Costa Rica recommendations please

[pinksockbodyrock]

Good evening,
We have randomly booked a two week trip to Costa Rica in Feb. Only booked flights so far and am now feeling overwhelmed by choices of where to go and where to stay.
Accommodation seems quite expensive usually we pay around £100-150 per night.
Also where to go ?
We like wildlife and beaches some physical activity but not too strenuous
Thinking of minimal time in San Jose then arenal tortuego ( maybe is it only for the turtles ?) they won't be there in Feb I guess?
We'd also like to end with a beach resort but we are late 50's so somewhere where we won't feel like the oldest swingers in town, ( yes I do realise that reference makes me the oldest swinger in town

Look forward to your recommendations looks like lots of you have been here before

I also went in Feb for 3 weeks so there's plenty to see.

For Torteguero in Feb you might see leatherback turtles but their peak season is March (Oliver Ridley turtles - August/Sept). There are plenty of other things to see if you tour the waterways - lizards, amazing bird life etc - also the howling monkeys.

Arenal/La Fortuna - if you're looking for activity-based stuff - though and evening in the hot springs is glorious.

When I went I spent one day in San Jose - booked a walking tour (with food options) which was a good way to get over the journey before setting off. From there I headed to Manuel Antonio (national park/beach etc) for my first taste of wildlife.

Also did 2 days in the Sarapiqui rainforest - I would recommend wherever you go that if there is the opportunity for a night walk - do it. Completely different wildlife at night.

There is wildlife everywhere outside of the city- so you won't have any issues. I came across plenty of animals when I was just sitting on my veranda or walking along the street I just stopped and watched something for a while.

I ended my time in Puerto Viejo - beach/national park/sloth sanctuary/jaguar rescue centre)

Just a heads up - whichever coast you end up on just be really careful in the sea. Riptides and currents are extremely powerful and even though I consider myself a strong swimmer I really wasn't comfortable. - so ended up going back to my hotel for an actual swim - though the beaches are beautiful. Even more so as many beaches do not have a lifeguard.

Thank you so much for your reply - did you arrange everything yourself or through an agent?
I usually spend months researching but we had to cancel the trip we were due to go on fircvarious reasons so opted for Costa Rica.
We only have two weeks and I did wonder if the tortieago National park was really all about the turtles who won't be there by all accounts ! Would you miss this or another place?
I hate moving around too much like to stay at least a couple of nights in most places.

Pinksock we've not been yet so I'm not sure if my itinerary is perfect, but we sound similar in that we like to stay at least a couple of nights in each place so here's our itinerary for a fortnight :

2 nights at hotel outside San Jose - we aren't planning to visit San Jose so may visit coffee plantation or volcano on first day
Early start with white water rafting ending at La Fortuna
4 nights La Fortuna - DH and DS will do adventure stuff I'll do walking and wildlife viewing
Bus and boat to Monteverde 2 nights there
Long trip to Manuel Antonio - will break up by doing crocodile boat trip which includes transfers
6 nights Manuel Antonio - nature watching, canoeing, sloth watching, some surfing
Transfer to the airport

We're skipping Tortugero as turtle viewing only available from 1 st July and is a long detour each way

We're doing it ourselves. I rung up a travel agent to get a quote but it was ridiculous at £11k. I reckon it should be about £6k in total for this including activities.

We went to Tortugero outside the turtle season. It was one of the highlights of our trip. There is so much wildlife to see from the boat trips - howler monkeys, sloths, snakes, birds, caymen etc. The boat guides are fantastic at spotting wildlife. Going there by boat is pretty cool too, it’s very peaceful because there is no traffic, it feels really like being in the middle of the jungle. There are some small zip wires there as well. I would go back there in a heartbeat.

Thankyou for these replies I am usually so across all this but the holiday we had planned was cancelled due to political unrest 😢
Lots of places we've looked at are fully booked.
Are you hiring a car? Or getting transfers?
Have been looking today and am thinking 5 nights in arenal area 2 in an eco lodge 2/3 in la Fortuna.
Then dividing our time between Manuel Antonia and maybe another beach place?
How does this sound accommodation seems to veer between v expensive and v backpacker think we are somewhere in between

Not sure if we're going to drive or use ubers and transfers. We aren't going to hire from the airport as someone from work got scammed by getting flats due to barbed wire and then having their stuff stolen which apparently is common scam near airport so we're avoiding that. Also we can't take the car to Monteverde as taking the boat, but we might hire when in La Fortuna and then for the Manuel Antonio bit.

Have you checked out accommodation on homeaway.com. There seems to be lots of reasonably priced apartments on there although we're going out of season so obviously cheaper.

Wow thankyou for that info re scams, we've always been so lucky when going away so good to be made aware, but if not hiring from the airport where?
Maybe the hotel will arrange it?
My sister got scammed in Spain so guess it's possible anywhere.
I've emailed a couple of companies but would much rather do our own thing.
When are you gong?

