Our Guestbook 2008

Thank you for visiting our pages. We would love it if you would Add to this guestbook we are keeping!. If you need information about hotels or tours, click here or go to our hotels section and click on the email link available on every page. Due to the size of the guestbook, we have separated it in years. Click on any year to see other comments we have received.

Where you see the camera icon , click to see their photos.

Arturo-

Enjoyed everything about the trip (except having to come home). Very unique tours/trips. Thanks again for all your help. All the activities were great and very well run.

Best regards,

Arturo,
 
Many thanks for planning such a wonderful and memorable trip for our family.  Allen is a treasure.  Unfailingly polite, he safely drove us through the country providing us with interesting information and stops between locations.  We missed him terribly after he dropped us off in San Jose.  We enjoyed both hotels and all of the activities and appreciated the differences between the Arenel rainforest, the Manuel Antonio beach scene and San Jose.  In short, we loved Costa Rica and would like to return one day.  Of course, we will keep you in mind and let our friends know about the superior services we received from Rainforest Tours.
 
Best regards and thanks,
 

Just wanted to drop you a quick line to let you know how great everything was during our recent trip to Costa Rica.  We had a great time with all of our activities and also wanted to let you know that Edward was very efficient and friendly.  There were a couple of slight mix-ups with our reservations and Edward was able to make all of the arrangements and help us to be sure we got where we needed to go in time to fit in all of our adventures. 

Also, to let you know, I've recommended you to my friend Roberta who will be traveling to Costa Rica during Semana Santa.  I know you'll be able to help her out just as you were able to plan a great trip for us!

Thanks and best,

Dear Arturo: I want to thank you for your services during our recent trip in CR.  Our driver, Orlando, was extremely professional and dependable.  We very much appreciated having him with us.  A very nice rental car arrived on time and the two people who delivered it  -- Natalie and Bernie -- were wonderful; we very much enjoyed talking with them.  The car was picked up on time.  We appreciate your attention to detail and your help in making our vacation a success.

We will gladly recommend Rain Forest Tours to friends.  All the best,

Hi Arturo,

We had a wonderful trip. Thanks for putting it together for us on such short notice. We very much enjoyed meeting Nerida (spelling ?) and having dinner with you. Thank you for your hospitality. As I mentioned, I thought this would be our last trip to Costa Rica but now I'm intrigued by the possibility of the Caribbean/Panama idea you mentioned. We'll give it serious consideration again next year.
 
We've mentioned you and Rain Forest Tours to a number of people, both in Costa Rica and here, so perhaps you will get some referrals.

And I would be remiss if I didn't say that Gerardo was great again, as usual. Take care.

Arturo,

We are back in Canada after a wonderful time in Costa Rica.

What made it especially so was our visit to the Osa Peninsula (Feb 20 - Feb 23).

It exceeded our expectations because ...

• arrangements to/from were very good.
• the staff was very welcoming and treated us "royally"
• the food was first class including the outdoor lunches.
• the pacific view was stunning from their lookout
• the accommodation and grounds were beautiful

Thanks for your help in "making it happen".

Hi, Arturo,

I'm home and almost back to a routine.  Your country is beautiful and we certainly enjoyed it.  The only downside was the La Colina Hotel.  It did give us a view of the sunset over the Pacific (as requested) but the climb to the room was not worth it. The second day we saw another beautiful sunset from the beach in Quepos. Tell your clients to listen to your advise (not like me) but thank you for being quick to change our itinerary so that we didn't spend the last night in San Jose.

Much more importantly, the upside is the beauty of your country and your very exceptional guides. Adolpho was only with us for a few hours but couldn't be nicer.  Edwardo, who came to Allen's aid when the car broke down, was friendly, helpful and an all around happy person.  But your Allen is truly a treasure!!  He was wonderful!!  He couldn't do enough for us!  He almost seemed disappointed if he couldn't take us somewhere or do something for us. He took us all over and to places we didn't know existed.  He made the trip truly special and you are blessed to have people like him.  I'm not much on computers so I won't even try to send pictures.  We had a wonderful trip and I'll certainly praise you to anyone interested in going to Costa Rica. 

