Kathryn, July 2024

Thank you for organising the most wonderful trip, we had such an amazing adventure!
Luis was an amazing guide and such a lovely, interesting guy to spend time with. We can’t thank him or praise him enough.
Overall everything worked really well and we were delighted with all of the accommodation and enjoyed all of our excursions.

The only real negative came after a wonderful couple of days in Tortuga Lodge when we received the bill for the trips we had done and it was more than three times the price we had agreed when we booked them.
The reception staff claimed the price we were quoted was per adult not the total cost but at no point when deciding which trips we were booking did anyone mention the prices were per person and the form we signed said ‘total price’.
We were anticipating a bill of around $400 and the bill we received was more than $1300. Eventually after a lengthy exchange of words and discussions with their management team we were only able to get them to agree to reducing the cost by 30%. We didn’t consider this fair but unless we paid we were unable to leave so we did. It was such a shame as otherwise it was such a great start to our holiday. The accommodation was beautiful as was the food. The only other negative on this stay was that they didn’t charge for non-alcoholic drinks with dinner except sparkling water which was $8 a bottle. We got caught out on the first night and ended up with an unexpected bill of $16.
We did the kayak trip and morning boat trip which were both excellent. We also did the night trip to see the turtles which wasn’t so great as we didn’t see a turtle lay eggs and it was a lot of standing round in the dark.

We then moved onto Sarapiqui and started off with white water rafting which was amazing fun. The photograph and video package on this trip was very high quality and very good value.
The accommodation here was rustic but huge [Selva Verde Rainforest Lodge & Reserve, 2 bedroom Casona apartment] ! with the added bonus of a washing machine and tumble drier so we were able to do some laundry. The food in the pizza restaurant on site was great and watching the birds at breakfast was an added bonus. We did a boat trip whilst here which was good but not amazing, I think we had high expectations after the Tortuga Lodge boat trip.
On the way to Arenal we did the chocolate tour which was such good fun, I would definitely recommend it.

Our accommodation in Arenal [Silencio del Campo] was lovely but felt small compared with where we had come from. We loved the hot springs which we spent a lot of time in. We ate at the snack bar by the Hot Springs on both evenings. The food and drinks were good value and good quality and the staff really lovely. The farm was a really cute addition which we really enjoyed wandering around, though the 4am wake up from cockerels, not so much! Whilst in Arenal we did the hanging bridges in a torrential downpour which lasted from the moment we entered the tour until the moment we left! Even Luis used his umbrella and still ended up with wet feet. I am sure this is usually an amazing excursion but the weather wasn’t on our side that morning! We finished our stay off with a walk up the lava trails which was interesting. La Fortuna was a great place to explore, we had a great lunch at Restaurant Furtuneno which was pricey but worth it. We enjoyed several trips to the wonderful coffee shop Chocolate Fusion that has aircon and wifi as well as great ice-cream, coffee and chocolate.

It was then onto Monteverde and the hotel El Establo, which was interesting. We had a very good sized room with a fantastic view but the room was very basic with very little furniture which was a bit strange. The breakfast was very good but could be very busy, the dinner restaurant was beautiful but the food was very disappointing considering the price. We treated ourselves to some steaks and wished we hadn’t. This was probably the only really disappointing meal of the trip. The cloud forest walk was really interesting, it was nice to do some hanging bridges without torrential rain. The humming bird cafe was a real treat at the end of this walk and is a must. Back at the hotel we enjoyed a dip in the pool, went up to the lookout which had spectacular views, the boys played football with some other guests here in the football court, so there was definitely plenty to keep us entertained when we weren’t out and about. We finished our stay here with our favourite trip of the whole holiday, the Selvatura zipline tour which was just amazing, I cannot recommend this highly enough. It was so well organised and felt very safe even though you are hurtling through the rainforest on a piece of wire. We had a great meal in Sushi restaurant that Luis took us to on our last night, unfortunately I can’t remember the name.

Last by no means least was our stay at Manuel Antonio beach which was brilliant. The room [Hotel Costa Verde, 2 room bungalow] was enormous with a great balcony for watching the monkeys and birds. We ate in all of the hotel restaurants which were all great. We didn’t venture beyond the hotel at night because there was a thunderstorm every night and we didn’t fancy walking far in the rain. We also had brunch on the last morning in the hotel which was also good. During the day we ate by the beach and really liked Baldi’s restaurant which did great tuna, fish tacos, burgers and drinks. The service was really good and friendly too. We spent a day in the National Park which was really beautiful, we just did a self guided tour rather than pay for a guide and it was easy to find and navigate.

Our last night was in the really lovely Hotel Buena Vista which was great and we wished we could have stayed longer as it had some lovely trails we didn’t have time to explore

I hope this has been useful for you? We had a truly amazing trip and feel we were able to make the most of all of the opportunities Costa Rica had to offer thanks to your hard work and the tireless efforts of the wonderful Luis!