Hi all of you experts,

I am still trying to sort out some things regarding our trip to Costa Rica over the Christmas Holiday.

We will be staying at the Volcano Lodge for 3 nights with just two full days in the area.

We then will be driving to Manuel Antonio for 5 nights but getting up very early to get to the airport on the last morning so that gives us 4 full days in that area. We are staying at the Hotel Costa Verde.

We have rented a car and now I am looking into different excursions/tours. My hubby asked me to find out if we could do some of the excursions on our own, without a guide. Also, would it be safe for us to drive to each place?

Of the following excursions/hikes, etc.,in the Arenal area:
~ Volcano tour
~ Hanging bridges
~ Cano negro
~ Canopy tour
~ Sky tram
~ Rafting
~ ATV

Please give your opinion on these questions :

1) Which ones should we make our priority?
2) Can we drive ourselves there safely?
3) Do we need a guide?
4) Can we double up any of these in one day?

As for Manuel Antonio:

~ Margrove
~ Ziplining
~ Catamoran Trip
~ Rafting
~ ATV
~ Park Tour

Please give your opinion on these questions :

1) Which ones should we make our priority?
2) Can we drive ourselves there safely
3) Do we need a guide
4) Can we double up any of these in one day?

I really appreciate any and all of your comments. I've been spending days researching these things and remembered just now how knowledgeable all of you are and how fast you would get the correct information to me. It is so nice!

Thanks,
Patti

Arenal: You need to go with a tour company for Cano Negro. Recommend Sunset Tours. Hanging Bridges, you can get yourselves there. Same for a tour of the national park. For ziplining, I'd probably sign up for a tour. You can do HB and zips in one day--any of the 2-3 hour things. Cano Negro is the only one that takes pretty much a full day.

Priority: Cano Negro (others will be icing on the cake)

MA: You can drive yourselves to the park, but hire a guide to go in. You'll see more. I think the Damas Mangrove tour would require a tour guide and pickup but am not sure. You'll probably not do the zips at both places, and they are probably better at Arenal.

Can't comment on rafting either place or ATV's.

Hope this helps a little. Others may be able to shed more light.

As a rafting fan, I would definitely say here that rafting in CR is a must do. I've been on the Pacuare three times, the Toro once and the Naranjo once and fully intend to go back to all three, as well as raft all the other rivers in the country as soon as chance allows.

Not sure if you've been able to read up on rafting yet, so ignore this bit if you have. Both Pacuare and Toro are Class III-IV and are fun rides for beginners and up. Pacuare is unbelievably beautiful and I'm always tempted to just sit there and gape at the scenery around me when I'm supposed to be paddling. Big, rolling rapids, greenery as high as the eye can see.
Toro was a more technical ride, bumpier too as they take on you smaller boats. But everything depends on water levels, I think; I've seen guides with oars on Pacuare but have personally not rafted with oars - just paddles - on it yet.

I've gone with Aventuras Naturales (they're in San Jose) twice on the Pacuare and would definitely go with them again. I went with Desafio (they're in Arenal) on the Toro and would go rafting with them again as well. With Aventuras, Cholo was my guide both times and he was excellent. With Desafio, Carlos was my guide and he was great as well. You can request a specific guide and both companies will do their best to accommodate you.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the company we went with or the name of our guide for the Naranjo. To be honest, the water level was very low and we ended up rafting mostly on rocks and had to push ourselves off a lot of them. Naranjo is a class III-IV as well but can get higher depending on the rains. I will go back when the water is higher. We also spent most of our time as part of the rescue crew as the other passengers on the other boat kept falling in every few minutes, so while it was exciting for the first two or three times fishing folks out of the water, it got a little boring after that.

Bring water shoes - not flip flops -shades, croakies, sunblock, quickdry tops (cotton tshirts keep you cold and stay wet all day)and a baseball cap to wear under your helmet.

I've stayed at the Hotel Costa Verde and loved the place. We could easily walk down to the beach and could see the beach from our balcony. We took pictures of that view in the morning before our pickup and in the afternoon when we were dropped off.

shillmac is right - hire a guide when you get to the park as you will definitely see more. Ordinarily, that walk through the park would take you twenty minutes but with a guide spotting wildlife for you, it can take over an hour. You can also snorkel inside the park but with the rainy season just tapering off, you might not see very much. We snorkeled in May and saw a little but not much.

