I'm flying in Monday but staying out in Alajuela that night but in San Jose Tuesday night. Going to check out Poas Volcano Tuesday morning and then head into San Jose that afternoon. Any confirmation on the AO pregame location?
Here's the location, see bar on the left side, just west of the stadium. https://www.facebook.com/Goool-Sports-Bar-Costa-Rica-113822081999408/
Well....obvious disappointment but owe it write the travel experience review. Pregame: stadium in perfect downtown park location, tons of bars/vibe around it. Game day was happening, went to AO bar (Goool) a few hours before. It was paaacked. And awesome. Lots of locals, spilled out into the streets. Lots of vendors with makeshift grills of meat skewers and the like. Beers were cheap, tons of fun/happy Ticos that wanted tons of photos. Top notch, thumbs up on this one. Stadium: has the new look and feel, cool white arches. Track around the field blows, but the viewing experience wasn't horrendous. The Tico fans....holy moly...they were off the charts. Very passionate and very coordinated, the entire stadium in unison for songs and chants. And after they went up a few goals it was complete insanity. Kudos to them, they had a good time. US Supporters: Big clap of respect for us. Not to sound too self serving but extremely proud of our commitment to support from start to finish. We had about ten rows in the top corner. They took the AO drum away but that dude kept his sticks and laid down some solid beats on the chair. The capo, bless his heart, kept us going the entire game. Tried a few of the newer songs but nobody knows them very well...still A for effort. Compare this to the Guatemala game, which had zero organization, this one was really good...in context of course. No issue with safety but things could have gotten way out of control. There were no security separating us from the rapid Ticos fans, and when they scored they would rush over to us in our face, major taunting. It was all in good fun but would just take one elbow or push to create a massive issue. It took major restraint on our/my part. Literally right in your face with horns and flags and yelling. Good time but massive bummer of a result. We booked it out with a few minutes left in the game, straight to taxi stand. It would not have been fun after the game.
Honestly this game was much tamer than three years ago. I walked out with no issues. Last time the fans surrounded us and a few actually wanted to fight. I guess the snow game really pissed them off. As for me. This game will go down in my personal annals as the food poisoning game. Yey
We escalated at security and got a personal guarantee type of thing from the security manager. They put it on the AO drum and was still there at the end, several security people were keeping an eye on it. Was pleasantly surprised.
Ah ticos. They act all tough in the stadium but really good people. This is a country that's easy to come back to