Incredible trip in Tortuguero and La Fortuna
Costa Rica
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Aug 1 - Aug 8, 2026
We spent 3 days in Tortuguero at Tortuga Lodge & Gardens. Our time there was amazing. All the guides are fantastic but Johnny was our favorite. The first night we went on a night walk at the hotel. We saw many frogs, spiders and bats. The next day we did the Laguna 4 with Johnny as our guide. We saw sloths, red macaws, an otter, crocodile, cayman, birds, butterflies and lizards. Johnny thought we were very lucky because we saw alot of animals. Our luck with seeing animals continued throughout our stay. You could watch green Macaws while enjoying the pool and howler monkeys playing right outside our room. We did two turtle nesting tours. The standard tour was great for seeing the turtles actively laying the eggs because the guide makes the chamber larger for visitor viewing. Our private playa 3 turtle nesting the next night was also incredible. We found 6 turtles on the beach in 2 hours. 2 of which we helped our guide study and tag them. We will absolutely return to tortugeuro with our kids in the future. I would highly recommend Tortuga Lodge & Gardens. For the next part of our trip we moved on to La Fortuna. We stayed at Montana de Fuego. The first morning we went on a bird watching hike and saw very few animals or birds. We did get to see the top of the volcano because the clouds cleared briefly, which can be rare to see. I would say overall the animal sighting at this hotel and La Fortuna is much less than Tortuguero. We went on a chocolate and coffee tour. It was a really good tour even in the pouring rain. La Fortuna/Arenal is full of adventure. We did zip lining and sky walk with Sky Adventures Arenal which was breath taking. We hiked around the volcano and visited the La Fortuna waterfall. Everything was beautiful! Montana de Fuego hotel was very nice. We enjoyed the hot springs and the large buffet style breakfast. The room here was much smaller than Tortuga lodge and the air conditioning constantly had to be adjusted. Overall, I would recommend Montana de Fuego.
Hotel Reviews
The hotel is very nice. We stayed in a standard Bungalow. The room is on the smaller side. The beds are comfortable. The air conditioning required frequent adjusting but kept the room cold once we finally figured out the right setting. We enjoyed the hot springs and large buffet breakfast every morning. All of our tour companies picked us up and dropped us off at the hotel . We had a really good stay and enjoyed all the adventure tours we had booked.
Tortuge Lodge is in a great location, it is directly across the river from the airport. Our Miss Evelyn Balcony Suite was spacious. Because our room was the last building of rooms we frequently had monkeys right outside of our room. The monkeys never came close and left anything we left on the balcony to dry alone. The hotel had one restaurant. It served all 3 meals. The food was good. We did wish that they rotated options on the menu by the end of our stay. The tours they offer and their excellent guides really make this place amazing. Tortuguero is amazing for wildlife! On the dusk hike at the hotel we say so many turtles, spider and bats. The laguna 4 tour was full of animals too. With Johnny we saw red macaws, clothes, crocodile, cayman, otter, butterflied, birds and lizards. All the guides were fantastic but Johnny was our favorite. He believed one or both of us were lucky because every tour we did was packed with animal sightings. Our main reason for traveling here was to see the sea turtles nesting. The standard nesting is great for actually seeing them lays eggs because the guide will make the chamber larger for better viewing. On our private playa 3 tour, we saw 6 turtles in 2 hours. We were able to help our guide study and tag 2 turtles that were nesting. We are very happy that we did both tours as they are very different experiences. We are looking forward to returning here with our kids in a couple of years
Activity Reviews
You are taken to the beach and sat under a pavilion until your guide is notified of a turtle you are assigned to on the beach. once you get assigned a turtle, the guide goes back and forth until the turtle is actively laying eggs. Once they are actively laying you are moved to the turtle and groups of 10 rotate through. we had 4 total groups we shared a turtle with . the guide makes the laying chamber larger so that the laying is visible to the entire group once behind the turtle. Very cool to see and the reason we came to tortuguero
ZIp lining above the rainforest canopy was incredible! absolutely breathtaking! On the sky walk we got to see Howler moneys and an eyelash pit viper. The food at the restaurant was very good. Highly recommend this well oiled adventure.
I absolutely cannot recommend this enough!!! In the 2 hours on the beach we found 6 turtles. 2 were nesting and we were able to help study and tag them. We learned so much from our guide. On the hike out to the beach you can use a flash light to get to the beach. Once on the beach no light is used. the guides are amazing at locating the turtles in the dark. They taught us so much.
Very informative and fun! it poured rain for most of our tour. They provided umbrellas which kept everything but our shoes dry. The tour guide was very knowledgeable. We had a great tour
We had a great day but you don't need a guide for this if you have a car. The hike was pretty but the waterfall is a must see if in La Fortuna. The water was too strong to allow swimming in the pool around the waterfall but people were swimming down stream from it were the current was less intense.
