Kimkim Trip Reviews for Costa Rica

Trip was 12 days (month of March) for a family of four including two teenage girls. We flew in and out of Liberia and spent time in Rio Celeste, La Fortuna/Arenal, Monte Verde, Nosara and then just north of Tamarindo. Yenyi was fantastic in helping to plan the itinerary and activities from the beginning to the very end with a wonderful attention to detail. It was an interactive process and Yenyi's patience, resourcefulness and willing to answer or investigate all o four questions was a wonderful asset. Our family trip was an activity packed adventure by choice that included hiking, swimming, waterfalls, rainforest, volcanoes, zip lining, jet skis, canopy bridges, white water rafting, surfing, fishing and driving Costa Rica's roads the entire way (SUV w/ 4WD required). A truly fantastic and memorable experience with most activities organized by Desafio - a first class company whose guides and staff were wonderful to interact with - highly recommend both Desafio and kimkim for planning your next visit to CR.

Randall and Kim Kim planned the perfect trip for my family of myself, my husband and three grown kids. It was just the right mix of adventure, exercise, nature, discovery and relaxation.

We particularly enjoyed the Mistico hanging bridges tour with Carlos (of Pura Vida Tours) near the Arenal Volcano area, which included seeing monkeys, snakes, tarantulas and so much beautiful scenery.

We also really liked our raft trip in that same area with George "2" as our guide from Canoa Aventura. He was a pro at spotting all kinds of wildlife including fascinating birds, monkeys and even a crocodile. He was very knowledgeable and accommodating.

One of my favorite places was Tabacon hot springs. I wish we had gotten there earlier in the day so we could see it in the daylight, but even sitting in the hot river and pools at night was wonderful! I wish I had known to bring water shoes here, the bottom is rocky.

We loved our hotel, Montana de Fuego, with lovely pools, spa and individual bungalows overlooking the volcano. The staff there was very helpful and friendly, especially Veronica.

Our two days in the Monteverde Cloud Forest were also fun and fascinating.
One of our favorite activities was the zip line tour at Selvatura park. Even my husband who is afraid of heights felt secure enough to do the zip lines. This is a huge and very well run operation and even with lots of tourists they moved us through quickly and safely. It was amazing "flying" over the forest. We also took the short butterfly walk there which was interesting and the butterflies were incredibly beautiful and even landed on your hand if you were still enough.

We took a night hike with a guide at the Monteverde Wildlife Reserve and got to see a sloth in (slow) motion thanks to the eagle eye and strong flashlight of our guide there.
Our final day was a nature hike with Javier of Monteverde Experts, and he certainly was one. He knew every tree, every bird, every reptile and again helped us spot a sloth high up in the canopy.

And finally, we took several lovely drives with the Coast to Coast driver, Jose, who navigated very bumpy roads and long distances with a happy attitude and willingness to answer all questions and stop whenever we wanted to take photos.
This was really a fantastic Costa Rican advanture.

Except one Hotel, all Hotels we stayed at were below average, I imagine that is because we booked only 6 to 8 weeks before the trip(?).

All adventure trips that were booked were very good.

In some places, reservations were made in local specialist name and the vendors had a tough time looking up the customer's name and only to realize it is in the travel specialist name.

Overall, Costa Rica experience was above average.

We stumbled upon KimKim while looking for ideas for our Costa Rica trip. By the end of the trip, we were completely glad for going ahead with KimKim to plan the trip. KimKim was very prompt in coming up with the itinerary and the costs. Our local specialist, Carlos, was very helpful in answering all our questions in a short time. Carlos was able to adjust the itinerary according to our needs and plans. The hotels that they chose were just perfect for our budget and needs. Our driver/guide in Costa Rica, Sergio, was super helpful and very knowledgable about the local stuff - food, culture, local things to do, etc. Sergio went out of his way a couple of times to help us with local shopping. I definitely recommend the KimKim team and Sergio for planning any trips to Costa Rica.

I did some research on the Internet on where to go in Costa Rica, gave Kimkim my preferences and date of arrival/departure. Randall took it over from there and came up with a perfect itinerary for us.

