Manuel Antonio Park - The Hustle
 

The Tico hustlers will hassel you to park and pay $30USD should you drive your car into the general park area. They are very convincing, stepping out authoritatively in front of your car and asking you if you are going to the park or to the hotels. They will be gesturing for you to go to the right where you can park, pay $30, get a tour guide (extra$) and they will do you the service of watching your car for you.

If you do park in their area you will have about a 400 metre walk to the entrance of the park. Your tour guide will cost $90.00 for two people for a "private tour".

Just do yourself a favor and stay in your car and keep driving. Ignore them and anyone else approaching your car with talk of towing or watching it. You can say you are on your way to the Korean hotel located by the entrance of the park. Once you are nearly at the M.A. park gates you can park on the street or pay a more reasonable $5.00 to park your car in a makeshift lot.

Hope that helps.

Yes,
We were just there Sept 19-29th, 2012.
This is all true. The Tico's are"vultures".( We got this choice word from a Tico himself who works at the Double Tree Hotel in Aleuja).
Just don't leave valuables in your car, and don't feel that you have to oblige any of them as there really are no true paid parking areas for the car.
The vultures will tell you that the park rules have changed....not so...it is their hustle that has gotten wiser by putting on an authoritative act throwing out the bait and seeing which tourists bite!
Trust me you will need to save your money more for gas and food stuff!
Hope this information helps!

<The Tico's are vultures>>

Sorry, after reading all of your posts at TA slamming anything & everything in CR because <b>you did absolutely no research prior to your trip</b> does not not entitle you to slam an entire country.

There are certainly opportunistic locals in tourist areas.

There are also wonderful, friendly, helpful people who will go out of their way to help (like walk me down the street to point to the turn, or the men who jumped out of their car, and virtually picked ours up out of a ditch).

(Yes, MA "parking attendants" are wearing fake official looking vests, and will take your money. Yes, there are some fellows on the beach in Jaco who will wait for you to turn your back to steal your stuff. But what country doesn't have charlatans, creeps, and thieves?)

I read the OPs post on TA and they did not slam anything & everything Tico.

Yes there are many "vultures" in the touristy parts of Costa Rica looking to rip you off in one way or the other.

Anyways I assumed Ollie Pow was referring specifically to the Manuel Antonio species.

Ollie didn't make any distinction in his or her post, and that was a bit offensive, sorry migb. As sylvia pointed out, hustlers can be found in every country.

MsJag, thank you for the heads-up about these particular hustlers. I'm sur ethat you've saved others from being ripped off.

Ollie didn't make any distinction? Did you read the entire post? It's all about MA.

In my opinion, using a word like "vulture" is no more offensive than the "shoot the messenger" attitudes that prevail on Costa Rica forums, which try to discredit anyone who posts any negative experience in Costa Rica, usually with the retort that "it happens everywhere".

So NOT true.

The gist of the OP is very true. Tout's wearing fake official looking park uniforms flag down and hustle every arriving car, offering overpriced parking and guides. Drive as close as you can to the park entrance. Pay around $5 to park. Hire an official guide near the park entrance or through your hotel, or don't hire a guide and enjoy the park on your own.

As stated above, never leave anything of value in your car, or unattended on the beach...

Enjoy Costa Rica and it's beauty safely

just want to thank you for this info. Last weekend I visited MA with two clients from California with a rental car. We made a plan to drive all the way to the park entrance to look for parking, based on this thread. We said if we didn't find anything we would turn around.

Well, this being my friends birthday, we found the very first and closest parking spot to the park. Upon locking up some locals told us that the police would ticket us if we parked there, so we double checked for any indication of parking violation, and finding none, set off into the park.

Upon return, half expecting to find a ticket, we found the car in it's spot, no ticket and no problems.

Thanks again for the info on this thread.
Pura Vida, Ballardo