We're going end June - hopefully it won't be too rainy .
It looks an amazing place, but we don't like doing long driving days and are only there for 2 weeks so deliberately restricting where we go. Did similar in NZ and had an amazing and fairly relaxing 2 weeks. You can get trips organised without the flights but my issue with them was the punishing schedule. So day after a transatlantic flight you're expected to get up at 6am to go water rafting - no thanks I'd rather take some time to recover.

It may be out of your price bracket but another mumsnetter highly recommended staying at Tulemar in Manuel Antonio- I'm just waiting for the exchange rate to hopefully perk up a bit before booking. It does look gorgeous.

Thankyou again I'll take a look at that usually we do a combo of cheap and indulgent- but I'm quite shocked at the cost of what looks lovely he quite basic accommodation. Still looking forward to the wildlife experience xx

San Jose feels pretty safe but it really isn’t a very pretty city. We had a day there & had a city tour. I found the info on their politics and history quite interesting but honestly you’re not missing a huge amount by not spending time there!

Manuel Antonio I loved. I know for some there is more development along the main road than they’d like but on the flip side, finding good places to eat walking along the road isn’t hard. There’s a number of mini markets as well. Where we were (a resort called Tulemar which was great), it was pretty rocky once you got into the sea so take some beach shoes. You can get a bus to the park & walk around yourselves or take up one of the would be guides hanging around outside. The beach in the park is lovely & there are changing rooms there. It’s been visited by Americans for a while so do double check your bill - most places add on 20% tip automatically on. Most places take dollars but offer crap exchange rates so colones are better.

I found Arenal pretty but was a but disappointed by the non smoking volcano and man made concrete natural spring pools. Probably should have done more research! There is a lot to do in the area though.

In terms of other tips, there are lots of mozzies particularly in the jungle so pack the deet. I stupidly wore sandals walking through the rainforest and got a weird (and painful!) fungal infection under my big toe.

We DIY’d it & used one company for our transfers. It was all pretty simple to do and saved loads!

When we were in Arenal it was too misty to actually see the volcano. We spent an evening in the hot spring pools, which was lovely.

In terms of hotels, I had a mix of 3 stars (allegedly) and 5 stars - (the 5 star hotel - I'd call it 4 a best). I also had a homestay in the rainforest.

I guess it depends on what you need. I found Costa Rica a country of early starts (to enjoy wildlife/or transfer to next place) and early nights as the sunsets pretty early and you've had a mega busy day.

San Jose hotel was decent.
Monteverde hotel was basically a shed in hotel ground with a resident scorpion (which I only discovered when I put my glasses on one morning - thankfully we were preparing to depart)
Homestay in Sarapiqui was basic, but mosquito net provided and machete next to my bed (I still haven't worked out why)
Puerto Vijeo - gorgeous little bungalows with a sloth in the nearest tree and plenty of butterflies (we also had an invasion of caterpillars one night)
Torteguero - lovely semi-detached bunglaow type rooms, surrounded by gardens and forest (and howling monkeys and toucans)
The 5 star place was also near Peurto Vijeo - again sloths in the trees, howling monkeys and beautiful but deadly blue jeans frogs to watch at breakfast

Transfers are fairly straightforward to organise if you are in an established place if you don't want to drive

Thankyiu fir these replies yes what I am finding is either v basic or very expensive. We are more middle of the road people but quite fussy 😩 don't like roughing it to be truthful.
Might have to manage expectations .
I think because we only just booked due to having to cancel the other planned trip we feel pressured into sorting things out quickly
It will all be fine looking furward to the night life but your reply made me think I'd discounted the insect life aspect!!!

If you get the chance to go on a night-time tour in a forest definitely do it - you will see snakes, frogs, roosting toucans and all sorts.

We hired a car from the airport with no problems but we flew into Liberia airport ( beaches in guanacaste lovely and we swam ) We used air BnB or similar and found a range of reasonable property's and eco lodges. Its a lovely country and not difficult to travel ( other than bumpy roads) I think you will have a great time whichever areas you visit.

Hi there just thought I'd update as I had so much good advice from you all .
Just got two more nights left here in Costa Rica and it's been great
We went to last Fortuna then the cloud forest then down the Pacific coast and now in Manuel Antonio
We have felt very safe he whole time .
People are lovely food is ok
It's not cheap here but not wildly expensive
The activities are great but add up quickly
Very happy to provide any more details if anyone is interested once again thanks fir all your input

Thanks for updating. What has your accommodation been like ? Did you hire a car or use shuttles/taxis ?

We had originally booked a car but we used a company called two weeks in Costa Rica who booked all our transfers which have been seamless. The drivers have been so nice even stopping end route to places showing us interesting things-? They are all very proud of their country .the shuttles were about 150£ less than the car hire was going to be and we've mainly stayed in places where we were able to walk to restaurants etc so minimal taxis.
The hotels have all been wonderful happy to supply details also did three nights in an air b and which was lovely
Would be a wonderful trip with youngsters

Fantastic to read @kiddingmyfatself - the people are really lovely and rightly proud of their country. It's the kind of place I think that stays with you for a long time