Our Guestbook 2007

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Hi Arturo,
 
I would just like to take the time to thank you properly for organsing an amazing holiday for us in Costa Rica. When we return (which we will), it will be you Rain Forest Tours that we contact again to help organise our new adventure. All the hotels and tours you booked worked out perfectly and all the accommodation was stunning and in most we got the best room in the place.
 
Even better for us, I suppose because it was a quieter period in the season, all our booked tours ended up just being Tom & I, so we had very personal one to one guides around some amazing areas in Costa Rica.
 
Have a great Christmas & New Year and I hope to speak with you again to organise our next trip to CR
 
All the best

Dear Ana,

I was very happy with your service, and will be pleased to use you again when I return next year with my wife for a longer stay. I think Corcovado deserves a repeat visit, as I really had insufficient time to discover the region. I will also be in touch with you for some suggestions on eco resorts elsewheer in Costa Rica, which offer a similar experience to Aguila de Osa (which I liked very much)

I wish you a happy Christmas and Year end, will be in touch early in 2008.

Regards,

Espero que estés muy bien y te escribo para darte las gracias por coordinar nuestro reciente viaje a Costa Rica.

Yo quede más impresionada por tu bello país, que la primera vez que lo visite, y mis amigas quedaron igual de impresionadas con los lugares que visitamos.  El viaje estuvo magnifico, no pudimos pedir más, bueno a lo mejor un poco menos de sol porque quedamos “chamuscadas” como se dice en México. 

De nuevo muchísimas gracias por toda tu ayuda, los hoteles, el transporte, y el Sky Trek que escogiste no pudo ser mejor!  Definitivamente te recomendaremos con todas nuestras amistades.

Un abrazo.

Hi Arturo,

I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work and help in ensuring a wonderful vacation for my mom and I. We had an incredible time in Costa Rica - you live in a beautiful country.

I was very impressed by how organized everything was. I loved both the hotel in Arenal and in Manuel Antonio. You did a great job in recommending the perfect spots for my mom and I and I really appreciate it.

I will be sure to recommend you to other people here at home.

Have a great day!

Hi Ana:  I'm home now, had a wonderful time in Costa Rica. It is truly an amazing country, not even dampened by all the rain!
 
I just wanted to say thank you for everything, for all the arranging of the tours.  They were great.  The 4 in 1 is quite long, but everyone on the bus was so very appreciative of Rainforest Tours breaking us up into different buses at the end, in order to get us all back to our hotels quicker. 
 
I'm glad I got to meet you...it is always nice to meet someone on the other end of an email, whose done all the arranging for me. 
 
Thanks again, and when I'm back in Costa Rica I'll be in touch!  Take care.
 

Hi Ana,

Our trip was definitely a wilderness adventure with more rain than we expected.  The Drake Bay Resort was really beautiful, our cabin was most attractive, and the food was delicious.  Marleny was very helpful.  We went on 3 tours and chose not to go on 2 others.  On two of the tours we were the only people with the guide.  One special feature is that they dry your shoes and do your laundry daily at no charge.

After meeting you at Sansa, we had time to take a taxi to the Butterfly Farm which we really enjoyed.  On our return flight the river was to high to cross in the truck so we had to take aboat to Sierpe.  After arriving at SJO at 11:30, we had a lot of time until our 6:15 flight so we went to INBioParque which was recommended by one of our fellow adventurers.  This was a great afternoon tour.

Two 6:15 flights never left due to fog so at * PM TACA bused us to a new HolidayInn for the night.  We had lovely rooms, a buffet dinner, and breakfast.  We left SJO at 9:30 AM and arrived In LA that afternoon.

Thank you again for all your help.

Ana,

We went to CR and had a wonderful time!  Not a single problem.  Thank you for your help.  I am keeping your business card for my next trip to San Jose.

Thanks. 

