Costa Rica Travel Agents

The location of the Valverde is excellent, with beautiful river views, including from the open dining room. Our bedroom was better than a glamping experience, as we had a hotel style room with a very large bathroom and AC. What made the greatest difference was the awesome staff attention to details and extreme friendliness. We felt truly welcome. Thank you to manager RONNY and restaurant team and captain JASON. This hotel offer guided trips to the park multiple times of day, with their own boat, super convenient. This was a simple hotel but had an interesting character being directly on the river and a great attentive staff.

Great resort, across the street from the beautiful beach. Pool opened 24h with a good happy hour. They have a restaurant right on the beach, we had dinner there everyday given the beautiful view and atmosphere. Water filters conveniently placed around the property. Competent staff and friendly front desk. Beautiful forest/garden setting embedded around the rooms.

A beautiful bungalow hotel located within its own park, with jacuzzi overlooking the forest/mountain. Plenty of animals around the wonderfully manicured gardens. Very good food and drink options. Quiet, and isolated from the town. Great pool. GIORGIOLINA at the front desk was wonderful, providing us with the mountain view bungalow we thought we were getting (but some miscommunication between the travel agent and the hotel prevented us to have that on first night). Spending time here was a blessing immersion into the Arenal park forest setting.

The views from the top of the hill down to the ocean are stunning. Very good restaurant and pool with same great views. Front desk staff not as friendly (not even a smile upon arrival) as we learned to expect in Costa Rica, including a discussion due to a disappointing lack of room cleaning on the first day (had to call at 3:30pm to clean room, though we had been out of it since 7:00am on our activity). The restaurant staff was great, thank you to JOHN and MAGALY for getting us an awesome view table twice. The hotel is relatively far from the beautiful beach below, hotel offers rides 4x/daily (walking is 25min down and 40min up if you are fit - which is what we did - also taxi is $10).

Staying in this resort is an incredible experience on its own merit. It is located next to the national park. You cannot reach it unless by boat. We took a private road trip to the port near Sierpe and from there a met the hotel team. Then a beautiful river ride (2h stopping along to observe animals) and final ocean ride to hotel beach (30m). On the way back we took a 30m boat ride to Drake bay and 30m to the Drake airport back to San Jose to our international flight same day. All of it organized by the hotel, impeccable planning and execution. The hotel borders the national park and has beautiful beaches of its own. There are many nature and eco activities to be done here. There are 2 restaurants all great, one with stunning view of the pacific. We had a regular bungalow and was excellent. Thank you LUIZ at the restaurant for tables with beautiful views and MARISA and SOL at front desk and coordination of everything including our perfect return trip. In this resort everyone of their staff is focused on a delightful and awesome experience for all their guests.

This is a very beautiful park. The tour was excellent, we saw many birds (too many to list) and animals (sloth, snake, monkeys). Our guide was great and even ventured on beautiful locations before entering the park that where remarkable. We hiked all the way to the tip and spend there another 30min swimming.

This tour (or better, multiple tours) are arranged by our Valverde Lodge, with their own boat and hired guide. Ronny was great at managing everything and captain Jason and guide Jairo. This made the Valverde location a great choice, as it was very convenient to join to join early tours. The hotel also offered regular trips (5min) to the Tortuguero town, as we were down the river. We felt great being in a quiet place with river views, but also able to join the lively town as we wanted. In the tour we saw a lot of birds (too many to list) and other animals, including 2 types of monkeys, sloths and cayman.

We wanted to experience the hot springs and booked this event in the evening. The food buffet was very extensive. We were lucky to have a driver to ourselves, as we chose to leave earlier than scheduled. Maybe a daily event would have been better for us, so we could see more. But it was great to relax in the hot pools after a long journey.

This was a double tour from North Adventures. First we hiked in the Arenal volcano park, great tour with the very experienced Marlon guide. Identified sloths and many birds. The park setting is very beautiful with forests and mountains. Second we went to the Mistico park site with the exciting hanging bridges. Here again our very experience guide Marlon identified many birds and animals, as we hiked through the forest. We were lucky that the volcano was clear of clouds so we had a picture perfect experience with the mountain.

NOTE: This rating is based on all the transports we had by Exploradores Outdoors, not just this one. On this trip there were 2 parts, the first bringing us from S. Jose to their bus hub, not very eventful, as leader Roberto could not even muster a "good morning" at pick-up, and spent most of the time on his phone, with some occasional comment where we are and making jokes at the expense of clients. After a basic lunch, taking us from the hub to the port where we joined a boat to our final destination, we were led by CARLA. She was very entertaining and provided a lot of useful and insightful information about banana growing and harvest. The boat trip was good, passing through the beautiful jungle. It was not guided, just transport. This poor rating is based on further issues we experienced with Exploradores Outdoors: they overcrowded the buses (not a small group as advertised, but packed us like sardines with 20+ people), so needless to say it took forever for each guest to be delivered to their hotel. In one case we arrived 3.5 hours later than the estimated time.

This trip was hosted by North Adventures again and it was excellent. Our guide BYRON was very knowledgeable and attentive. We were luckily the only ones on this activity, so it was perfect logistics. This visit is an amazing display of nature, when 2 rivers meet and due to the drastic Ph change causes Alumina Silicate particles to expand and thus reflect blue light. We did also hike through the Tenorio volcano park and saw many birds and animals. This was an incredible tour, and though far from La Fortuna, it is definitely worth it.

This tour was programmed by our hotel Corcovado Wildness Lodge, and it was great. TIDI was a great guide. We hiked through the jungle and along beaches and along the beach. Many animals and birds around and a very beautiful forest and coast. Unfortunately we did not get to the waterfall because some members of the group became tired.

This was hosted by Tucane Tours. The guide was just average, based on our previous guides, but we did get to see some birds and monkeys and sloth. This park is very beautiful, lush forest and breathtaking ocean side, with an isthmus connecting two wonderful beaches. At the end of the regular tour we decided to stay behind at the park (optional) and hiked the trail at the end of the beaches

This tour was programmed by our Corcovado Wilderness Lodge and it was better than expected. RALPH was our lead along with STEPHEN captain. On the way to the island, the captain spotted a number of boats circling and he promptly headed a bit out of our way to check it out. What a great decision, because we came to a female humpback whale and her calf playing around. SUPER! The snorkel was great, we saw 3 species of turtles, a giant manta-ray (another further out excursion from the snorkel site, AWESOME!) and innumerous fishes. The water is not the most clear, but good enough. There were many boats around, including divers below, so we followed our leader around to avoid them. Still a great experience and included short stop at the island.

The rooms were lovely. I appreciated its boutique feel. The only small issue was that the restaurant prepared the beef ultra rare and did not really fix the issue when asked to do so (another patron appeared to return her steak to the kitchen for the same reason).

The staff seemed a bit lackluster.

Absolutely amazing, our favorite place, especially the yoga and food!

Short but worthwhile, quite warm though.

Loved our private tour of this area, our guide was very knowledgable.

This was my favorite activity, loved getting out and hiking in the national park with a private gruide, who was quite knowledgable.

So much night life!

There was some confusion re: pick up, but the dive master was great even if the vis was limited (no one's fault obviously).