A COSTA RICAN RIVER SAFARI

  Our trip to Costa Rica was an amazing experience! The culture, the beaches, the environment, and food was great!! We went on a Tour with Costa Rica Unique tours to... read more zip lining, river rafting, and horse back driving. Our tour guide was Freddy, he was...More

  We did the Mega Combo led by Ernesto and it was amazing! The tour is very affordable and you’re able to do five different activities on this beautiful Eco Resort.... read more Our tour guide Ernesto did every activity with us and gave us a tour of Liberia as well. We booked another tour to Coco Beach with Jenner and he was great as well. I highly recommend using Frank the Tank for any Costa Rican tours.

  I met Herson Segura (Spanglish Tours) on the beach at Secrets Papagayo Resort. He arranged a very special day trip for us.
The day included a visit to Sunburst... read more coffee, a horseback ride to a waterfall, a spectacular zip line canopy tour through the canyon, lunch, a hike to a swimming hole/waterfall (instead of tubing because the recent storm caused the river to be too high), a stop at the souvenir shop. A really special experience and I would recommend booking your excursions with him.
#SecretsPapagayo #CostaRica #HersonSegura #SpanglishTours #GreatService #GreatFood #Zipline #CanopyTour #HorsebackRiding #Waterfalls

  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.

  We can honestly say that without Costa Rica Unique, our trip would not have been the same. They were safe, reliable, passionate, timely, and fun. What you get for the... read more price you pay is 100% worth it. Every day they picked us up from our resort and we were prepared because of email Carlos sent every night before to tell us what to bring. We went on 4 tours with CR Unique and they were all fantastic. 1) Adrenaline combo tour - Marvin was a tour guide and he was fun and knowledgable. He took great pictures of us throughout the whole day. The ziplining portion was more than we expected. It included multiple ziplines, 2 "tarzan swings" and an optional free fall that was great (not too scary- just enough) in a canyon with a river under you. The horseback riding was with a big group and slow and casual. The tubing was awesome. Like, the zipliing, it was more than expected.. 5k if I remember correctly. Plenty of rapids, definitely not a lazy river. 2) Nicaragua day tour - this tour is through Plus Papagayo - CR Unique sold it to us. It was a perfect way to experience the country in one day. We visited Granada City, Catarina, and a boat ride on Nicaragua lake where we saw the volcano, monkeys, and really cool real estate. When you stop in Catarina, buy ALLLL of your souvenirs at... We can honestly say that without Costa Rica Unique, our trip would not have been the same. They were safe, reliable, passionate, timely, and fun. What you get for the price you pay is 100% worth it. Every day they picked us up from our resort and we were prepared because of email Carlos sent every night before to tell us what to bring. We went on 4 tours with CR Unique and they were all fantastic.

1) Adrenaline combo tour - Marvin was a tour guide and he was fun and knowledgable. He took great pictures of us throughout the whole day. The ziplining portion was more than we expected. It included multiple ziplines, 2 "tarzan swings" and an optional free fall that was great (not too scary- just enough) in a canyon with a river under you. The horseback riding was with a big group and slow and casual. The tubing was awesome. Like, the zipliing, it was more than expected.. 5k if I remember correctly. Plenty of rapids, definitely not a lazy river.

2) Nicaragua day tour - this tour is through Plus Papagayo - CR Unique sold it to us. It was a perfect way to experience the country in one day. We visited Granada City, Catarina, and a boat ride on Nicaragua lake where we saw the volcano, monkeys, and really cool real estate. When you stop in Catarina, buy ALLLL of your souvenirs at that market. Everything is super cheap and you will not find those prices again. Learn from my mistake. Only complaint (again this company was Plus Papagayo NOT CR Unique) is that part of the main reason we wanted this tour was the volcano tour and we found out after we were already on the bus that the volcano erupted the day before so there was a change of plans. I would have liked to know before because we would've booked this tour for a different day and they surely already knew that the volcano was closed. So call ahead.

3) Palo Verde Safari boat - Eddie (the world's best tour guide) was with us this excursion and was better than it would've been without him. Miguel was our boat driver. He was so nice and went out of his way to help us see the wildlife. We saw bats, monkeys, birds, and crocodiles. It was relaxing (except for being feet away from cool crocodiles). I felt safe and thought it was a perfect way to get a boat ride and see wildlife at the same time.

4) Heliconias rain forest tour - Eddie was our tour guide again. By now, we call him Uncle Eddie. First stop (I'm not sure if this is included, but I think it is) is a huge waterfall that we get to swim near. So much fun and a nice little stop. The rainforest was beautiful and the hanging bridges were long and slightly intimidating but we felt safe. There was not much wildlife this day because there were heavy rains the day before. Afterwards, we ate at Sabor de Dona Carmen, a beautiful little local restaurant surrounded by a garden and friendly employees (will write separate review).

***One thing that made Costa Rica Unique outstanding was Eddie. He made us feel like family and went above and beyond to make us feel Costa Rica culture along with our tour. He loves Costa Rica so much and is hilarious. He made at least 10 extra stops just to show us more. For example- stopped to see locals getting sand out of the river and have the bulls carry it out. Stopped to cut a pineapple for us to eat from someone selling it on the side of the road. On the way to the rainforest, he wanted us to have a snack before the hike, so he skinned peach palms for us (a delicious food I have never heard of) so we sat and ate them on someones front porch that was selling them while looking at the rainforest and laughing at the poor tourists that were taken to the grocery store for their snack. We got the "real" Costa Rica experience with Eddie. If you don't ask for Eddie to be your tour guide, you'll miss out. 🙂 We love Eddie.

Again, CR Unique has it going on. Book with them and you won't be let down. More

  Having Marvin & Carlos from Costa Rica Unique as our guides made this excursion more memorable. I highly recommend Costa Rica Unique as well as Marvin & Carlos for your... read more transportation & excursions while visiting Costa Rica!