Dear Ana,

We had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica and very much appreciated your help in making the arrangements for us.  The people of Costa Rica were wonderful and most friendly.  We enjoyed it tremendously and only hope that one day we will be able to return.  If so, we will certainly seek your help in making bookings for us.

I include 2 pictures (flame colored tanager and boat-billed flycatcher) of the more than 100 bird species we were fortunate enough to see during our trip.  More than we hoped!

Best regards!

Dear Ana,

I hope your cold has improved  & you are feeling better today.  John & I had a wonderful time on the rafting trip today. We want you to know the company is very professional & the staff and guides made the trip safe & enjoyable.  It is an extremely beautiful part of the country. We want to thank you for all the arrangements you made for us It made our trip here very nice again. 

Dear Ana,

Thank you so much for your help with our tours on our trip. We thoroughly enjoyed the Calypso Cruise and the La Paz Waterfall Garden was fantastic! We really loved Olman Arce, our guide. He was so knowledgeable and pleasant. We will recommend this tour to our friends and tell them to request Olman as their guide. Thank you again for helping to make our trip so memorable.

Hi Ana – I just wanted to write to thank you for planning our fabulous trip.  It was wonderful, and I am so thankful for all of your efforts.  Gerardo was fantastic.  He made our trip – except when we thought he left us with the crocodiles (he can tell you about that). 

I will refer your services to anyone I know that will be visiting Costa Rica, and when I save up enough money to come back, I will call you.

Again, thank you for all of your help.

Take care,

Dear Arturo:

I have been meaning to write you to say that your services, and those of Rainforest Tours, really helped us on our three week adventure. The vouchers worked perfectly. The lodging locations were excellent for our purposes and the special guides that you organized were also just perfect for us.

We were lucky to get as a  guide a young man in Mondeverde whose father was one of the Quaker founders, and should you need a birding guide for other clients, this fellow is terrific.

We also discovered that the manager at Trogon Lodge was a former guide and while we found him a little curt at our first encounter, when he took us out to see the birds in the Trogon area, he really warmed up and proved a good source.

At Drake's Bay, taking day trips is the thing to do. If you have serious birders and folks that want to see the natural wonders of the area, Manuel is the best of the bunch. I think he learned his trade helping hunters locate game in the park lands....

Thanks for everything. Success on trips are in the details and you gave us good tips and took care to see our Costa Rica experience was really terrific.

It WAS a guaranteed good time. After our side trip to Panama City because of San Jose's storm, everything went smoothly, on time, and the weather was spectacular: Not too hot nor too cold and no rain in the day time in spite of the supposedly rainy season.

Iguana Tours did convince us to change our plans for the Savegre River and we rafted the constant exploding III-IV rapids of the Naranjo river.  Therefore we were able to take the walking tour of Manuel Antonio Park.  

Thanks, Ana, you helped plan another wonderful trip for me.  I hope to make at least one more trip to take in the Corcovado area.

Thanks again.

Dear Ana,

I haven’t forgotten about you. I have been extremely busy traveling and haven’t seen pictures myself. Linda and I are hoping to come back to Costa Rica next year for a short trip. We heard about repelling in waterfalls, rafting a river controlled by a dam and a long zip line (15 or 20). I heard this is all in the La Fortuna area. We do not have any dates projected yet but maybe March.

Your service was outstanding and we recommend you at every opportunity.

Regards,

Ana,

I have been meaning to get in touch with you to let you know that we had a wonderful time visiting your country. We loved our trip that you and Ines planned. We appreciate your dedication to our needs! We can't wait to return for our 5 year wedding anniversary!! The food was great, the people were friendly and the scenery was beautiful.

Thanks again!

Hi Arturo,

Thank you so much for putting such a nice trip together for Karen and I.  Rooms were great, not sure how you get us such expensive rooms for that price.  Won't ask and don't change it.

The transportation was right on time, each time.

Really had a great trip and can not thank you enough.

When we come again, would it be possible to do like we did the first time with Sergio?  Know it would be more, but that was so great having him for a guide and taking us everywhere.  Sure it will not be for a few years.

