My husband and I just got back from a week in Costa Rica. We had a fabulous time in a beautiful country. Here are the details:

Day 1-3 We flew into San Jose and rented a car and drove up to Tabacon at Arenal. The drive took 3 hours. Make sure you keep following the road signs to the volcano or you will get lost. Driving a car is tricky and the roads are not marked. I think it is the biggest mistake we made on the trip. Tabacon was fabulous. The springs are a must see! The hotel restaurant is excellent. Also ate at Nene's in La Fortuna. It was OK but the food was really cheap. We did the canopy tour and that was fun and not very scary. We saw the volcano erupt at night...FANTASTIC!

Day 3-6 We drove to Manuel Antonio(mistake) and it took us 6.5 hours. It should have taken us 5 but we got lost. There are no road markers or signs and having maps AND directions from the hotels did not help. Again, I would highly recommend getting a driver or we heard good reports from tourists using Interbus. We stayed at Hotel California. It was OK and the room was nice but some of the other places looked nicer. Some of the areas, like the pool, were not kept up at times. The staff was nice, particularly the waiter, Darwin. We toured the park with a guide and it was fabulous and looked like something out of jurassic park. The guide was excellent and pointed out howler monkeys, 3 toed sloths, white faced monkeys, bats, snakes, iguanas and all types of fauna. The water was pretty rough with recent rains. We also did a kayak tour while we were there and saw many crocodiles. Again, our guide was excellent. We set these tours up with the hotel. We ate at mono azul, el gran escape, puedesuenos(sp?), hotel plimico,and mar luna. I highly recommend mar luna for fantastic seafood with reasonable prices compared to some others. Anther good place for drinks was Marlins on the beach. The wildest thing we saw there was a boa constrictor killing a monkey at the Costa Verde Hotel. Everyday, at 5:30 pm, a troop of mono titi monkeys come to the Mono Azul restaurant. It happened the day we were there and reminded us of how wild nature is in Costa Rica.

Day 6 and 7- drove from Manuel Antonio to Xandari Plantation and it took us 5 and 1/2 hours! We got lost again and the directions that the hotel emailed us were completely innacurate. We got so lost we ended up in a cocoa plantation, right in the middle of it. Xandari is a 25 minute drive from the airport and is in the hills near San Jose. It is absolutely stunning and we wish we would have spent more time there. I HIGHLY recommend it. It is one of the most romantic and lovely places I have ever seen. We hiked the trails around it to beautiful waterfalls and enjoyed their spa. The restaurant was excellent. We really hope to go back there someday. They can set up day trips there to many great sites around Costa Rica so it would be a good place to stay for a few days. Trust me, you would not regret this!

Overall Observations
It is a beautiful and wild country. It rained every day most of the evening. I did not regret going in June but did regret renting a car. All of the places we went were well worth it but I would like to go back someday and see Monteverde and other spots. We were careful when we were there and met many nice people, both tourists and residents. The crime situation is becoming a problem and we heard reports of both tourists and residents having incidents with theft.

Feel free to ask me any questions on my trip.

Dear kingscommon, I am curious as to which car agency you used. We are going in a few weeks. Did you just regret driving because of the conditions of the roads or did you have a bad experience with the rental agency? We too have stayed at Xandari and it is so beautiful. Thanks.

Kingscommon, thanks for a great trip report. It sounds like you were mentally not prepared for driving in Costa Rica ;-) Unfortunately, it always takes longer than it should. Distances on the map are very deceiving.
We are going there in August (our 3rd trip there) and are actually looking forward to driving there again. I'm glad to hear good things about Xandari - we stayed there 3 years ago and loved it but heard some bad comments about it since then. We booked it again for this trip and I was wondering if I made a mistake.

I am curious if you experienced any crime issues yourself? We had nothing but good experiences on prior 2 trips.

Thank you so much for the report. I look forward to reading where someone has been and what they thought.It is very valuable! Was getting around Arenal/La Fortuna easy? We plan to use a driver while we are there, but hope to rent cars for a day(s) at our destinations. We're staying at Tabacon for 3 nights...is this too long? Thanks again! Sarah

karenf, we used National which is the same as Alamo there. As far as driving, the roads were narrow and pretty bad but the worst part of it was trying to get around. Maps really did not help us at all nor directions from the hotels. For example, we would come to a fork in the road and would not know which way to go as there were no signs or markers. That happened to us many times.

Iza, we did not experience any crime issues ourselves. We did have people try to sell us drugs in Quepos but that was it. We were very careful, always locking the door and being aware of our surroundings. We did here numerous crime incidences from residents and some tourists. We heard from several folks that it has gotten much worse over the past 5 years.

rungirl,
Getting around Arenal/La Fortuna is pretty easy but we did go down a one way street one night in La Fortuna and were stopped by a policeman. You can take the Interbus to La Fortuna and taxis while you are there. Taxis seem to be everywhere in Costa Rica and I heard good things about Interbus for tourists. It travels between San Jose and the main tourist destinations. I do think 3 nights in Tabacon may be too much. Two seemed to be perfect for us. There is just SO much to see and do in Costa Rica.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for your input, kingscommon!