9-Day Best of Northwest Costa Rica from San Jose: Arenal Volcano National Park, Monteverde Cloud Forest and Guanacaste

The combination of Juan as our guide and Jorge as driving was amazing. Juan was extremely knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. His experience and enthusiasm were incredible. We gained much appreciation for the biodiversity of this wonderful country. Jorge was a great driver with knowledge of the back roads and short cuts around traffic. Both were always on time and in most cases early for our pickups. Zianny was extremely helpful in coordination of departure times and always answered my questions. She was great at responding to my emails. Alex and Maria were waiting for us at the San Jose airport to transfer us to our first hotel for a few hours since we arrived in country after midnight. We were happy to see them. Gravin was waiting for us at a pickup point in Liberia to transfer us to our Guanacaste hotel. We appreciated that Gravin arrived early at our hotel to transfer us to the Liberia airport for a return flight home.

Although there were breath taking experiences on this trip I would not recommend it for several reasons. According to our incredible tour guide Fico we were fortunate to see so many monkeys. We saw Howlers, Capuchins and Spider monkeys close up in the wild. We also saw an incredible number of bird species. I would have liked to know in advance how experienced you need to be with binoculars. We made a friend on the trip who is an experienced birder and wildlife photographer who shared his photos. Other wise we would not have managed to see them and capture photos. My main complaint would be the number of people on this bus trip. In order to process and move 27 people everyday we were up every morning between 5:00-5:30 and on the bus at 6:30. We spent so many hours on that bus with very little activity. Mostly people were between 60-75 years old but we had two young couples. Everyone complained about the lack of activity. Any scheduled down time or more lengthy hiking options vanished in the process of moving so many people with frequent but necessary bathroom stops. By the end I was so sleep deprived it was hard to appreciate much. In the itinerary they mention a turtle rescue research experience. In fact these turtles are almost extinct and definitely not available for viewing. Instead the morning was spent picking up plastic from the beach and sorting to increase awareness of how plastic are being incorporated into our marine life. People were very disappointed. This should have been a trip for maybe 15 people. I will always be grateful to our guide Fico and some of the experts we met along the way for sharing their vast knowledge but this trip was not worth so much money.

Just returned from a 9 day trip arranged by CATours and it was an amazing time. We had private transport from SJO airport to our hotel in San Jose. Next was two days in La Fortuna, where we did the Mistico Park Hanging Bridges Tour. Next was the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge where we saw many different birds, iguanas, cayman, bats (sleeping - it was daytime!) and just had a great relaxing time on the river cruise. Then we transferred via boat across Lake Arenal to a bus that took us to our next stop, Monteverde which I think was my favorite region. The cool nights were beautiful. Our final location was Manuel Antonio (Guanacaste). The sunset catamaran tour was one of the highlights of our trip. Not one of the giant party boats, but a much more relaxing one. Finally, private transport back to one last night in San Jose, and private transport to the airport next morning. Great staff. CATours responded very quickly to a few of my mid-trip requests to change things, and their drivers were excellent. They arranged a few wonderful suprises for us as this was an anniversary trip. Can't say enough about the entire experience!