If any of you decide you're interested, I would 100% recommend these folks again
https://www.entercostarica.com/
The food in Costa Rica was not cheap. I would say spending $25-30 on a great steak was probably 1/2 price of USA, but spending $15-20 when I just wanted a cheap burger cheap at all. however, the beef was all amazing. I couldn't really ascertain a strong cultural distinction in Costa Rica. There is zero spicy food anywhere to be found. they have tacos, but rarely, and are very different (like street tacos fried into taquitos). Alcohol is there, but not very good so I had tequila. I did have their local drink, Cacique, but honstly its like Rum without any sugar flavor at all, so more like thick rubbing alcohol at 35% lol.
aside from those things, it was like 11 days for around $3k- 3,500 for every breakfast, shuttle, excursion, 5 hotels, etc. we did buy plane tickets separate but I bought them in April for Jan 29 departure and saved a buttload of money buying so far in advance... that price seems really good to me considering it included everything. We were going to pay that much already +$1500 (insane!!) to rent a car, but when we switched our booking to the travel agency they got us everything for the same price as we would have had, same hotels, and included all the shuttles.
Our shuttle drivers were excellent too, they knew we were foreign and toursist is 50% of their countries total revenue. so they really made it special and stopped a LOT along the way whenever they saw a sloth or makaw or something in a tree. a random stop at a butterfly farm (honestly awesome) and then a completely unexpected stop on our way south at a river to spot 15 huge 15ft long crocodiles!!