Luxuries of Costa Rica: Premier 9-Day Tour

Our trip to Costa Rica was wonderful in large part due to the excellent planning and follow-through by this travel company.  Their representatives helped us create a very personalized itinerary, were always responsive to our needs and accessible even after we arrived.  On the trip itself, our drivers were on time, knowledgeable and friendly.  We learned so much from them about the people of Costa Rica and their love and respect for their amazing country. We stopped along our routes and were treated to sites of mountains, waterways and animals we might have missed. We found a tree full of macaws and crocs under a bridge for us to see. What wonderful photo shoots! 

Although we had some spots in mind, our travel company set up the tours in each area and arranged for the hotels as we traveled from San Jose to Tortuguero to Arenal to Monteverde to Manuel Antonio to Dominical.  It all went so smoothly, and we loved being in so many different environments. In Tortuguero we stayed at a lovely lodge (What a setting!), toured the canals and saw the Green Turtles nesting. From there we went to Arenal, stayed at a beautiful hilltop villa (great staff, food and views), visited the national park and the hot springs, and then on to Monteverde with a 20 degree drop in temperature  (best  Frutti de Mar EVER in the hotel restaurant), then on to a fun time at the hotel in Manuel Antonio - monkeys galore plus time to relax and enjoy one of the many pools (Yummy mojitos too!). Last, but certainly not least, we traveled to Dominical, the absolutely perfect way to end our visit to Costa Rica. We canot say enough about the natural and most beautiful design of the stone and wood lodges overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the amazing gourmet food and most of all about the remarkable staff and the feeling of friendliness, peace and well-being they conveyed to us throughout our too-brief stay. Add in a visit to the Boruca Indigenous People and the enduring pride of our hosts and others, in their culture, art and spritiuality and you have a perfect finale to an amazing trip.  Thank you to our agent and others at at this company. We will be in touch for our trip back!

My adult son and I had a fantastic time in Costa Rica with the travel company. It began with our travel agent in Boston. I explained to him the type of trip I wanted and he was able to come up with a 12 day itinerary for us. He sent us a detailed description of what we were to experience and he was able to accommodate some extra things that I wanted to do. Two days before the trip, I was sent an app so I could check my daily schedule on my phone. When we arrived at the airport in Costa Rica, someone was waiting for us and took us directly through our hotel. The entire trip felt very well scheduled. We went with a group of people to Tortuguero for three days and had a fantastic experience. All tours and food were included there. From there on, we had a private driver and he was very knowledgeable and flexible throughout our trip. We loved having a private driver. We then went to the Arenal Volcano area and had a wonderful time. The hotel was fantastic with an amazing view of the volcano from our room. We enjoyed this hotel! Every guest had a private casita and the grounds were quite beautiful. From then we traveled to Monteverde and had an exciting time in Selvatura which is a nature park with suspension bridges and ziplining. From there, we went to the Pacific coast and visited Manual Antonio National Park. We saw tons of animals and at the end of the tour, we went to one of the beaches in the park. From there we went ATV riding, catamaran, night hikes, etc.... Our contact was very welcoming to us and she was always available by phone if I had any questions. This is a great tour company and they took care of us very well.  I would love to go again!

I would highly recommend booking your Costa Rica vacation with this travel company for a stress-free holiday.  We used Zicasso before for a Peruvian trip last year and we were very pleased with the US agent (we are Canadian) who linked us up with the Peru tour company for our trip.  This time, this company and one other Costa Rican agent quickly got back to us with great itineraries.  In the end, we ended up going with this company, eventhough they were slightly more expensive (might not have been an apples to apples comparison- it was difficult to assess) because we were impressed that they called us in Canada very soon after writing us back.  We also noticed other traveller good reviews and we would agree!   One of the owners, President and CEO, met us at the airport at 1:30am when we arrived, along with the driver and another lady from the agency.  That was reassuring in a new country!  We had also accidentally overpaid our trip and the owner had our money in cash, as they had promised!  They presented us with a day-by-day itinerary, which they had also sent us by email a few days prior.  Everything was very organized and they gave us a nice little welcome gift!

We were travelling with our 14 year old daughter and we all really enjoyed the trip.  Each day of our 10 day trip we did one activity, which typically lasted 1 1/2hours to half a day- which was perfect!  We did quite a few hike/walking tours, sea kayaking, catamaran, zip lining, and a coffee/sugar cane/chocolate tour.  We travelled the 3 main areas, spending a few days at each, Arenal (the volcano), Monteverde (cloud forest) and Manuel Antonio park area (Pacific ocean and beach).  I would recommend all three areas if you can fit them in.  Our best experience of the trip was a night walk in Monteverde, where we saw 3 moving sloths (we were quite lucky with this many sightings!), viper snake, sleeping parrots, leaf cutter ants, scorpion and other local creatures.  So great and exciting- would highly recommend!  The hotel we stayed at in Manuel Antonio was fantastic - high-end but totally worth it with gorgeous pools, monkey trial on premises, monkeys and a sloth (some people we ran into on excursions hadn't see ANY sloths whereas we had our own at the hotel!) and access to a private beach. 

Our travel agency organized the perfect tour of Costa Rica. Our small group of 4 were treated as VIPs from the moment we arrived at San Jose airport, until the day we flew home. We even received a "welcome to Costa Rica" call and special "goodbye" call from our agency. Every transfer and guided tour was on time and the drivers were good. There were no worries or concerns, each day was perfectly organized and each hotel was informed of our itinerary. Our travel agency provided us with a free cell phone for local calls as well as walkie-talkies to stay in touch with each other. This added an even higher level of security to our trip.

We wanted to experience an environmental tour that would introduce us to the rain forest, the flora, fauna, birds, reptiles & animals of Costa Rica. We were amazed by the scenery and the knowledge of our guides on each of our tours. Costa Rica is truly magical. All of the hotels were interesting and clean, the staff friendly and efficient.  We stayed in bungalows & cabins in the heart of the rain forest! The food was very good and served in more than ample quantities. Our last few days were spent at the Belmar Hotel in Monteverde and the luxury of that small inn and stunning views of the Pacific Ocean, were a great way to end our stay.

Our only disappointment was that our internal flight with Nature Air from Tortuguero National Park turned out to have a connection at San Jose airport with a 3.5 hour wait for the second flight to Arenal. We were expecting a direct flight, and more time to explore the village of La Fortuna.

We would definitely recommend this travel company and will use Zicasso Handcrafted Travel to help us book holidays in the future.