This is part 2 of a trip report which began here.

Day 3

We headed out of Tortuguero by covered boat, almost a 2 hour ride to the dock where we were met by our bus.  We had a second sunny and warm day in the rainforest, so we were happy for the air conditioning when we got on the bus.  We were forewarned by our guides that there would be a lot of driving on this day, with a couple of stops along the way to break up the trip.  We stopped at Rancho Roberto’s for lunch.  The food was excellent (I had the tilapia) and the bathrooms were very clean.  There was a playground outside for the kids to run around a little before we got back on the road.

Our next stop was at a pineapple plantation.  Having been to the Dole pineapple plantation in Oahu last year, I have to say that I learned a lot more about how pineapples are grown and distributed around the world at this little plantation than I did in Hawaii.  We donned hair nets and headed inside the packing facility, and we took a tractor ride out to the fields to see the pineapples growing.

After the plantation stop we were back on the bus for another ride to Arenal.  We arrived at our hotel, Arenal Manoa, after dark so we didn’t get much of a chance to look around that night.  We checked into our hotel rooms and freshened up for dinner.  The rooms at this hotel are in separate buildings, with two rooms in each building.  Each room had a giant glass window with a view of the volcano, but as I mentioned, we wouldn’t be able to see that until the morning.  We liked the spacious rooms and fancy bathroom.

Dinner this night was at the hotel, just a short walk from the building with our room.  This would have been a rather un-remarkable night except it was the first night of Passover and several of the families in our group were celebrating.  They invited all of the group to join in celebrating their mini-seder.

Day 4

I started the morning by sitting on the porch a little after sunrise and birdwatching.  I used the Fuji X-T20 with the 100-400mm lens for the bird photos.  We had a great view of the volcano, and we had some unusually clear weather which made for a great view.

This was our big adventure day and the kids were very excited about the zip line.  We rode an open-air gondola up to the top and then rode seven zip lines that went high above the trees with a great view of the volcano.  Sky Adventures sells photos like the one below and most folks from our group purchased them.  The pricing is for all of the photos they took, and came to about $12 per person in the party.

We had lunchtime on our own in the town of La Fortuna.  We ate at a pizzeria that also offered a buffet of local food.  The buffet was $5 per person with meat and less for the vegetarian version.  We also checked out the gift shops in the town, but were not terribly impressed with what we found there.

In the late afternoon most of the kids went to the pool back in the hotel, and some of the guests participated in a local craft.

Prior to dinner we loaded up the bus and headed over to Tabacon Hot Springs.  I had no idea what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised.  The grounds were beautiful and the warm water running over waterfalls was so much fun to explore, and the sunset view of the volcano was beautiful.  We finished the evening with dinner at Tabacon.

This trip report continues here.

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This trip review is from our Adventures by Disney Costa Rica trip.  I book my ABD trips through Archer Luxury Travel.  My camera for this trip was the Fuji X-T20 with with the 100-400mm lens for wildlife and the 18-55mm kit lens for around town.

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