Costa Rica Itinerary from March 8 - March 20th, thoughts?
 

Happy 2012!

My friend and I are going to Costa Rica from March 8th until March 20th. We're arriving at SJO and departing from LIR back to NYC. Any suggestions, feedback, or advice on our itinerary will be appreciated. Thank you very much!!

We arrive at SJO around noon and we will rent a car to head out to El Silencio Lodge. We'll be staying for 3 nites. From El Silencio we'd like to drive to Arenal. We'd like to stay at or Montana de Fuego or Arenal Observatory Lodge for 4 night , but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear from you.

From Arenal we're going to end our trip at Playa Samana to just spend the rest of our vacation on the beach, learning to surf, read, eat and relax.

Thank you again!

We stayed at Arenal Observatory Lodge in December and highly recommend it. The grounds there are lovely and we did the free guided hike that they offer- saw lots of monkeys and heard a great description of when the volcano erupted many years ago. The views of the volcano from our room were spectacular. The road to get to AOL is rough- but it is worth it! So much to do in the area- many posts have been written with those details so I won't recount them here- just do a simple search and you will find them easily enough. Have a wonderful time!

Tabacon.com or lostiguanaresort.com my favs
costarica.bookit.com sales sometimes FREE hot springs there.
AOL did a bait and switch on me when there last to a non view
room from a view room so I left some of the Smithsonian Rooms are ok not great if you get a bad one not fun.The Casonas are horrible.Truly more of an ecocamp food not too great up several miles of very BAD road you have to ford a stream or two. If adventurous can be fun but overpriced for me. It is the closest to the Volcano but check reviews and belive the mixed to bad ones not all the all positive fakes on TripADvertizer they allow the ownersto pay to cull bad reviews over there rankings reviews not reliable.

Tree House Inn playaamara.net my fav great local vibe

Have fun!

We really love the Lost Iguana too. If you want to be closer to town, Nayara is nice.

We just got back from CR and spent 4 nights at Lost Iguana. I couldn't imagine staying anywhere else. It's not in town (about $23 cab fare), but the setting is like no other.

Totally agree, MF; when we stayed in town we missed the grounds at Lost Iguana - they are so wonderful. We did a split between the two places.

We also planned our days to minimize cab rides to/from town. And when we did Eco-Glide, which included transportation, we asked to be dropped off in town instead of back at Lost Iguana, which they did.

The Hanging Bridges is the one thing that is close to Lost Iguana. It's walkable but all uphill on the way there. Lost Iguana will shuttle you there, and the walk back wasn't too bad.

Thank you all! Unfortunately Lost Iguana, Arenal Observatory Lodge and Montana de Fuego are all booked, but I know we'll find something wonderful.

Does anyone have a place to suggest where we should stay on our way from Arenal to Playa Samara? We estimate the drive time to about 5 hours so it would be good to stay for a night somewhere in between Arenal and Playa Samaram

Thank you all again!

We are staying at the Arenal Lodge ( no detailed comments to the negative please as that is where we are booked and I don't want to show up with negative things in my head ) A co-worker of mine stayed there on their trip and said they enjoyed it.

MFNY, on account of my sort of riding the coat tails of your request for CR trip advise post, I'd like to know how everything turned out for you. I used a lot of replies to your questions to plan our tip (we leave three weeks from today for two weeks away )

Check Luxury Link for your 3 days at Silencio Lodge, they have a great deal. I too stayed at the Lost Iguana, while the rooms and views are wonderful I was not too thrilled with thier hiking trails as they were not very well maintained when I was there. Maybe try Silencio del Campo for your time in Arenal?

y, did you check Nayara? Not sure what your budget is, but it's a beautiful hotel with a great restaurant. Silencio del Campo that b mentioned above is another popular place. Los Lagos gets good review too, although I think that's more for the grounds than the rooms.

TT, we LOVED Costa Rica. We were very pleased with the choices we made. The accommodations were great, our driver, Wilson, was fabulous, and the excursions we took, were for the most part, worthwhile. One of these days, I'll do some form of a trip report with more details.

Thanks again. Do you think we should stay in Playa Samara or Playa San Miguel? Any thoughts? We'd like to pick just one beach area and relax versus beach hopping. We originally chose Playa Samara but now we're considering Play San Miguel.

Between Playa Samara and Playa San Miguel, I'd suggest Playa Samara.
Another option for you is a new treehouse community where you get to stay in a real treehouse. It's called Finca Bellavista - it's in the south, not on the Nicoya Peninsula.