loriley

Need help planning these activities. Four full days in Arenal area. Want to do the following and not sure who to book with, how many can be done in one day,. and whether it's best to do while in Arenal or Samara. Help!

For sure we want to do 1 day of Arenal volcano tour with Eco Termales and dinner
Then we want to do during other 3 days: Sky Trek, Hanging bridges, Cano Negro, Penas Blancas by canoe and boat tour (half our group), Tubing at Springs Resort, Tenoria Rafting, Proyecto Asis Animal rescue, and Canyoning with La Roca Tours.

We will then go to Samara for 8 full days and want to try and include:
Rincon de Le Vieja and Hacienda Guachipelin, Ostional Wildlife Refuge, Barra Honda Cave, Tamarindo (Guaitil Pottery), Corobici Safari Float, Palo Verde National Park (cave? boat tour), tortuga Island.

If there is anything in list that is not worth doing and something that should be included I am up for ideas.

volcanogirl

Wow, that's a lot of activities for Arenal. Too many to do I think. For example, Cano Negro takes all day, so it wouldn't really allow you to do anything else that day. Sky Trek took us about four hours, rafting is usually an all day tour as well. I think you're going to have to narrow your list down.

loriley

Which activities planned for Arenal could be done while in Samara? Which ones are musts in Arenal? Which ones are musts in Samara?

tully

The activities in Arenal you can't do in Samara. I agree with vg that's too much to cram into 4 days. You can do the early hanging bridges toiur, then the 2 hour (or so) tour of the volcano base and then afterwards do SkyTrek, since the three are (relatively) close to each other. Then wind down at night at one of the hot springs. For the boat tours I would do Cano Negro or Penas Blancas, not both. That's another full day there. As for the rest, I would just book the day before for what you feel up to. I've found in traveling, and especially in CR, that it's best to just have some ideas in mind and go from there. Some days it may be raining, some days you may be beat from the day before and want lower impact activities, etc.

Have you thought about spending 3-4 nights in Monteverde or Rincon area? 8 days is a long time to spend in Samara.

loriley

Thank you Tully - I did want to go to Rincon for 2-3 days but my family loves the beach and don't want to change accomodation to much (we are travelling with 80 year old grandparents also). I thought we could do a day trip to Rincon (it will be a long day with driving). Not sure how easy the drive would be though from Samara to Rincon. There seems to be enough small day trip type stuff in Samara area though. Or am I wrong??

We are going to rent a vehicle and thought we would do some day trips to other beaches south along Nicoya Peninsula (Santa Teresa, Cabo Blanca, Montazuma etc).

I think you are right though about picking what are musts and then seeing how it goes. I guess I just worry about crowds during the Christmas/New Year period. It's my A-Type personality