If you need references, please do not hesitate to use me.

Thanks again, and it was nice seeing you.  Hope we did not foul you up, being late getting out of airport?  Took awhile to get thru immigration.

Hola Ana,

I'm back in the U.S. at Houston airport, and wanted to take a moment to let you know that I really enjoyed the tour including the driver Mr. Williams and the guide, George.  My favorite areas were the visit to the volcano, the coffee plantation, and water falls; especially the lunch and breakfast.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Hola Ana,

I hope you feeling good! First, I’m sorry, I would like to call you before leaving Puerto Vejo, but there are no phone at the hotel excepted a international phone!! Ana, thank you very much for this trip. Like it said  in one of the Green Day song, I had a time of my life! And I listen this song just before the Sky trek, and it really stick to my reality during this Viaje! Everything thing was perfect, the transportation, the planned activities, the hotel. I see a lot of wonderful bird, monkey, sloth, lezard, insect. The nature was very wonderful and I realize that is beautiful nature is in danger because of the pollution. When I go to the cloud forest, no cloud and great sunny day. When I go in the rain forest the same thing! So, it something wrong! We should be organize the same kind of trip for the president of G8! Probably they awake to the planet problem and the effect of the over consuming!

I very like the Ticos, I follow your advise and I use all of spanish word I know and some word is the same of the french but with «o» or «a» at the end! I even talk with guardian and bus driver who speak only spanish, and we understand us partly! And I smiling at everyone, so it was not hard because this is my daily behavior!!!!

Every activites was well prepared not too hard and not too soft, just what it need. The sky trek was very exciting, I learn a lot of thing on the nature during the sky walk and during the hiking in the different reserve. My first horseback riding was great to and after this I realize that our ass was not made only with muscles!!! I see the lava side of the Arenal Volcano during the hike of Silencio trail and the Baldi hotspring was very useful after a long day like this!!! In short, I falling in love with your country and your people! Today I had a culture shock in my own country!!!

Puerto viejo was very different, of the rest of Costa Rica, but I don’t really see the place, because I have one day and a half of rain and one day where I go to the beach for 1 hour and a half and I burning under the sun because I miss to put my sunscreen!!! Great idea no!!! And for a chance, I catch something like tourista only at the last day of my trip! So, now I’m ok, I had my first meal this afternoon since two day, and I feel the energy return in my body!

So, Muchas gracias por el maravilloso viaje!

And be sure that I will recommend the Rain Forest tour at all of person who planned to go in Costa Rica! And if you plan to come in Quebec, contact me I will be your travel agent!!!!

Hasta luego senorita

!

Ana:

I wanted to thank you for your assistance during my recent trip to CR.
The experience left me wanting to come back again soon. (This time for some fun!)

I'll be sure to look you up for your suggestions as to where to stay etc.

Thanks again.

Arturo,

We've been a bit busy since getting back from our wonderful vacation in Costa Rica or I would have written to you sooner.

We had a great time and the 10 days passed all too quickly. Gerardo was a wonderful guide, driver and companion for our trip and we would hope to be able to travel with him when we come back for our next visit. He quickly learned what interested us most and we visited many places that we would not have found without his intimate knowledge of the country as well as the plants and animals we saw. Elroy and I each came back with over 1500 photos. We were fortunate to see Arenal in clear weather. I took the attached photo from the lodge at night.

If you can provide me with Gerardo's email address, we would like to send him a personal thank you as well as some photos and a map from our trip.

Dear Ana,

First item is to compliment you for your wonderful service and willingness to be helpful whenever we needed some assistance.  You were especially helpful by adjusting to our timetable change, due to the airplance flight plan change, and by providing the night at the Bouganville Hotel for the one we missed the first night.

