the best of the gold coast beaches

  Loved the tour! We saw so much of Costa Rica and what her people do to make a living. They are extremely hard workers. We saw Howler... read more and White-Faced monkeys, many shore birds and crocodiles. We want to thank Tony from Unique Travel for arranging this wonderful tour.

  Pros: Booking pickup was easy. We were picked up on time (7:30am) right at our Airbnb. The “guide” gave us a little bit of info on Costa Rica on the... read more ride there. Zip lining was really fun, 7 in all. Zip lining was about an hour once we all got going. Decent speed and length, one line was nice and fast and long. Beautiful views! Then horseback riding lasted about 35 mins once we started walking. He let me lead the trail, and the horses were behaved. Next was white water tubing, about 3km long. This was the most fun! Some of the rapids were awesome since the current was strong. Plenty of lazy river floating in between adrenaline rushing drops. Water wasn’t overly cold. Guides there to help push you along the slow parts and make sure you’re not stuck on rocks. Then came lunch, at 2pm (make sure you eat a good breakfast). DELICIOUS food, all of it. Choice of pork fajita, chicken curry or pasta alfredo. The pumpkin soup appetizer was incredible and so was the little dessert bites at the end. Ending the day, which was not on the booking but a happy surprise, was the thermal sauna, mud bath, and hot springs. First, sauna to open pores. Then the mud bath that smelled TERRIBLE, but that’s to be expected with the minerals. We jumped in the river to wash off (showers there too but what’s the fun in that?!) and finished off in the hot springs tub. Throughout the day, someone takes action photos of you and sells them after if you want, $10 cash per person for all photos of you. Then we loaded back into the SUV and were dropped off at our Airbnb in Playa Hermosa before 5pm.

Cons: The guide was more of a driver than a guide. He chatted a bit but basically just dropped us off and slept in the car. We saw other guides with their groups and helping take photos. They do provide water, but one small bottle per person for the entire 8 hours. The horses are not well taken care of. At all. They were all pretty skinny, bones protruding on a few. My poor horse had skin lesions everywhere and his back legs were buckling a bit before we even started, and then he just collapsed with me on his back (photos). Other horses also had skin lesions and one had the skin on his back legs peeling so they tied his tail so he couldn’t even move it; the poor thing had flies biting everywhere. I would not support this kind of horse treatment if I’d known ahead of time. There was some waiting around between events and waiting for other groups to get there but it was all still within the advertised timing.

  DANGEROUS! LUCKY NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY HURT. A giant crocodile tried to climb onto our boat while the guides were not looking and trying to feed another crocodile. It had... read more its mouth open and both of its front legs on the boat trying to hoist itself up. People were screaming and crying. It could have easily tipped the boat with the weight of its body and we all could have been in the crocodile infested water. They packed a whole group of us into a hot and lightly air conditioned van. Several people complained about the heat but apparently the air conditioning could not be made stronger. There were lots of things promised on the tour and nothing delivered. I watched the video as to what we were supposed to see and compared it to what we were offered and it was night and day. The lunch was lame and not enough food. We had six people at our table and were served five small pieces of chicken with rice and beans and tortillas. There really should have been at least two pieces of chicken per person. We were supposed to be taken to a coffee demonstration as shown on the video and instead were literally dropped off at a giant commercial souvenir store in Liberia where we were allowed to have a free coffee sample with no explanation. Each member of our group was "tagged" with a sticker with a number before we got off the bus as I am sure that the tour guides got a portion of whatever we spent. I felt like a tagged cattle. What made this appalling was the completely dangerous situation we were all put in but even if it wasn't for that this was one disappointing tour. There are a lot of other tours and tour groups in Guanacaste. I am so disappointed that this is the one that we chose. …