Arriving 9pm at airport in managua.

Hi Jeff,
Yeah, grab an airport taxi and get out of town ASAP. The taxi will cost you around $35US but that Best Western place will cost upwards of $80 and for what? You can get a nice room in Granada for $30. You may want to make reservations though since you are getting in late.

Agreed. I did it yesterday.
I'm at the Hotel Capricho and they do 24/7 check ins.
David

Yeah, grab a taxi, you'll be sipping a beer in Granada by 10:30. I would make a reservation, some will have shuttle service. The place across the street should only be used in a pinch.

Another option is to take a 10$ cab to a hostel in Managua. A popular one is the Backpackers Inn which is centrally located near Metrocentro where you can stock on anything you need and it's also along side Carretera Masaya - the highway that takes you to Granada.
Just go to the highway and wave down a minibus that has "Granada" written on the front and it'll pull over and give you a ride for 24 cords (1$US).
Not sure if you're looking to save money but it's an option for very little inconvenience, especially if you want to pick up stuff for you trip.

Cheers,

Hi Matti,
I thought that going into Managua center was the opposite direction from the road to Granada by about 20 minutes?

You are probably right, the shuttles may take a route east from the airport as it's located on the far east side of the city and so is Granada. The main road to Granada is the Carretera Masaya located in city 'center' though.
I've never taken a shuttle from the airport to Granada but from Metrocentro to Granada on a mini bus it's 45 minutes to an 1 hour. How long do the shuttles take?

I would vote for jumping to Granada as well, I just wanted to throw out a cheaper alternative :)

Thanks for the info about the shuttle. One dollar from Managua to Granada? That sounds too cheap to be true. Never the less, when you figure in the taxi ride to downtown Managua, the price of the hostel and food then you are not saving much but instead are spending time in a place that is not all that nice. I would much rather be in Granada for the first night. Sometimes you just have to pay a little bit more to do the right thing. You can always split the taxi with up to three other people.

A bus is just over a buck. A microbus is 35-40 cords, or a buck and a half.

There really is no downtown managua, and metrocentro is not generally considered the downtown area. But it is on the road to granada, and not out of the way at all.

Also you cant catch a bus to granada from the airport, you have to take a bus to the market or area near the highway to granada, which costs about 10 cents. Then you can catch the bus to granada.

For me, flying from Europe, the Best Western hotel is a great deal just after two long flights, even if it is a little expensive by Nica standards. It literally is just across the road, has huge grounds and swimming pools, the rooms are lovely with cable TV, it provides a decent buffet breakfast, and sometimes you don't really fancy a long taxi or minibus ride after flying all day.

The minibuses to Granada are dirt cheap, as other posters have said, and what I will be doing next month is spending a night in the Best Western, then getting a taxi over to the UCA at my leisure around lunchtime, and getting a minibus to the centre of Granada for the equivalent of $1 the next day.

Whereas I think paying $35 to get a taxi direct from the airport to Granada seems a tad expensive to me.

I guess it depends how much time you have or how much of a hurry you are in!