Hi. In December our family of 4 is going to CR for 1 week. We are planning to stay at Hotel Pura Vida in Alujuela, Centro Neotropico (Tirimbina), Arenal Paraiso or Arenal Observatory Lodge (opinions please), Villa Lapas (near Jaco), Hacienda Baru (Dominical), and La Rosa de America in Alujuela. Any info about these places - pro or con is appreciated.

Also, which zip-lines are safe? Arenal Paraiso? Villa Lapas? How can I find out?

We stayed at Arenal Paraiso and loved it. We also went on the zipline there and felt it was safe. The 6 young men who helped us in and out of harnesses and catching us when we came onto treetop platforms were pleasant and experienced. It was fun (although a little scary for this middle-aged mother). I don't have any information about your other hotels. Have fun! CR is an incredible place and my two daughters, ages 12 and 16, rated our Aug. 2005 CR vacation the best trip ever.

Appletree - I have just read each of your questions and wanted to comment just a little.

From this post "CR Itinerary..." it looks as if you had already chosen your hotel preferences. One of the reasons that you have not gotten many responses is due to us being unfamiliar with your choices (but I will be checking them out!). Other than Arenal Paraisio, I personally do not have any experience with your choices. BTW AP was wonderful, very enjoyable, a bit rustic, but loved the front porches.

Another post was something like "fun places..." however you did not go into what you consider fun. Maybe you could go back and let us all know a bit more about your likes and dislikes? Maybe you found some things while reading your guidebook that really stirred your interest?

As a newbie to Fodor's you may not know that you can put just about anything in the search at the top of this page and find more info than you care to read. Such as ziplines.

Dominical is an area rarely discussed, however there are a few discussions. I personally asked a couple of questions a few months back about Dominical. But have yet to decide on where we want to stay there. Several people gave some great ideas and I believe Hacienda Baru was one of them, do a search and see if you can find it.

Jaco does not get many great reviews, but that does not mean that you particularly would not like it. What are your plans and reasons for this location?

It is not that anyone is trying to be vague or unhelpful, just give us a bit more to go on and you will find we all love to talk about CR!!

Goodluck!.

dfarmer and lisalawyer - thank u for your replies. My son (17) and daughter (14) like adventure. My husband and I like hiking, seeing mammals and birds, volcanoes and waterfalls. Villa Lapas is a stopover on the way from Arenal to Dominical. We hope to snorkel at Playa Ballena (and maybe see humpback whales). I guess we'll stay at Arenal Paraiso and hope to be able to drive somewhere to see lava flowing at night. What are the hot springs like at Arenal?

AppletreeGang,
You have selected a LOT of locations for just one week. We are notorious for moving around after a couple or 3 days, but I can't imagine more than 3 locations in one week, and most people wouldn't choose more than 2. I may have missed something here, and, if so, ignore me!
Travel times from location to location tend to be lengthy (quite unlike it appears on the map) due to traffic and road conditions. I am concerned that you are going to be spending virtually all of your time in the car, checking in, checking out, etc. with little opportunity to do much more than sightsee as you go from place to place.

Please reconsider your itinerary. Costa Rica is so wonderful; I hate to see you rushing through, arriving at each destination just in time for sundown and having to leave the next day!

Well Jill, at least you caught the one week! I totally missed that.

Yes! AppletreeGang - you guys have what looks to be an awesome itinerary - if you had a couple of weeks. You are making a huge circle through Costa Rica. The problem is as Shillmac has noted - this itinerary has you driving most of your trip, with very little time left to enjoy anything.

CR looks to be a very small country - which it is. However travel is slow, on 2 lane winding hilly roads, which pretty much doubles the time that you may think it will take. Also, remember there has been recent and ongoing flooding in CR, which has caused lots of damage to many of their roads.

After looking at your trip on the map, it does look interesting - however I beleive you are going to need to decide whether you want to travel up to the Sarapuiqui and Arenal areas with a nearby beach locale - OR - down toward Dominical. If you really want the Dominical experience, then take a look at Savegre Mountain Lodge for a midway stop, this has always looked interesting to me and gets good reviews. www.savegre.co.cr

Whatever you decide, to fully enjoy a week you should limit yourself to 2 destinations. You are pushing yourselves in order to have only overnight stays.

Hi dfarmer and shillmac. Thanks for the advice. In the states we always travel this way. We aren't able to take long vacations but love to see everything. I'm estimating 3 big driving days: Arenal to Villa Lapas - 3 to 4 hours (5 max), Villa Lapas to Dominical 4 hours (5 max) and Dominical to Alajuela (5 hours). Even with a 5 hour drive we get to have either a morning activity or an afternoon activity. The kids have a DVD player and we'll have books on CD, and, of course, enjoy the scenery (adults only - the kids rarely look) If you think my estimates are way off, PLEASE, let me know.

