We will be going to Arenal and Tamarindo in mid May. Does anyone have recommendations for white water rafting?

We did ours out of Arenal and used Rios Tropicales - thought they were great.

www.riostropicales.com

Rios Tropicales is great. They may offer the x-fer from San Jose to Arenal now via the Pacuare, I know Exploradores Outdoors does. The Pacuare is rated one of the top 10 in the world by National Geographic - it's awesome!

Exploradores Outdoors was AWESOME we did the transfer Puerto Viejo (Caribbean) to San Jose but they also have the option of Arenal. We just did it on January 9th. One of the most amazing experiences in my life.

I just returned from Arenal and we used Wave Expeditions. Love them - guides were fantastic!

http://www.waveexpeditions.com/

Definitely do your rafting while you're in Arenal. There are a some rafting trips offered (Corobici etc.) from Tamarindo but it's more travel time for less river and the quality is not as high.

Rafting is very competitive in Arenal which means any company that's been around for a while is doing a great job. In addition to the above mentioned (which are all good and have been around forever - except wave who's been around a few years) www.desafiocostarica.com has been specializing in Arenal rafting since 1992 and does an excellent job.

Curious about Exploradores transfer to Arenal via the Pacuare. That must be a LONG day. Pickup at 5:30 a.m. in San José, 1.5 hours driving to the river then another 4.5 hours to Arenal after you get out of the raft.

Just got back from CR and used the reviews from Trip Advisor...BAD MISTAKE. Used a company called Costa Rica Descents. Only guy we met on the 10 days we were in CR that was rude was our Rafting Guide. I had no clue what I was doing, so he kept jabbing me with his oar to get my attention. We had an older couple in the raft with us, plus our 11 year old and they weren't doing much, so my husband was "it'. I got the rhythm after a while, but I was too pissed at that point to enjoy the adventure. They switched guides half ways through and the 2nd guide had much better manners, but the day was already ruined for me.

At the end of the day, they took us to the "ranch" for a late lunch followed by a tour of the land. What we didn't want was a 1/2 hour plus of lecture about recycling and saving the earth. Would rather have gone back to our hotel, but was stuck as we didn't have our own car and didn't know that we were going to be given a lecture!

Oh, I haven't mention their biggest screw up. I had booked our Rafting trip before we left the States. The Rafting was supposed to be on the Sarapiqui River Class 2 & 3 starting at 8.00 AM (I didn't want to waste our day). When I called the night before the trip, I was told that the river was "too low" and that we were going to the Balsa River instead starting at 11.00 AM. When we did get to the Balsa, I asked the Guide about the Sarapiqui, and he said that the river was "too high". So, I think that they did not have enough customers to take the 1 1/2 hour journey to the Sarapiqui and decided to just not deal with it. Definitely go with Desafio. The seem to be a much better rafting company.

Rios Tropicales is the best!!!