TOP RATED COSTA RICA EXPERIENCE ON TRIPADVISOR

  We loved seeing all the wildlife. Such a beautiful area. Our tour guide Carlos was so knowledgeable, personable great sense of humor. Highly recommended.

  Daniel started the tour as soon as we got on the bus. We stopped at a souvenir shop and learned about coffee. Stopped at a park in a little... read more town and saw iguanas. Saw people “harvesting” sand from the river with oxen. He told us about the areas we were driving through, about sugar cane and the Del Monte Co growing melons. 4-5 hrs later we arrived at the river for the boat ride. We saw monkeys alligators and birds. The river ride was relaxing. Stopped for lunch afterwards, which was good.

Cons it was a very long time before we ate. Most of us got on bus at 7 and didn’t eat lunch until after 1. Should warn people that it will be 6 hrs before you eat. A bottle of water was given to us on the boat, but not enough for all. Luckily I brought my own.

Our tour guide was Daniel and he was excellent. Very informative and entertaining.

  We saw a Humpback whale right in front of our boat. Amazing. This could be my entire review.

Frank the Tank was recommended on the Planet Hollywood... read more FB page so I looked up some of those recommending him. Unlike some of the others getting recommendations, Frank's were actually by real people so I reached out to him.

Frank is very responsive using FB Messenger. I told him what I wanted to do and he crafted a tour that worked perfectly at an incredibly reasonable price. The only quibble I had with pricing was not with him but with the lunch stop on the ATV tour. If you do the ATV tour, you might skip lunch because the lady there gouged us tourists for sure.

As for the tours, Bruno picked us up in his boat from the beach at Planet Hollywood 5 minutes earlier than our planned departure time. Although a smaller boat, it had a canopy, plenty of places to sit and moved well. Bruno gave a little history on the way out to the Bay and teased that someone had "seen a whale." In between talking to us and driving the boat, he and his mate were on the phone and radio and scanning the horizon. Sure enough, we ended up seeing humpback whales! Bruno steered us almost on top of one, getting really close to one surfacing!

While that was good enough, we then fished some, catching a lot of smaller fish that were fun to bring in. This was followed by snorkeling where Bruno jumped in the water with us and we followed him around. He dug up an eel for us to see, showed us a puffer fish, a starfish and a bunch of just regular fish. From there, he got us to the ATV tour exactly on time, after feeding us a great pineapple.

Leo met us at a different beach with the ATVs and Fernando(?) was our guide. We went over some really rough terrain, bouncing and sliding over rocks and dried out holes. We also got to open them up some driving on the roads as the ATVs had license plates and a semi-automatic transmission. We saw a couple small villages. After a really good but really expensive lunch, we went a different route back. This time, while I was convinced we were taking the upper, bumpy road, our guide turned down and drove us through the creek and the mud. That was not only really fun but refreshing on a very hot day. After all that, Leo drove us back to Planet Hollywood in time for a few drinks and a shower before dinner.

We had an incredible experience thanks to Frank the Tank.