I was born and raised in a small town in southern Idaho. Living on a farm gave us very limited travel opportunities because we always had to be responsible for milking or feeding animals or a planting a crop et.... Rod grow up in the beach in southern CA and he was always tied to his family business. But as we grew we were both able to experience new places -- fishing off the coast of Oregon, British Columbia. But then Rod served a mission in southern Germany and we returned when early in our marriage to visit the area.
Royce Family European Vacation Pt 1 & Pt 2--
One day about 12 years ago I saw an internet advertisement for travel between Denver to London for $199 round trip. Rod happened to be in Lake Powell at the time and un-reachable. But I knew we would regret it if we didnt jump on that fare. So I bought tickets for all of us --for (16 Rachael, 14 JR ,12 Rory ,and 10 yr old Bekah). That meant we had to get passports . We drove to Denver because the flight from SLC to Denver was more then the flight Europe. We then flew into London and backpacked through europe, staying in youth hostels and bed and breakfast and used Eurail passes- often sleeping overnight on the train. In 2 weeks we visited London, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Venice, Austria & Germany, through Paris and on the chunnel back to London. Of course the trip was not without issues like the time we ran for a train with 3 of us making it and 3 of us not -- with mom holding all of the tickets and passports as we passed over a border check. Not to mention the occasional arguments, not only between the kids but also the parents as travel can bring stressors that we dont have in our day to day home lives. But it also brings amazing experiences-- the first time tasting a weisswurst in a bum from a street vendor in Germany, beating the hodlum pick pocketeers on the streets of Paris and having our children meet the people that Rod worked with on his mission and see his love for them. A couple of years later we followed that trip with a return Christmas trip to Germany/ Austria. This time renting a van -- highlited by an overnight sleeping adventure in the car in Innsbruck, Austria on New Years Eve. Europe is a favorite travel spot for us. Not only because we love the variety of life from Germany to Poland to Italy, but also because we have a little bit of our family that lives in Milan. And as our family has grown we have also traveled to Hawaii. First on a family trip 5 years ago to Maui with Kristi and then as we added Giovanni, Jennine, Jamison & Chanel three years ago a trip to Maui and Kauai.
So now our family consists of 5 couples ( 10 adults) 2 kids and FIVE lap children. (that is what the airlines consider children under 2 that you dont buy a ticket for. So this was a prime time for our family to have a trip that would be adventurous for the adults and safe for the little ones. And COSTA RICA was the right place!
I had been searching the internet for airline deals and vacation house rentals on places such as vrbo and Home Away Our goal was to find a house that was beautiful, beach location, pool and 5 bedrooms that would consider renting to a group that had FIVE babies. Some places said no- their locations had dangers or that the septic tanks couldnt handle that amount of people.
I searched airline deal sights such as travel zoo, travelocity, Expedia.
About 2 months ago in October I was watching a SLC to Paris fare on Travelocity and on that list gave all of the fare deals out of SLC. And there I found SLC to San Jose, Costa Rica for $188+tax Round trip. And there you have it. All family members were in. We found someone selling a voucher for the airline on Craig's List and KSL classifieds that helped off set some of the pricing and purchased our tickets to paradise!