Hi Arturo,
 
We had a great trip.  We really enjoyed the entire experience, and I would find it difficult to say what we liked the most.  Truly, CostaRicans are wonderful people and the country is a very special place. We appreciate your help and your quick responses to everything, and will certainly pass on your details to anyone we meet who is interested in a visit.
 
Thank you again,   sincerely,  

Dear Ana,

As I said in my email to you last weeke , we had a wonderful vacation in Costa Rica. Gerardo was absolutely top notch, and the entire trip exceeded our greatest expectations.  Hugh is having a hard time adjusting to being back home!

We surely hope we can return to Costa Rica next January and visit some of the areas we could not get to this January, and also revisit some of our favorite spots.

Needless to say, we will enlist your help in arranging another trip to your country and will request that Gerardo be our guide again.  We're already looking at the map to see places we would like to visit on a return trip.

Thanks for all of your help in arranging a most memorable trip.

Fondly,

Thank you Ana Lam for being so helpful and considerate with my trip planning, etc. We had a great time!

Ana,

We appreciated all your help. We had a great time! We will certainly be back. Do you help in renting vacation houses on the beach? I think our next trip will be with some friends doing that. Every beach we went to was just perfect and the weather was great. I will be giving your name to a few friends that will be heading to Costa Rica in the spring.

Megan Czaplicke

Dear Ana,

In a word, our Costa Rica trip was wonderful!  You and Rain Forest Tours did an excellent job in putting together a most memorable trip.  Our driver and guide, Gerardo, was magnificent.  His knowledge of wildlife, history, environment, etc. was top notch.  We experienced much more of the real Costa Rica with him than we had anticipated.  He often stopped when he spotted something along the way that he wanted to share with us, and we couldn’t have experienced one-tenth as much without his guidance.  I think perhaps now we are spoiled in what to expect on future trips.

The accommodations were outstanding (especially at Monteverde), and when there was a view, we had it.  There were so many great experiences that we cannot say any one thing was the best.  Corcovado was a truly outstanding way to end the trip.  Many people staying only 2 or 3 days at Casa Corcovado wished they had done what we did and wondered how we arranged it.  We told them how Rain Forest Tours helped us have our own trip.

If we had to change anything, it would be the order of events on the travel day to Linda Vista.  We would suggest stopping at Tabacon Springs on the way to Linda Vista (we drove right past it and even stopped to see monkeys frolicking in the trees) rather than checking into the hotel first and then backtracking down a very bumpy road at night to the Springs.  That would of course mean that dinner would probably need to be at the hotel rather than at Tabacon given the timing of things.  The next day we (at Gerardo’s suggestion) changed the order of events, stopping at the national park first, then traveling to Fortuna and seeing the falls and then on to Tabacon Springs.  Thank you for rearranging the timing for our second visit to the springs.

When we returned to San Jose on Monday, our driver (whose name I cannot remember) was right there at the exit waiting for us, and Edwardo showed up Tuesday morning right on the dot at 5 am. 

During the trip we had the opportunity to speak with a number of local people and have already started the list of places we want to go to next January—for a longer stay!  As I write, we are now in the middle of a snow storm.

Thank you, Ana, for all your help in putting together a most enjoyable and memorable experience in visiting your country.  And thanks too to Gerardo for his charm and guidance during the first half of our trip.  We will (and already have) highly recommend Rain Forest Tours to anyone.

Sincerely, and thanks again for everything,

Thank you Ana! 

For arranging a great trip!  Because of Rain Forest Tours, everything ran smooothly and efficiently!  My family was so pleased with the hotels you recommended, the transportation, and the guidance you provided us to plan a terrific trip to Costa Rica!

Thanks a million!

Dear Ana - Thank you for your message.  I was intending to write you and tell you about our trip, but, as you know, my husband's mother was hospitalized shortly before our return and we have been very busy hoping to get her stabilized.  Firstly, I want to thank you so much for your help with this medical emergency.  We so much appreciated your being the connection between doctors and family in the US.  Our driver, Geraldo, was also terrific and caring and his concern in following up with you and allowing us to call on his cell phone made this difficult situation easier. He was also very informative and made the long drive much more pleasant.