I'm not sure which side of Arenal has the lava flow right now. But I would highly recommend staying in accomodations that have a good view at night--sometimes the best show doesn't happen until very late at night. And you don't won't to miss it.

If you stay in a place that has a good view, if you request them to do so, your hotel should awaken you when Arenal gets active.

That said, we stayed in Arenal Paraiso January last year when the lava was on that side of the volcano. And we enjoyed the place very much. Both nights were clear and both nights we were awakened by hotel staff when the pyrotechnics started up. It was great to watch it from our bed.

Look at today's AM Costa Rica, you will definately have to rethink this portion of the trip. Part of the road from Quepos to Dominical has been washed away due to the flooding. http://www.amcostarica.com/

I still believe you are packing too much in. You say "in the states", remember there are no super highways in CR, no 4 lane roads other than the one actually in SJ, no interstates. All of these roads are narrow 2 lane winding, hilly roads with lots of animals, people, small towns, speed bumps, school zones. But it is your trip.

Perhaps you could seriously consider cutting out 1 , if not 2 places ? It is a lot of rushing and driving about , without enough time in each spot to truly take it in .

My husband wanted to go to Playa Uvita or Playa Ballena to snorkel in the pacific. I'd be just as happy to go to Manuel Antonio. Do you have places to suggest to stay in that area?

For Playa Uvita or Manuel Antonio ?

Agree too much for one week. Skip Jaco for sure - it's way too built up and kind of icky.

Arenal Obs Lodge is pretty cool - spend the extra $$ and get a full volcano view. From those rooms you can see the lava right now (just returned a week ago) although would probably get a better view by driving out to the main road after dark. But really great flows and chunks of rocks flying out the top. Very cool. Skip the Morning Walk - it's kinda boring. But your kids will love the waterfall rapelling offered by Pure Trek Canyoning. It's wild. Safe, great guides, tons of fun. You will get soaked but they give you small dry bags for your camera so don't be afraid to bring a point and click.

Appletree - One more things. Do you understand that driving in CR isn't like driving in N. America? Take your normal drive time and more than double it. It's slow and painful at time due to the potholes and ruts in the road. Just another tip that your itinerary is too ambitious. From Arenal to Manuel Antonio, for example, is probably about five hours.

Hi,
I can comment on two places you mentioned. We stayed at Hacienda Baru and loved it. It was a highlight of our trip to CR. The wildlife viewing was terrific. We also really liked Centro Neotropico. We went on a great walk in the Tirimbina. The people running both places were incredibly helpful.

If you can bear another response... ditto on the too much in one week. Please know that this rainy season was a very bad one and the roads have suffered. Just returned from 10 days in CR on 10/19 and I had wonderful advice from this website (thank you shillmac, french fry and all the others). I recommend heeding their advice. CR is far too lovely to speed through it. Better to fully enjoy a couple spots and come back for more. We will!

Arenal Paraiso - a truly beautiful hotel and grounds. Floor to ceiling windows (even in the bathrooms!) framing the volcano. Incredible. Some say rustic - not for Costa Rica! The AP canopy tour was top-notch - the guides flew away over the treetops with my 7 and 9 year olds and this middle-aged acrophobic felt very secure. My 15 year old surfer nephew loved the whole Arenal experience as well. Don't know how it'll be in December, but we drove about 3 minutes west of the Tabacon Hot Springs on the main road (just before the hill up to Lake Arenal)at night and saw incredible lava flows, boulders flying, etc. At AP we heard the volcano "burp" all night & saw one exciting eruption of smoke & ash from our picture window in the AM. Nice thing about AP was its ease of access to all other restaurants & activities. Observatory Lodge, although close to the current lava flow, is waaay up a hill & even with a 4WD, it's a 9 km bumpy drive out to the main highway.

We also enjoyed a river raft trip at Arenal. The guide gave us the best info about where to view the lava flows, not to mention lots of info about the local flora & fauna. Although we shy from "touristy" stuff, the guides we encountered were top-notch - booked through the hotel.

Have a wonderful trip - it will be as wonderful as everyone says!

I will second what turnager said about guides in CR. Ours were extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic. They were genuinely proud of their country's natural heritage and seemed eager to share as much as they could with us.

Each of them went out of his way to make our experiences as enjoyable, entertaining, and educational as anyone possibly could.

Just a few additional points to what has already been posted:
1 - I agree about the roads and driving times; it is slow going and can be treacherous. And please don't plan on driving after dark - every guidebook I read before my trip strongly advised against it.
2 - You mentioned Manuel Antonio. The best hotel in that area is Hotel Costa Verde. They have a website - don't remember theURL but Google it and I'm sure you'll find it. It isn't on the beach, but is only a mile away and accessible by bus (run about every 15-20 minutes and cost about 50 cents). I even walked there, downhill going but a pretty steep uphill returning to hotel.
3 - Best way to get to MA is to fly from San Jose into Quepos, then bus or taxi to the hotel.