Veragua Rainforest

Summary: The Veragua Rainforest offers a thrilling experience of this complex ecosystem, literally from top to bottom! You can view it at canopy (treetop)-level in a comfortable gondola ride, which I loved, or zipline through it. There are also hiking and walking trails where you can see up close these ancient forests, all with the sounds of howler monkeys and exotic birds. You feel like you are entering another world as soon as you walk through the inviting entrance. The guides are friendly, helpful, and eager to share their love and knowledge of this special place. The lunches available and great and convenient. While many of those visiting Veragua come from nearby Limon, the recently completed highway from the capital, San Jose, makes Veragua doable on a nice day trip. I highly recommend getting to the Veragua Rainforest from any direction! The experience lasts a day, but the memories are forever.....

Summary: Based on the high quality reviews I decided to arrange directly with Your Lucky Tour via their website, where more tour options seem to be available. Email worked great for arranging this; Eduardo was responsive, accommodating, and clear. Francisco picked us up promptly and took us to our two amazing destinations of Veragua Park and Tortuguero Canal. These are the top two wildlife viewing options in the area, and are both north/northwest of the cruise port, which made it easy to stop at both places without excessive driving. The combination of these experiences was perfect for us, as Veragua provides many curated exhibits (snakes, frogs, butterflies, fascinating plants and trees...) plus the aerial tram ride, while the Tortuguero Canal provided abundant wildlife viewing out of captivity (saw a caiman, howler monkeys, multiple sloths, many heron varieties...). We were disappointed to see some trash along the canal, and you should know that it runs along houses and is near a shipping port, but the wildlife viewing was top notch. Along the drive we learned a great deal about Costa Rica and its people, discussion made better by the small group nature of the tour. The perfect day!

Summary:

We had a terrific tour thanks to our wonderful guide Stephannie Callimore and driver Erick Viales. They both went above and beyond to make our day incredibly special. The guide at the Rainforest was very friendly and knowledgeable.

Summary: I did not find this combination on any of the listed tours but Edwardo Humphreys arranged it after I emailed my request. The cost was very reasonable because you have to drive far and on bad roads to get to the rainforest and then there is $60 per person entrance fee. The rainforest was interesting because of the exhibits and discussion of the research by lab person. Our rainforest guide was fine with exhibits but didn't really find too much to show us in the rain forest. Other people raved about the guides but really it's luck of the draw when you arrive. Did get some great shots of a sloth hanging out near the cable car deck. What was great was that our tour group was just us and another couple from the same celebrity cruise. So it was easier to interact and felt like a totally private tour. Edwardo spoke while his son drove the van that took us to the rainforest and the canal tour. At the end we decided agains the buffet lunch offered by the rainforest and Edwardo took us to an Italian restaurant with an amazing view of the city. If you want a great tour trust him to provide. It's cheaper to go to the rainforest closer to town and you will walk through with a guide showing you stuff. Total time was about 5-6 hours.

Summary: We visited the Veragua Rainforest Foundation during a TUI cruise around the Caribbean in January 2017. We found all the guides to be extremely informative about the flora and fauna in their estate. The cable car and walk to the waterfall was good fun. Food in the cafe was reasonable and the overall work of the foundation seems worth supporting. Shame about the rain but it was a rainforest!

Summary:

The trip was okay nothing really that special a lot of tourists things but it was screwed up with Viator and that somehow I got on the wrong tour and there was an extra charge of 136 which has yet to return to me for the mix-up may want to take it but I would take the one that goes to the interior which is what I wanted in the first place the one of the coast is so-so.