We are renting a house in Manuel Antonio for the last week of June - with 11 family members, my husband and I( in our 80's), our two daughters and their families (5 teen-agers). We have rented one car - should we rent another, or can we get drivers to take us all to destinations? Should we book excursions in advance, or can we sign up on the day before (I'm concerned about paying for a catamaran trip and ending up with a day with lots of rain - not much fun.) Should we bring Costa Rican money with us, or are ATM's plentiful? How much rain can we expect? Just showers?

Some of the hoped-for adventures include one day of fishing, a visit to the national park, a catamaran cruise, an ATV trip, maybe surfing.

Any recommendations for places to eat in the vicinity? Thanks for any help and travel tips.

Electra

You can call taxis if you need them. The MA area is fairly compact. There's also a public bus. Good restaurants include Barba Roja, Victoria's, Cafe Milagro, Cafe Agua Azul, and Ronny's Place. Most restaurants are open air with nice sunset views. June is the rainy season, so I'd expect some rain. Manuel Antonio Expeditions is a good company for tours - we used them for a guided tour of the park and the Damas mangrove tour. Everywhere we've gone has accepted U.S. dollars. Another tour we really liked was Villa Vanilla - a fun spice tour where you see how cinnamon, cacao, etc. grow and at the end they serve little drinks and desserts made with what's grown on their property. The beach inside the national park is gorgeous, lots of monkeys and sloths in the area. Can't really predict the rain, usually afternoon showers so we like to do things early in the a.m. but it can rain at any time.

Thanks for the info. I like the idea of using taxis, esp in the evening.

Electra

My family and I (5 people) stayed at the Tulemar Resort during the Christmas holidays. Outside of the resort, we ate breakfast everyday at the Cafe Milagro (very good). We had dinner at Barba Roja (ok), Ronny's Place (pretty good), and Mar Luna (excellent). We went fishing and everyone caught a red snapper! We gave 3 of the fish to our driver and he stopped at the Mar Luna restaurant and asked if they would cook 2 of the snappers for our dinner. They agreed. The fish was excellent. They fried one snapper and sauteed the other with butter and garlic. It was a great day. Another day was spent whitewater rafting. The group took us on the Savegre River. Being my first time, I was very nervous, but the team that took us down was very knowledgeable of the river and made sure that we were kept safe at all times. No one fell overboard! It was great.

Hi. I recomend a mangrove kayak tour. Educational and fun.

Thanks. We are leaving on Thursday. Looking forward to it.

We just returned from a week in a villa in Manuel Antonio, the Casa Anjoli, - my husband and I, my two daughters and their families. We were 6 adults and 5 children from 19 yrs old to 13 yrs old. We had a fantastic trip. The weather was perfect - a bit warm in the middle of the day, but cool and breezy in the evening. We did have some rain - but mostly after sun-down, so it did not interfere with any activities. I was afraid that there would be a lot of rain, but it was fine.
There was amazing wild life. We had a resident sloth who v-e-r-y slowly inched his way down into a tree branch in the mornings and went back into the leaves at night. We also had a troop of squirrel monkeys who visited us a few times, and played around on the deck near the pool. Fun to watch. We saw lots of birds, a couple of scarlet macaws, toucans flying overhead, and vultures!! Also capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys, and some creature that looked like a pig - might have been a peccary. What an amazing place.
The children took surf board lessons, and went on an ATV trip. We spent a lot of time at the beach, and, of course, we visited the national park.
We had a chef who made meals for us for three nights, and he was fantastic. We also went out for chicken wings and pizza - delicious fish at Cafe Agua Azul.
Great trip.

The trip from the airport at San Jose took about 3 hours (4 hrs with a stop for lunch), but the return to the airport in the early morning hours was a bit less - 2 3/4 hrs. We were told that we had to pay an exit fee of $28 per person when we left, but it was included in our air fare (AA).

Sounds amazing. Glad you had such a good time! You had some amazing wildlife sightings. Excellent that you got to see macaws and toucans. We haven't seen those there other than aracaris. Glad you had good weather too. We like Agua Azul too. Would you mind posting the info. about your chef?

Our chef was arranged by the concierge for our villa, Susan. His first name is Carlos. Sorry I don't know more about him.

Electra

Okay, thanks!