You can expect about 6 hours from Manuel Antonio to Arenal. Might make it in a few minutes less, but 6 is a good rule of thumb, considering you might want to stop for lunch, a snack, a bathroom break, whatever, on the way. Straight through, so stopping, more like 5 hours. 3 hours, no way! :)

fishee -- I'm not sure why Silencio hasn't returned your e-mails. We are staying with them May 24-28 and have corresponded with them 2 or 3 times. They usually reply within a day. Have you tried calling?

The best thing we did in CR was a tree top canopy tour. Zipping from tree top to tree top was great fun1

Finally, my sister has decided on Arenal Obervatory Lodge so we're sticking with Arenal. (She got caught up in Villa Blanca in Monteverde but posts convinced her to stick with Arenal.)

I'm now responsible for MA lodging and still deciding between Si Como No and Costa Verde's Casa Quinta. Buena Vista Villas look incredible but too expensive.

How is the food at Costa Verde, Si Como No, BVV? My sister likes that there's apparently an IMAX theater on the grounds of Si Como No for her 7 yr old. They're food snobs in the sense that they prefer organic and non-processed foods, I'm thinking the non-processed part will be standard in CR.

thanks again for all the help, everyone. You've really made this impossible sounding trip into something do-able.

Here is a link to a really good map of Costa Rica and downtown San Jose.

http://www.mapcr.com/CostaRica.pdf

Food excellent, both Si Como No and Costa Verde. We're a little partial to the restaurant at SCN, though.

OMG, finally, we have our accomodations after 5 weeks of exchanges about pesticides and toxicity levels between my sister and 12 different hotels.

Day 1: SJO (cab to hotel)
hire driver (suggestions?) to take us from SJO to MA

2-4: MA (Si Como No -- deluxe room) rent car in MA on day 4 to drive to Arenal.

5-7: Arenal (Arenal Observatory Lodge-- Smithsoanian room)

8: La Paz (Peace Lodge - 1 deluxe/1 standard room) drive to SJO airport. Can we do this -- rent in MA and drop off at airport?

My choices would have been Costa Verde and Lost Iguana but who cares, it's done! Does our car rental plan make sense or should we just rent a car at SJO and skip the driver?

Now I'll look into the fun stuff, booking tours, white water rafting, zip-lines, thanks for all the references everyone.

Congrats on getting the hotels squared away. Its always nice to start seeing those big items getting checked off of the 'to do' list. You perhaps had to jump through a few more hoops than most of us do in order to ensure that your travel companions would be happy. I'm sure it was a bit frustrating at times(the things we do for family, gotta love 'em :-) ), but now you can rest easy, assured that you have picked some highly regarded accommodations. You are going to visit the same wonderful locations my family visited this past December. We absolutely loved each of them and I hope you will too!

Can't really help much with your additional transportation questions. We drove ourselves the entire trip (round trip from SJO). We liked the flexibility the car provided; even in MA where we could have relied on public transportation. But that's just us; you may have different preferences. Whatever you ultimately decide, have a great trip!

fishee -- I wanted to let you know you can get a private Interbus transfer for 8 people for $129 from Fortuna to Peace Lodge. Not pp, but total one-way in an 8 passenger van. I just found this out today because we're doing the same transfer on May 28. There's just 2 of us, still the same price.

Hope this helps!

Oops! Sorry fishee - I just reread the last few posts and realize you have decided to rent a car. You are a hard one to keep track of. I think you've changed your plan/hotels more often than I have, which is pretty tough! LOL!

Anyway, we actually went back to our original idea of Campo del Silencio, construction or not, it just sounds great to us :)

We'll all have to post back, for sure!

I picked up a brochure for Hotel Silencio--would you like me to mail it?

shillmac - If you're talking to me (regarding the brochure) I'd love it! Should I e-mail you @...?

Happy to be reading your great trip report ;)

Yep--you're the one! E-mail me at:

[email protected]

I'll get it right out to you. Can I address it to Hip Virgo Chick? :)

We're considering renting a car because it seems that people say it's handy to have one in Arenal.

We may look into just using drivers and cabs the whole time although there's 4 of us so that might make a rental more attractive. too tired to think, will resume trip planning in a couple of days... thanks!

fishee - I wanted to add that in case you do decide against a rental car, Peace Lodge also offers transfer for $137 total from Arenal and you can choose your time. There's probably cheaper alternatives, these are just the convenient ways I've come across so far.