The biggest disappointment had nothing to do with you and your arrangements. We paid $40 each to have a guide at the OTS area, starting at 6:00 A.M. We birded in the open area near the dinning room area with good luck for about an hour and a quarter. Then we went into the woods for half an hour, returned and ended the tour. We were not allowed back in the forest. The two previous times I had visited the OTS we were allowed in all day. Had I know of the change I would have elected to sleep overnight on the OTS grounds - we then would have been allowed in the woods all day.  Actually, it had not rained for two weeks in the area and the forest birding was not good since the birds were not singing.

Second unfortunate situation was our having to arrange for the car change. This prevented us from having a normal birding action in Braulio-Carrillo. Instead of birding from 6:00  A.M. to 10:00, we were able to bird for only an hour since we had to wait at the hotel in the early morning to make the arragements for car return.

We started by having a wonderful visit at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens. I had been there in 2002 and was just as thrilled this time - and Joan was especailly pleased. We stopped at Poas Volcano and were lucky to see it in full view with steam coming out.

We did see the Quetzal out in the open on two separate occasions so the Trogon Lodge stop was good.

I will try to send some pictures, or have Joan send you some. The trip was a birthday present to Joan and she enjoyed every day which made me happy. She saw over a hundred new birds and, alas, since I had been in the area before I did not see any new ones. But seeing the 18 species of hummers again was wonderful.

Hi Ana,

We had a wonderful time in Costa Rica, it is a beautiful country.  I am happy to report, that every & tour went as scheduled & all were a lot of fun.
We are very pleased with the information you provided us prior to our scheduling of the trip & the work you did getting it all organized for us.  The hotels were beautiful & everyone was so pleasant.  We really could have used one more day at the coast to simply enjoy the beach & pool.
The travel time between our various destinations were a little longer than we anticipated, but we have no regrets over the schedule we had (just needed a couple more days!)
Thank you again & we certainly will recommend your company & will contact you again when we are ready to return.

Thank you for a wonderful time in Costa Rica.

We are now back in Norway (we went to Nicaragua and Honduras later).

Thanks to you our stay in costa rica worked out perfectly in every way, could not have been better!

med vennlig hilsen / kind regards

Thanks Arturo, we had a great time. We would especially return to Samara in a flash- the people were wonderful. I tried surfing, we had many great meals and snacks, and the people at the fruit store quickly learned that I liked my fruit plates ,"sin papaya y manzanilla." (since we went there as often as we were hungry between meals.) I also left my backpack on their table, without realizing it, and the next time we walked by they stopped us and gave it to us.

Everyone was very patient with my Spanish. Though most people spoke some English, it was very useful to be able to speak a little bit with people who did not speak any English, and to practice my Spanish. Barlow didn't speak any Spanish, but quickly learned his most important phrase, "sin cebollas."

Seeing the volcano at night was wonderful- we got to see it for an hour or so after dark until the clouds came down. It is a spectacular sight to behold, with the glowing rocks rolling down.

Our driver from Samara to La Fortuna was very helpful, stopped to show us views, oropendula nests, beautiful trees, and the drive around the lake was wonderful, with great views of the volcano.

We found it at first a little scary and overwhelming in the city, coming in Sunday night after dark, with everything closed and lots of noise, fumes, and barbed wire. But we soon learned our way around and found it exciting. The museums were great, the murals in the national theater were astounding, and the best part was just walking around and finding little cafes and shops and accidentally finding theCentro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano and it's wonderful exhibits.

We were very glad we had booked things ahead with you, so we didn't need to spend much time making plans and arrangements when we were there. It made things much easier. And it was very good to know we had someone to call if something did not go smoothly. At first they thought our flight to Samara would be cancelled because of wind, and we were much less worried knowing we could call you for help if we needed to. But the flight went ahead anyway, so it worked smoothly.

Our biggest mistake was not bringing our good binoculars. We thought that taking care of the nice ones would be a hassle, so we brought the little ones, but there was so much to see it would have been well worth having the good ones. We'll know for next time.

Hope to be in touch again soon for another trip to Tico warmth and adventure.

Thanks for all your help!

