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Costa Rica Q: Arenal area- 1 or 2 nights?
we are staying the rest of the time down in Guanacaste at the JW Marriott but want to stay a night or 2 at the volcano and do ziplining. Do you think 1 night is enough or should we stay 2?
Also any hotel recs? Trying to stay under around $200 a night but I am so tempted to stay at the bachleor hotel (the springs) for $400, haha. Maybe if we just go for one night?
thanks so much!
Re: Costa Rica Q: Arenal area- 1 or 2 nights?
I would personally recommend two nights as opposed to one. I spent three nights/three days there last February with my friend and we never ran out of things to do. I have an entry in my travel blog here regarding that trip with detailed information on the things we did and places we saw.
We stayed at Kokoro Arenal, which was ok (had some customer service issues) but the price was right at only $125 per night.
I would stay for 2 nights. That's what we did for our honeymoon and it paid off. We were trying to make sure we would be able to see the top of the volcano. One night it was clear and gorgeous. The other it was cloudy and we couldn't see it.
If you want great views of the volcano, stay at the Arenal Observatory Lodge (actually inside the park). We stayed there. The Lost Iguana is also recommended.
Definitely two nights! Actually, I wish we had stayed 3 so that we could have seen the volcano when it wasn't pouring, but we still had an amazing time there. My favorite things we did there were:
Baldi hot springs
Hiking down to La Fortuna waterfall (amazing!)
Hiking around the volcano
Ziplining
I don't have a hotel rec though b/c I went with a big group so we stayed at a hostel.
thanks so much ladies! i think we will probably do 2. i am not super into having to see the active volcono. we've been to the big island in hawaii and saw one. so although it will be great if we can catch some action, it's not the end of the world if we don't. i more want to go up there to do the zipling and rappel a waterfall, which i heard arenal is the best for that.
sounds amazing!!! that is everything we want to do up there. did you canyon (rappel) the waterfall?
Definitely two nights.
We stayed 3 nights and it was a good amount of time, but we found plenty to do and could have easily stayed longer.
2, for sure go to the hot springs and maybe the waterfall!
I second Arenal Observatory Lodge - AMAZING view, really nice grounds, pool and hot tub. The food was AWESOME. I highly suggest getting the food package and splurging for the rooms with a view. I went to bed with my curtains open while watching lava spew from the volcano.
Definitely two if not three so you can do a day at the Tabacon Hot Springs. They have a hotel there but I have always stayed at other hotels close by. We just went in for day passes to the hot springs. One of my favorite places in the world.
http://www.tabacon.com/
We stayed 4 nights on our honeymoon in November at Tabacon. We got the cheapest room and it was nice (off season though). We had 3 full days there.
Day 1: Rafting Rio Toro with Desafio (discount through pura vida eh? website. Class III/IV rapids. It was fantastic but takes most of the day.
Day 2: Spent the day soaking in the Hot Springs.
Day 3: Combo tour with Anywhere Costa Rica - Hanging Bridges, La Fortuna Waterfall hike, Lunch in La Fortuna, hike in volcano National park. (They have a 4th activity to go to a hot springs for dinner and soak in the evening but will price it without that otion if asked since we were staying at the hot spring already. They also will price just one or two of the activities but they occur in the order I stated.).
I enjoyed the rafting the most. I highly recommend it. We never saw the top of the volcano. From what I understand it is also not flowing (or wasn't when we were there.) Of the rest of the activities we chose not to swim in the waterfall but enjoyed the hike there. The Volcano National Park was interesting but probably the bottom of the list of things we did. Every evening we spent soaking in the hot springs at Tabacon. We wanted the day to soak since it was a honeymoon and DH did not want to be on the go every day.
We stayed here: http://dev.termalesdelbosque.com/
I went with 7 other girls and we rented 2 bungalows (very pretty and nicer than their standard rooms).
$100 night for a bungalow
Thermal hotsprings on site are amazing. They also have horseback riding.
Buffet was very good, traditional Costa Rican.
Kitchen in the suite for cooking (we did this one night)
Very cheap, but nice massages!!! Best deal in Costa Rica and very professional. They only take 1-2 people at a time in the spa, so book early.