PRIVATE Palo Verde Boat Safari: Wildlife + Lunch Included

We thoroughly enjoyed our day with Anthony. He is very knowledgeable and good company. Anthony made sure we saw white faced capuchin monkeys, crocodiles, iguanas, herons, other birds, and answered any questions we had. He is also fun with a good sense of humour. The lunch stop included is excellent.

Highly recommended! This tour started with us getting picked up at our resort at 7:30 and dropped off at about 3:30. Our tour guide was Carlos of CR Unique tours and he was awesome, taking us to out-of-the-way spots and knowing where to look for monkeys, crocodiles, herons and hawks. One unforgettable stop was where locals were hand dredging and loading volcanic river sand into river boats, pushing the boat to shore, loading it onto an ox-driven cart, hauling it up the riverbank and unloading it by hand. All for about $12 US a load shared between 3-4 workers. The sand was used for making a heavy concrete and we were told that powered machinery could not be used in order to protect the crocodiles. The actual riverboat tour was a good 1 ½ hour long with Carlos pointing out many types of herons and other birds, bats, white-faced and howler monkeys and many crocodiles. Other stops included a local bakery, iguana feeding, “carob” tasting (an alternative to chocolate), a roast chicken lunch at the Coyote Ranch and a demonstration of a manual sugar cane press with sampling. It was a very busy, fun and informative day! PLEASE if you book this one or a similar one, double check you have all your stuff before your final departure (guess what happened on our tour)

I would highly recommend this tour! Our guide Eugene was fantastic and so knowledgeable. He made sure we had close up views of monkeys, crocodiles, and many birds. Lunch was also delicious. Thank you Eugene for such a great tour!!!

I would recommend this tour very much. We had a wonderful time! The tour guide Eugenio was very knowledgeable about all the wild life and he and the boat captain made sure we saw lots of wildlife. We saw monkeys, crocodiles, anteater and so many different species of beautiful birds. Lunch was included and it was delicious and homemade. I loved the cantaloupe juice. After lunch we had an art class and it was fascinating and fun to watch and listen to Willy as he showed and explained the art that has been in his family for 7 generations!

Our guide Eugenio was terrific. Kind, courteous and very knowledgeable. The river tour itself was great as we saw so many species of birds, monkeys and crocodiles.

You see common birds and animals..nothing unique. The guide sat in the middle of the boar and only communicated with the back half of the people. The ride was pleasant though.

Our guide Eugene met us on time for pick up at our hotel, The JW Marriott, and was very congenial. He told us we would have a 1 hour 20 min ride until we stopped for a bathroom break before reaching the boat launch. However, we stopped once for ice and then again for gas so the trip took all of two hours on a very bad, bumpy road. When we stopped for the bathroom break, he informed us it was just another short ride to the boat. Again, horrible pothole road, but at last we arrived at the national park for the boat ride. We were two couples traveling together and were the only ones in the vehicle and also on the boat with Eugene, our guide, and a boat driver. About 20 min into our “cruise” we turned back to the launch and picked up four more tourists, the proceeded on our tour. My husband and I had previously been on a Jungle Crocodile Safari river boat Trip on the Tarcoles river and had great expectations about the birds and critters we might be seeing. The river cruise was to be 1 1/2 hours but barely lasted an hour. Eugene and his captain were eagle-eyed so We did see herons, bats, howler and white faced capuchin monkeys, several crocs and iguanas, but the trip seemed rushed. Afterwards we had a very authentic Costa Rican lunch which was delicious, and then hauled ass back to our hotel. Again, the ride just about shook our teeth out! The whole trip took about 6 hours But felt like we got shorted on the most important part,,,,the river Cruise !

Booked thru AmStar. This was so awesome... We saw about 15 Crocs, a tucan (which our guide said he's never seen one on this tour, and has been doing them for 8 years), several herons (different types), Some Jesus Lizards, Bats and tons of Iguanas. We were told it's the start of the mating season... Very informative and got to get up close!!! So fun!!!

The tour was fine. The driver and guide were excellent. I encountered a problem dealing with the tour company, though. I was charged an additional $155 for hotel pick up even though the ad says free hotel pick up. When booking, the self drive button was already checked and I couldn’t remove it, so I requested hotel pick up in the paragraph below. The tour company, xplorecostarica, was unwilling to accept this explanation and charged an additional $155 to pick us up. So beware. I won’t use this tour company again.

Eugene drove a long way to pick up our group of 8 at Playa Junquillal and take us to the boat. He is very knowledgable and stopped to show us wildlife along the way. Had a great authentic meal after and he even stopped to let us do some grocery shopping on the way back. Highly recommend.