    As for our trip, we were so pleased with the arrangements and everything seemed to run very smoothly - especially given all the different number and types of transports we took throughout our vacation.  There were many adventures and surprises which made our time very varied and fun.  The accomodations were very lovely.  The Hot Springs were fabulous and given the weather was cold and rainy, it was the most pleasant way to warm up imaginable. The staff at the hotel in Monteverde was somewhat less helpful and professional.  We loved the river tour of Cano Negro and really got into the birdwatching.  The catamaran was also run very well and offered nature watching, snorkeling, sailing, swimming and eating a great lunch - what else could you ask for?  We took a tour of the Don Juan Coffee plantation which was very interesting and informative.  The guide was great.  We must say that all of the guides on our trip were very good but, unfortunately, we had one negative experience which you could not have prevented but which I think you should know about.  Our first guide at Corcovado was Evan, who really took away from our experience at this very unique resort.  He seemed fairly poorly informed about the wildlife, was not able to elaborate on answering questions, was not able to locate many of the types of wildlife we were shown on our other tours and our feeling was that his recommendations and undue anxiety for our safety kept us from being fully able to participate and enjoy the park and the activities it offered.  We did note some of this in our evaluation for the manager, Luis, but wanted you to know as well.  Otherwise, the staff and service were exceptional. We also thought that, although we loved the San Jose hotel, we might have stayed at Manuel Antonio for one more full day and the last night and then taken a transport back to San Jose very early in the morning so that there was one less time to pack and unpack and we could enjoy one more full day at Manuel Antonio.  We very much enjoyed the food and the delicious fresh fruits and your wonderful coffee.  We tried to eat in some of the local restaurants on each stop and that added to the experience of each destination.  Stew and I did the Zip-Line in Manuel Antonio and although I am the world's biggest chicken, I was so glad I pushed myself to do it!

   So, we thank you again for planning and executing this wonderful vacation and I will be happy to recommend you to any of our friends or family who plan to visit Costa Rica.    

Ana,

We had a wonderful day at Pozo Azul on Saturday.  Friday night, I received a call from someone at Expediciones Tropicales reporting that Sueño Azul Waterfalls Resort and Adventure Land Tour would not be possible due some "land issues".  I surmised some kind of landslide.  They offered an alternative  tour at Pozo Azul with a 2+ hour zipline in the morning and a 2+ hour white water rafting on the 2-3 scale in the afternoon with transportation and lunch.  I spoke with the others in our group and we decided to go for it.  We had a great time.

A van picked us up at our hotel on time with a driver, Marco, and a guide, Estephan.  Marco spoke very little English, but Estephan spoke outstanding English.  He was very knowledgeable of Costa Rica and kept us engaged during our 90 minute drive to Pozo Azul.  They accompanied us on the zipline along with 2 guides. The guides took every measure to be sure we felt comfortable and safe.  They were excellent.  The zipline was better than we expected.  So good we did another one on Wednesday on the Arenal volcano!

We had a nice lunch by the river and sized up our rafting trip.  Our guide for rafting was also very safety conscious and ensured we understood and could execute his instructions.  We were accompanied by young men in kayaks as spotters.  The water was pretty rough and Kim and Jeff each exited the raft once.  No one was hurt.  Except for Lynn's black eye, probably the end of an oar...opps.  She is fine.  We had another great time on the raft!  We would do that again also.

Thank you so much for you help in setting us up with  Expediciones Tropicales.  They were excellent.  We have and will recommend Rainforest Tours and Expediciones Tropicales to our friends.

Regards,

Arturo: 

Thank you for arranging our trip to Costa Rica during 12-24 November, especially doing so at the last minute.  It was an outstanding experience and gave both of us a good introduction to the country.  Your excellent suggestion of rafting on the Paquare was certainly a high point of the trip.  Our driver Allan was truly great!  Besides being an excellent driver, he was a very good guide and companion as well.  We enjoyed his company.  We wish you a happy holiday season and successful New Year.  Best regards.

Return to our Homepage