Dear Ana,

I'm sorry to be so slow in writing. Our trip left us quite behind in work! We certainly had a wonderful time in Costa Rica, and a lot of credit is due to the timely responses, courteous and ample replies to our questions, and good choices you made to guide us.  We thank you for your thoughtful and warm orientation of us. We did not have any problems along the way. And yes, we did see the beautiful quetzal!  We had many good sightings of them--male and female--in Gerardo de Dota. So, thank you for your help.  We especially found our driver, Eduardo, to be careful, punctual and friendly. Please give him our regards.

We only have one comment to pass on regarding where we stayed. We found the hotel in Monte Verde to be very beautiful and comfortable, but the personnal were not always helpful or friendly, and could not help us much in setting up plans for birdwatching in the area. I would not recommend that hotel for birdwatchers, because of the lack of competent, helpful and friendly service by the personnel we dealt with. I pass this on to you for your information.

Again, thanks for helping us so well. We certainly can recommend you to others.

Sincerely,

Hi Ana,

I just wanted to tell you that Susie and I had a wonderful vacation.  Our trip to Costa Rica was much more than we expected.  All of the arrangements you made went perfectly.  Thank you very much for all of your hard work and assistance.... you really made this a dream vacation for Susie and I.
take care,

Ana:  Thank you for taking care of our travel arrangements...we had a great time.  Also, we ended up staying at El Punto in Liberia...it was actually very nice.  So no need to refund our money on that and we apologize for any inconvenience.  We were a little tired after our long drive from Quepos.  We meant no offense to you.  Thanks and we will definitely recommend your services to our friends.-Katherine

Dear Ana,

Thank you for your help in facilitating our visit to Costa Rica.  We all had a great time and wanted to say a big thank you to you for making it so.  We loved Costa Rica and hope to visit again.  Tabacon Springs was fantastic.  The beach was great.  Tulemar was a great choice.  The people in Costa Rica are fantastic.  Manuel Antonio and Iguana tours were superb.  Fortuna was beautiful and none of us fell off our horses.

Thank you so so so much.  Wish I had more of your business cards.  Take care.

PS.  best wishes and thank you from Naushad, fatema and faiza.

Dear Ana,

I agree with Valerie that we all had a wonderful time and really enjoyed our trip to Costa Rica. I definitely plan to return and see more of the country. Your company, and you and Gerardo specifically, made the trip a good experience for us. Gerardo was a very helpful, nice, and knowledgeable guide. I especially appreciated your patience with all the questions we asked and the changes in plans so that we could get a customized trip that allowed us to do and see what interested us the most.   I had a bad experience with a tour company in Peru that did not have the same kind of patience as you did to help us plan the best trip suited to our needs.

Hi Ana,

I just wanted to take a moment to let you know our Costa Rica trip was a huge success in part to your operation...All the drivers were extremely courteous and more importantly prompt!

The canopy tour was so much fun and again the whole operation was class act. The lunch was delicious that they made for us and we felt safe and well taken care of the entire time. I have already recommended you to another group of friends who are looking into a 2008 trip and will continue to refer friends to you.

Thanks again for everything,

Ana

We had a wonderful day on the Pacuare River. I was fortunate enough to swim in the river twice- once I jumped in and the second time the river pulled me in.

You are living in a wonderful and beautiful country!

Thanks for your help.

Dear Ana,

We had a terrific time and will recommend to friends. Gerardo was a perfect guide and host. He was especially good at finding his trained birds to show us. We enjoyed it all. The variety was great and we came home pleased and rested.
Attached are a few pictures.

All the best,

 

Hi...we are JUST home....and had a wonderful time in Costa Rica....friendly people and an overall great experience.  Really appreciated your great services....transfer was perfect and the hotel was just right....I will certainly keep your name on file and will let you know when I have more clients heading your way...once again thank you....

