I'd stick with one area if you only have 5 days. I posted the following on your other thread this morning -

We saw sloths almost every day in Manuel Antonio. We split our stay between Villa Mot Mot at Tulemar and Gaia. Gaia is the more luxurious of the two and had excellent food and service but we preferred the feel of Villa Mot Mot and that great deck. The sloths we saw (both two and three toed species) were all on the two properties both of which have some hiking available. We never ventured into the park.

In addition to sloths, we saw squirrel and capuchin monkeys daily. MA is about 3 hours from SJO. I don't think there are any luxury accommodations in the Sarapiqui area.

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I will be so pleased with monkeys daily.
So Manuel Antonio sounds like it then. We do prefer volcanoes over beaches but this is great advice, thank you!

Hi Kittygirl - I'd say you could still do both if you want. If you can find flights that get you in early and leave late - then you can either utilize a quick hopper flight between arenal and MA if you want to still have 2 days at each.

If there's any way you can do both, both are really worth seeing. The Arenal area has some great hiking - at the waterfall, at the volcano, at the Hanging Bridges, and you can see wildlife at Cano Negro and Penas Blancas. The wildlife in MA is more prevalent, but a lot of it is very tame. It would be tight with only five days though.