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Hi Ines

We are back from Costa Rica.  

Your tour package was wonderful.  Our tour guide, Andrea, and bus driver, Juan Carlos, were just very helpful and gracious. As a matter of fact, the whole staff we met during the tram trip was just friendly and kind.  

We will return for sure in February 2012 to do more of your tours for sure.  I will write some reviews in Trip Advisor Website, soon.

Thanks again,

Hello, Ines.

Thanks for all of your help arranging our tour. We had a great 10 day vacation in Costa Rica and a nice canopy tour. The guides and driver were very helpful and nice.

Dear Ines,

I just wanted to let you know that our tour today was exceptional.  Andrea was our guide, and Eric was our driver, and they both did a great job.  Andrea was extremely knowledgeable and spoke very good English!  The pace of the day was wonderful.  My daughter and I never felt rushed at any point during the day.  The speed of the Aerial Tram was absolutely wonderful!  The whole experience far exceeded our expectations.  Please feel free to let me know if you ever need a recommendation! Thank you so much for your service. 

Dear Ana,

First, thank you, thank you for all the arrangements you made for us. In fact, I received a telephone call early this morning from Mary Jane asking if I had thanked you yet; she did not know you had emailed me. Part of the reason it is hard to reply to your email is because everything was so perfect that I do not know where to begin.  Your help and the kindness and the professionalism of the guides made all aspects of the trip wonderful.

Also, I enjoyed meeting you after we sent so many emails back and forth.
Your response time and answers to all our questions was so quick, thorough, and efficient; we were all appreciative.

I have received many thanks from Cathie, Kathy, and Mary Jane for arranging the trip. They also asked me to let you know that the trip was perfect! We had such a great time and everything went so smoothly. We all liked the excitement of the earthquake while we were at Casa Corcovado and the closing of the Arenal Volcano Park because of small eruptions after we were there.

As mentioned before, we were impressed at the professionalism of the guides - Steven at Casa Corcovado, Juan Carlo at Selvatura Park, Rafael at the Preserve, and Gerardo, our all-around guide. All the guides were so excited about their jobs and also in making sure we saw everything there was to see. It was fun to have guides who enjoyed their jobs and were eager to share their knowledge!

We saw so many different species of birds, including many I either did not know existed or had not seen before. All the guides went out of their way to tell us about the terrain, the birds, the animals, and the country.

Gerardo was a special favorite. We owe him a special thanks for showing us so much and stopping wherever we wanted - he has a great eye for finding flowers, birds, and restaurants with great food.

One of the highlights was staying in hotels that were small and more local to the communities. I don't think I had mentioned what type of hotel we wanted but you knew exactly what we should have. All four of us were impressed with each hotel. The service was good and the food delicious. We have no complaints about anything regarding where we stayed. We enjoyed them so much more than staying in the large hotels.

Your name and the Rain Forest Tours name has already been given to quite a few people! I'm sure you will be receiving emails in the future from friends. In fact, several are working out ideas on how and when to go to Costa Rica.

The above is the condensed version of what we wanted to say. I haven't completely gone through my photos yet but it looks like there are some good ones to send you.

We have no complaints! But have hundreds of memories of a perfect trip.

Oh yes, we enjoyed being on the Osa Peninsula when the seasons changed - dry to wet. There was no way to plan this in advance but we could all feel the change in the air, the way the animals acted, and the rains beginning. In Arizona our average rainfall per year in the desert is eight inches. I'm sure we received this much in two days in Costa Rica. Also, green is the color we remember from Costa Rica, while brown is the color we remember from Arizona. We compared the forests to our cacti. In Costa Rica there is little to no space between trees while in our Phoenix area we can see space between each cactus or desert tree!

I'll send another email soon but thank you again for everything.

One other thing - the women commented on the professionalism of Gerardo (not sure of the correct spelling and would appreciate that) in that he did not mention politics, complain about his/our country, or bring up his personal life unless we asked about his family. Our group contained various beliefs about United States politics so it was nice to not get into that!!

Take care,

Ana!

Our trip was fantastic! I have a friend who is thinking of visiting Costa Rica next February and I am giving her your contact information.

As for my family, we plan to return in June or July of 2012 for my daughter's high school graduation. We have made two trips to Costa Rica in the "dry" season and this time we want to visit in the "green" season. So in a little over a year I will be asking your advice on where to go during this part of the year.

Anyway thank you so much for your expertise, and my friends Lynn and Jim will contact you for help with their trip, and I will hopefully be able to locate you next year.

Regards,

Hi Ana,

We had a wonderful time in Costa Rica.  You live in a beautiful country and we were so glad to see at least a part of it.

Rain Forest Tours did an excellent job and we will certainly mention your company to anyone we know who is thinking about visiting Costa Rica. Please consider any suggestions we make as minor. Overall, we were very satisfied with our trip.

We have to begin by sending a big "thank you" to you and Gerardo. You explained things very clearly to us and made sure all arrangements were handled carefully and professionally. And, all our drivers were great as well.

Gerardo was a gift to us. We expected to join a small group of tourists who were going to the same places you scheduled for us. So it was an unexpected pleasure to have Gerardo as our personal tour guide. He took great care of us and we benefited from his knowledge of the birds, animals, trees, flowers, landscape and the places we visited. He has friends in every "port" and took us to great places to eat. All in all, his friendliness and experience made him an excellent traveling companion. Please tell him we managed to attend a soccer game in San Jose before leaving and had so much fun watching good soccer being played and ardent fans supporting their soccer team.

