Manuel Antonio or Malpais? Need your input!
 

Our family (Husband, 2 kids 10 and 12) are planning a trip to Costa Rica next week (!), starting 3/24. We thought we'd fly into San Jose, spend one night either at either Orquideas or Bougainvillea, then 2 nights in a place at the Arenal Volcano (Tabacon Hot Springs is full, so need suggestions), then 3 nights in either Manuel Antonio or Malpais. For those of you who've been there, do you have strong preferences for one place vs. the other? Then back to either Bougainvillea or Orquideas and home on 3/31. Would greatly appreciate your thoughts and advice! Thanks.

Malpais is more work to get to , MA is closer and easier . Malpais is off the beaten track a bit , not so for MA . Great surfing in Malpais , not so much in MA , but swimming is easier . ( more animal sightings in MA )

Malpais is high on my list of places to see , it's popular here , but just takes more effort to get to , basically thats what I was trying to say !!! LOL .

Thanks for the advice. I've been reading lots of helpful info on this forum and I think we've decided on the Malpais/Santa Teresa/Montezuma area. We're having trouble finding a place to stay. Tropico Latino, our first choice, only has 1 night of the 3 we'll be there, though they're urging me to book it, saying something may open up for the next 2 nights. Would appreciate other suggestions of where to stay in the area with our 2 kids!

btrav86 - I'll be there at the same time! BF and I are leaving Saturday 3/25. We rented a car and are pretty much making it up as we go along - no reservations.

If you read other boards (like thorntree), you'll find that there are LOTS of places to stay in Arenal and Mal Pais/Montezuma that you won't read about here (and which don't get full precisely because they are not mentioned on many of the travel boards).

I know that doesn't help you, but I just wanted to comfort you by saying that I don't have anything booked (except first night in San Jose), and we're not too worried. But it's just the two of us, too.

We'll be in Arenal for a few days, probably Sunday/Monday or Monday/Tuesday (maybe an extra day if we like it), so hopefully the weather will be clear!

Have a great trip. Look for past posts - there are lots of suggestions for hotels in Arenal area.

Karen

I meant to say too that we are also planning to head to Nicoya - not sure if we'll go to Mal Pais or to Samara or someplace in between... :)