www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Hello;

I trying to find out if the highlights tour was reestablished by now after the earthquake messed up the roads.

La Paz Waterfalls is now open- they were a stop on the tour when it was going.
I emailed them and could not get a direct answer out of them yes or no if they were having highlight tours stop there?

I was down in May has this been reestablished yet?

Also has anyone done the Tortuga Island tour on Bay Island tours new catamaran boat?
I missed using the new boat by one month.

thanks
fred757

I have not been on the new boat, but the Tortuga trip is a fine day in CR. Do it! La Paz Waterfall Gardens is also a stellar day.

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that boat tour they never stopped offering drinks and bringing out

cut up fruit platters. the lunch was very good. i bet the new boat cut the transit time pretty good.

the service level is quite high on this tour maybe they should give a class
to some san jose locations.

fred757

check www.crfunadventures.com

they offer 4 in 1 tour, but they don't go to the Waterfall Gardens.

Lopito;

I guess stopping at the waterfalls and feeding everyone the buffet
at the lodge would take alot of profit out of a 99 dollar tour.

the earthquake and closing of the roads and waterfalls let tours bow out of this venue permanently in my opinion.

this tour was the most popular in the country at one time.

fred757

There are many different flavors of "highlights tours". Here is a thread I started about a "multisport" version that some of you might find interesting. http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7882 and a direct link http://www.costa-rica-tour.net/tours/super_combo.php

The more usual ones are variously called "highlights tours", "all-in-one", "4-in-1" (or "5-in-1" depending on how they count), etc. They typically include:
1) a stop at Poas Volcano,
2) a stop at Doka Estates (or simply a stop by a coffee field on the side of the road),
3) a stop at La Paz (or at least formerly),
4) a boat ride (usually about an hour long) on the Rio Sarapiqui to see caimans, sloths and other similar creatures.
5) and a late afternoon return ride back through the Braulio Carrillo Cloud Forest to San Jose

It should be noted that SOME of the tours may have done the lunch part at La Paz, but many just did a walk down the short trails to the waterfalls for a photo opp and back (some didn't even enter the private park but just visited the falls that were publicly accessible from the side of the road). Some did their lunches at a much cheaper local restaurant in Varablanca, Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui (before going out on the river) or if they didn't do that at the La Selva Lodge and Biological Center before doing a guided walk on their grounds.

IMHO, these tours are an okay option for those who haven't been to any of these places (or similar ones) seperately or who need to cram in a lot of different "mainstream" photo opps in one day so that they can spend all the rest of their days in CR chasing pu*sy. HOWEVER, it makes for a very long and tiring day and, because they try to squeeze in so much into a limited period of time, most if not all of the stops can seem very rushed compared to the time you'd have to spend exploring them if you went to see them seperately (or even on smaller less ambitious combo-tours such as Poas-Doka). If you've made any number of visits to CR, as most of us have, and try to get out of the Gulch as at least some of us do, then you've probably already seen most of the highlights seen on the all-in-1 tour on various other tours you've already been.

Prolijo;

I will miss those La Paz waterfall buffet lunches .

I probably did the highlights tour four times in seven years. It gets you out of san jose all day.

i would do the highlights tour once and Rio paucare day trip maybe two times per trip and be able to say to myself I got my tours under my belt.

also at first going out on these tours all day and getting back for a night in the gluch was kind of bizarro world the first few trips.

fred757