March 22, 2012
Travel Specialist: Karen
Thank you to our client Stacy S. for this review of Costa Rica.
Mike and I loved our vacation to Costa Rica. We were blown away to see the Apple Vacations upgraded status at the Occidental Grand. We thought we had the most basic room. Having royal club status and a villa was fantastic. We will go back. Thanks so much for your advice, and we will stay in touch with you in regard to future vacations. Thanks so much!
We booked our tours with Swiss Travel, primarily. We did the “Pure Adrenaline” tour at Hacienda Guachipelin close to Liberia on Rincon de la Vieja. It was horseback riding, white water tubing, 13 ziplines, rappelling and rock climbing with lunch. The white water tubing was truly amazing. We saw huge blue butterflies, monkeys, lizards and birds along the river. The tubing was really fun, and the guides were a total blast!
We did a half day tour of Palo Verde National Park on the River Boats. We saw crocodiles, lots of birds, lots of iguanas, and monkeys. The river boats were very nice, and the tour was very pleasant.
We also did a half day sunset sailing tour on the Marlin Del Ray catamaran out of Playa Coco. It was super windy and rough seas, but the catamaran handled it easily. We motored to a small bay to snorkel. They fed us a bbq chicken lunch with lots of fixings. We sailed back to Coco, but not before sailing into a huge pod of dolphins. There were dolphins surfacing all around the boat as far as you could see. That night happened to be the full moon, so we saw the sunset and the full moon rise from the deck of the catamaran.
Mike rented a jet ski from Johnny D on the beach for half an hour, and all went well. We paddled kayaks and went snorkeling at the hotel. The kayaks were awesome. We saw a stingray and lots of fish and jelly fish while paddling around the reefs. The hotel activity staff were awesome. We did some rifle shooting, coffee tasting, a sunset walk to the point, and a nature walk with the staff.
We decided before we left that we would go back, so we picked tours that were all within an hour of the hotel. We would love to go back and spend 4 days up in the rainforest and volcano areas in the central part of the country, and then spend a week on the coast. It did get super windy 3 or 4 days we were there. They said unusually windy, but they said March and April can be more windy than other times of the year. We will probably go a bit earlier next time. You got sandblasted on the beach it was so windy. The food at the hotel was just average.
All in all, it was fantastic!! The birds and wildlife, even on the hotel property, were amazing!