We were happy with all the restaurants we ate at and all the tours we took. Gerardo arranged a night hike for us as well as a tour of a coffee/sugar cane plantation, so those were nice add-ons. We especially liked the tour of the plantation and would suggest offering the butterfly garden and the coffee/sugar plantation tour as a choice (select one or the other). I would have liked the hike to the waterfall and the hike to the lava fields to be on separate days. I'm sure that’s because I'm a senior citizen and it was a lot for one day.

We liked our little cottage at Arenal and we loved the the hotel at Playa Carrillo. At Poco a Poco we had a very nice room, but we found it to be a noisy place to stay (dogs barking and fighting all night long). We would have preferred staying at a quieter place out of town especially since we didn’t spend time doing things in town. The Adventure Inn was our least favorite place. The bathroom smelled like sewer gas and we wouldn’t have wanted to stay there more than a night. However, we can't say enough positive things about the hotel at Playa Carrillo. Our room was great and both the food and guest services were excellent. Even though the hotel van at the beach was in for repairs while we were there, they made it easy for us to get to and from the wonderful beach at Playa Carrillo.

Our driver on the way back to San Jose helped us with plans for attending a soccer match on the Saturday night before we returned home. We enjoyed that so much. It would have been nice to have an add-on tour or event for that last night as well as a tour of San Jose offered on the first night. Again, these are just minor suggestions. Overall we had a great vacation.

Thanks so much.

and

Ana Lam: We arrived back home Sunday night after a fully enjoyable two weeks in Costa Rica. It was interesting, exciting, welcoming and warm - just what us snow bound Canadians crave. All of the hotels met or exceeded our expectations and every where staff were very helpful. Driving wasn't as intimidating as I had been lead to believe but the road to Montreverde will forever remain as a topic of conversation. Other than one tour guide in Arenal Park, the others were very knowledgeable, helpful and funny. We saw and experienced so much of what Costa Rica is known for.

Sylvia and I thank you deeply for helping us put together one of our memorable world trips. We'll return again soon. Take care and best regards.

Ana,

Just want to let you know that we had a great trip to Costa Rica. Our reservations at Arenal Lodge and Finca Valverde worked out perfectly and we were pleased with both places. Thank you so much for your help.

Hi Ana

Our main computer crashed yesterday, perhaps taking your recent email and all my Costa Rica pictures into the great unknown with it, so this reply won't include any pictures.

Ana, your Nature Lover's Delight was more than a delight - it was just a wonderful time.  We have tried to pick our favorite part, but it can't be done - too many good things.  Everything went smoothly and according to plan so that we could enjoy the beautiful country and not be distracted by having to deal with problems. The accommodations were almost too good, because leaving Arenal Kioro or Arenas Del Mar after only a night or two was a little difficult. And the gorgeous Grano de Oro restaurant, with its superb meals, is unforgettable. Other than exploring the country in general, our focus was on birding and we weren't disappointed, thanks to the many knowledgeable guides on the various tours. And speaking of guides, Gerardo was just great - knowledgeable, helpful, accommodating, fun (and, right at the end, barely able to speak - I hope he's well.) And eagle-eyed! - no one can find birds as well as he does. One other point: although there were lots of activities and plenty to do, we never felt rushed and had a relaxing time.

We spent 3 more weeks in Costa Rica. Some highlights were watching the leatherback turtle nesting at the national park at Playa Grande, a couple of nights at the Cano Negro Nature Lodge with great birding tours, and driving around the very pretty and interesting "route of the saints" region south of San Jose.

So we had a great time in Costa Rica and would recommend the Nature Lover's Delight to anyone interested in the natural resources of the country.

Thanks for a wonderful time!

En Diciembre de 2009 tuvimos la suerte de visitar por 16 dias Costa Rica, un viaje maravilloso que nos preparo Rain Fores Tour donde no falto nada, recorrimos Desde Tortuguero pasando por el Volcan Arenal,el bosque nublado de Monteverde, San Jose y la zona de Guanascate y sus hermosas playas
Tamarindo, Samara, Flamingo.

No podemos decir que nos gusto más, el paisaje, los hoteles, la gente. Es un Pais para repetir.

Gracias  fue simplemente perfecto.

Pura Vida

Dear Mrs Ana

I was in Costarica the last 5/1/2010 and you arrange for me the transfer from San Josè to Barcelo Hotel Tambor Beach.

I want say to you that I am very satisfied of your services and I appreciate your professionality so certainly will contact your agency for my next tour in Costa Rica.

Yours faithfully

Hi, Ana!

We have made it back to the cold US.  We all thank you for the work you performed on our trip.  All the folks in our party plan to tell our friends and associates about your organization and how helpful you were.

Hopefully, we can convince our friends to think of you when planning a trip to your wonderful country.

Again, we thank you very much.

Dear Ana

I have been meaning to email since our return from Costa Rica. I will tell you that 4 of the 5 people who went on the trip said it was the best trip they had ever taken (and we have been on quite a few good ones). The only one who didn't have fun was my six year old who became very ill while we were there requiring a visit to the hospital. Not sure if he picked up something before we left home as a lot of people were sick here or whether he drank too much water out of the Penas Blanca river when the kids jumped off the rope swing.

Having said that I can't thank you enough for all you did for us. Every moment of every day was perfect. We enjoyed everything from Tabacon to ziplining to Monteverde to Manuel Antonio. The kids loved Tulemar because of the private beach where we spent three great days.

I would repeat the whole trip tomorrow if I could. What a beautiful country and people you all are. Especially Allan who made transitions from one venue to the next easy and without stress. He even helped us get antibiotics for Julian when we first arrived.

I could go on and on about all the great things on the trip. We will be in touch soon (I hope) about a return trip!!!!

All the best


Ps. If you would like me to write a testimonial other than the above, I would be happy to!