Vaccinations for Costa Rica

We are doing a guided land tour of Costa Rica. CDC recommends Hepatitis A and Typhoid. For those of you who have visited, did you get these shots before traveling there? Thanks.

Been to Costa Rica about 6 times and have never gotten any shots. Costa Rica has it own board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=198

and is considered Central America.

Yes, we got the Hep A and DTP (Difteria, Tetanus, Polio combination) shot when we went to Costa Rica travelling over land for 4 weeks, hostelling and eating from food stalls on the way. Typhoid is only needed for stays longer than 3 months.

It is a good idea to get the basic Hep A and DTP some time in your life if you travel more often, or plan to travel abroad more often in the next 10 to 15 years. Both shots are recommended for many countries in the world, also for countries you probably would not think about. We certainly got our "money's worth" in the next 15 years after the shot, travelling to places we never thought about when we got those first shots. Hepatitis A come in 2 forms: you can get the one shot for 6 months/1 year, and when you come back for the repeat after that time, it lasts for at least 15 to 25 years.

If you only are one day on a cruise, don't go through the trouble. It is not worth it, the risk is very small. If you are planning to spend more time travelling in the interior of the country, or spend more time abroad in the next 15 years, I would get the shots.

If you are travelling on the Caribbean coast in Limon province, bring good bug repellant and a mosquito net because of a slight malaria risk.

We did not get any shots for our Costa Rica vacation two years ago.

Hi

The CDC has an excellent website for their travel vaccine recommendations for every country. it is very easy to use. On the pull down menu you select the country and that you are a cruise ship passenger and it pulls up the recommended vaccines for that country. By the way TDAP is a vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis ( not polio)