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I have an unexpected free RT airfare to Costa Rica. My vacation is next week so I thought about using it now since I was just going to hang around home.
In your experience, do you think it will be too rainy to enjoy a trip to Costa Rica during the first 2 weeks of May?
It can be rainy but even though it will come down hard when it rains, it isn't a monsoon. It will end. It is kind of like a more intense FL but with much harder rain.
If you get up in the mornings, you'll see the sun. If you sleep till noon, you will probably see a cloudy day. Around 4ish it will start pouring and it will be over within an hour or 2. Then you'll be ready to go out at night. If it is raining early it will probably last a bit but the typical pattern, from what I saw, is sun in the morning giving way to a cloudy late morning/afternoon and then a hard rain at some point later. Don't worry if it doesn't start raining by 4. It will be there. But it will also be over with. The rainy season is not a monsoon season, but when it rains it comes down hard. I liken it to the amount of rain that comes with a hurricane but it will come straight down so you can hang out on an outdoor porch/bar/restaurant if there is a cover and be dry.
Another thing to keep in mind about the rainy/dry season as far as the Pacific is concerned because that is where I am more familier with. Closer to Panama, such as the Golfito area is pretty much always in the wet season. I have never stopped there any time without running into that pattern I described. After all it is a rain forrest down there and I think we can all guess what goes on in one of them. The central Pacific coast such as Jaco (where I practically lived for a while) has a wet season that usually begins around now as the dry month's are about mid Dec through April. The northern towns, such as Tamarindo and Flamingo, have a dry season which lasts a bit longer. They call that section the dryer part but it still rains. A lot!
Plenty can still be done in May. But if you want to take in sights and views, try to get up early. And I will stress again, the rain will end and everything returns to what was going on before it started. I personally wouldn't worry about it unless it was just a weekend trip going down to see a volcano.
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