The catamaran trip can be fun but make sure you know how many people will be on the boat with you that day as the one I went on packed the boat and I had to stay in my seat pretty much the entire ride to and fro to ensure I had a seat to come back to. Plus the tour company we went with tried very, very hard to get us to buy the alcohol and were rather miserly with the - free - tap water.

Rafting and Cano Negro are all day activities, and ATV tours can be either half-day or all day; everything else you can double up I think.

Hi there,

Shillmac - thank you for your advice. I see you all over the boards and I trust your wisdom. We are going to be in Arenal on Christmas day so that limits what we can do. Thinking we can maybe hike the volcano on our own that day and do zip and HB tour another day. Would you recommend another spa place besides Eco Termoles (sp)since it is closed on Christmas?

Just starting to sit down with hubby to get this all together. We have decided to hire a driver since he is cheaper than the rental car and will make the trip less stressful for us!

Thanks also to Eressea for your input re: rafting. I think we will need to raft while in MA. Recommend any company/river?

Thanks to you both.
Patti

As luck would have it, I found some notes from my trip in May that I emailed to myself so...

I went with Iguana Tours in Quepos to raft the Naranjo. Naranjo is a class III/IV river but the water level on the day you raft ultimately determines the kind of ride you get. The put in is a short ride from the tour office in Quepos. I didn't jot down our guide's name so I can't make a recommendation there. This is only a half day tour though as it's only a 7 mile run and we were given cookies and juice but no full meals. $65 per person.

You can also choose to raft the Savegre river which in some places is listed as a class II/III and in others as a class III/IV, although from what I've heard it has mostly II/III rapids with a couple of easy IVs. With the Naranjo, those are the two closest rivers to MA.

Amigos del Rio is another rafting outfit in Quepos and they run both the Savegre and Naranjo but I haven't gone with them yet.

You might e-mail Tabacon and see if they are open Christmas Day. Hard to imagine that they wouldn't be. We've been to Baldi, and it will probably be open; however, it certainly wouldn't be my choice except as a last resort.

We were there on the 25th in 2003--don't remember things really closing down. But sure, there are a lot of things you can do on your own that day. La Fortuna Falls, visiting the national park, checking out La Fortuna, etc.

Have a great trip!

For Cano Negro, I recommend Canao Aventuras--the Sunset Tours people wound up just referring their people to them anyways. And they charge a lot less.

You definitely need a tour guide for the Damas Estuary, unless you bring your own boat . . .

We used Sunset Tours for Cano Negro and loved them, have used them twice. I'd definitely recommend them too. Eco Termales is really neat and wonderful spot for dinner - any chance you could go on a day other than Christmas? For zipping, I'd do SkyTrek; we got rained out so didn't get to try it. Hanging Bridges is a nice hike, but hire a guide if you want a chance at seeing any wildlife. We only saw ants there.

eressa -- Which website did you book Aventural Naturales through? When I search I get "toenjoynature" website.

hipvirgochick: I called directly 1.800.514.0411. Aventuras Naturales has at least three or four different web sites one of which is toenjoynature.com. Don't know why that is but I found it confusing and didn't want to make my reservation online not knowing exactly where or with whom I was booking. But I called and got a rep's name and email address and then I booked that way.

Be careful too as there is another lodge called Pacuare River Lodge which is not THE Pacuare Lodge run by AV.

When are you planning on going?

By the way, the web site they use in their email signature is www.costaricanatureadventures.com

Thanks for the info Eressa! Next trip isn't until June...but as you know planning is part of the fun. ;-) Pacuare seems the best river to raft so tentatively I plan on the overnight Pacuare trip and a couple nights in Tortuguero.

hipvirgochick - Planning is definitely part of the fun although I need to stagger my planning for my next trip as May 2009 is the earliest I can see myself going back and that (for me) is a looong way away. Plus I think I'm in my post-CR withdrawal syndrome and CR seems so far away now...Thank heavens for this forum!

Wato -- Sorry to hijack your thread, just one more comment to Eressa...

Eressa - If you decide to put off your trip one more month you should consider joining several of us Fodorites for a GTG (get together) at Bosque del Cabo. We'll be there from June 26-July 3.

Sorry Wato for the tangent...

hipvirgochick - please email me more details about the GTG [email protected] Thanks!