We certainly did have a wonderful trip. The diving portion went very well, and then we met Alex right on time that Sunday and proceeded to enjoy everything you recommended.  The hotels were wonderful, we also now see that there were alternatives to Tabacon, although  that was a enjoyable stay to do once (although the food is really not as good as all the local restaurants we found at much less money).  Your recommendations on the 2 zip lines (although we were surprised by the horses in La Fortuna, most really enjoyed it) and 2 ATV tours were also great, both were distinctly different.  On the ATV tour at La Fortuna the lunch we had at the family tilapia farm was such a highlight, too!  I guess the only expectation (vs. disappointment) we had that was different was the level of English that Alex spoke and understood…but, we managed.  We think that someone with more English skills could have pointed out so much more for us along the way…but, please understand, this is not to say anything negative about Alex…we enjoyed having him along on a couple of our evening dinners, he pointed out snakes and monkeys along the way; was able to recommend some side attractions we enjoyed and definitely furthered our determination to begin brush up Spanish lessons (which we are doing!), most importantly he was a very safe driver that we all felt very comfortable with. As we discussed on the phone, a little more tip guidance for the driver and for the other park guides and restaurants we encountered would be very helpful…we did not want to be cheapskates and project a poor image…so knowing the particular area customs (more so than we found in the Fodor’s) would have been great.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country and we truly enjoyed everyone we encountered, this really was a wonderful vacation for and we thank you for all the help and recommendations, it was so seamless. We will happily recommend you and Rain Forest Tours to anyone and we will be back to see other parts of the country!  Thank you again very much and we will also be sharing this good experience with Butch and Carol…I’ll have Becky send you some of the photos.

Yes. We had a wonderful time. Like Janet, I liked the mawamba trip the best. The only part I could have skipped was the Manuel Antonio, but mostly because I didn’t have anything planned there and by then Laura and I were both a little sick and just lazed around.

Also, I think we liked mawamba because the group ate together and there were more people around.

The condos were very nice. I don’t know if there is a largish hotel available, but with teenage girls and their moms, mostly the girls want to flirt with boys (great opportunities at mawamba) and forget their moms.

I, however, enjoyed it all.

The trip to Monte Verde was quite harrowing, in terms of the drive. Had we been able to fly it would have been much better but no way to do that. Possibly we would have been better off at arenal (I think there might be an airstrip there).

Anyway, we did have a wonderful time – saw lots of terrific animals due to expertise of the guides.

I most certainly have been telling people what a good time I had and that booking through your firm is a good idea. You may yet get some business from it, though not soon.

Thanks for your attention. I know we had some problems price-wise because my budget was so low and then at high season as well.

Thank you for you help and for the arrangements. Everything went smoothly. I’m so glad you booked our in-country flights. They were worth the extra dollars.

Dear Arturo

We had wonderful vacations in Costa Rica! Thank you very much for all your help.

A few words about our trip. First of all, everything which you organized worked very smoothly and without any problems. All hotels were great, and all transportations and connections worked without any problem. The only small problem appeared when we were renting a car, because we were given first a manual and automatic car, as we requested, but your assistant handled and resolved this problem very quickly. We are really very thankful for that.

In Osa we stayed in two places, very different, but both are excellent, and we highly recommend them. We spent every day many hours, just hiking trails on their grounds, where we met all kind of wild life. Different kind of monkeys are everywhere. See the picture of a white-faced monkey which climbs the tree in front of our balcony. The hotel have very experienced nature guides among their staff, and we took several trips with them, looking for birds and nocturnal animals.

Boa constrictor came once, when we were sitting there on the terrace! See the attached photo of the owner, Terry, with that snake. A huge family of scarlet macaws just live there on their grounds and nearby. The Carribean part of the trip was also very good. The hotel is excellent, and I highly recommend it. The location, just on the great beach is unbeattable! All their rooms have ocean views, but the best are, what they call "junior suites". They are slightly more expensive, but have the best location.

Thank you again for helping us again organizing our memorable vacations in Costa Rica. There is still much to see in your country anf we hope to come back. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

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