Before we left we received the detailed itinerary from kimkim, airport pick up was on time, as well as the rest of the private transport pickup. Hotels were clean and comfortable, the guides were knowledgeable and friendly. No complaints whatsoever.

Highly recommended.

I couldn't be happier with my experience. Sylvia is great to work with and helped me plan my perfect trip.

I looked at a few of the ready made trips on Kim Kim to get an idea of what I wanted. Then I reached out to Sylvia. We set up a phone call. She offered suggestions and I told her what I was interested in doing. We had a few back and forths before we settled on my ideal itinerary. The whole thing was super easy!

Before we left: We had a flight change and Sylvia was able to make a few adjustments to our trip. Again, all seamless on my end. We were also provided a detailed itinerary which included recommended items to bring each event.

Things were great from the moment we arrived in Costa Rica. Someone met us at arrivals and explained our transportation to our hotel. Sylvia, and Horizontes, arranged all of our transportation to each different city. We decided on doing quite a few tours and all we had to do was be at a designated spot at a specific time. We did canyoning, hot springs, hiking, nature walks sky walk and a coffee tour. Everyone was so nice and helpful and all of the guides were extremely knowledgeable. Also, everyone was punctual so we never had to wait and wonder where our ride was. While in country, we had a WhatsApp phone number we could text 24/7 in case we had any questions. This is great because our phone service wasn't reliable all the time. Responses were always very timely.

Horizontes even arranged for our original driver from the airport to be our final driver back to the airport. It was a nice touch.

Things I would do differently - I'll start by saying this trip is EXACTLY what I asked for. This is my first time using a travel agent and I didn't think to ask some questions. So this is more for anyone else who is a first timer. One hike, which I specifically requested, was about 1.5 hours from town so it made for a long day. The hike was beautiful, but we probably wouldn't have done it if we knew we'd be in a vehicle for 3 hours. Next time, I'll ask about time and distance. The only other thing I'd probably request is a range of hotels. Again, we got exactly what we asked for but next time I'll ask to see one in each category.

I would definitely recommend Sylvia to anybody looking to plan their Costa Rica trip.

Monica did a great job organizing all our transport including transfers, flight, and set up with a rental car, making it easy and stress free to get from place to place. Our favorite parts of the trip were staying in Bahia Drake to explore the deserted beaches in our free time and exploring the cloud forests in Monteverde and Santa Elena. The freebie from Kim Kim to Tabacon Hot Springs in Arenal was also much appreciated at the end of the trip :) All the staff at the hotels were friendly and accommodating. It was a great trip!

Working with Adreana was a pleasure. She kept modifying the plan based on my comments to get me the perfect trip.
When we went there everything was organized and on time, all the guides spoke english and were very knowledgeable.
Thank you Adriana and Amazelia for making it a great vacation.

Olman was amazing to work with, he was very responsive and everything he planned for my trip to Costa Rica was exactly what I wanted, from hotels to activities! My trip was filled with activities and fun memories yet relaxing. And the hotel I stayed at had amazing views and service. I wouldn’t be able to plan this trip myself in such short time. I highly recommend Olman!!

Olman was very responsive and incredibly helpful in organising our trip at short notice. Would have appreciated a little more information about the tours that were being booked but they turned out excellently. We had a terrific holiday and really loved all the hotels and tours that were booked for us.

We just finished our amazing honeymoon in Costa Rica! And have to say that Randall was an absolute pleasure to work with - he made the process so easy to book and really worked with us to plan a great honeymoon!

We landed in San Jose and a drive met us at the airport right away to take us to our hotel. Everything was laid out and organized for us which was fantastic! In the morning we were picked up for the drive to La Fortuna. The one thing I would recommend is for future visits to let visitors know the length of time for the drives we had no idea and found ourselves on 3-4 hours drives (which we didn’t mind, but would have packed some snacks!). Our accommodations were stunning in
La Fortuna we stayed at the beautiful Tabacon. Our white water rafting trip was amazing and the local farm they took us to for lunch was an amazing highlight. Wave Expeditions are amazing and we highly recommend you book with them if wanting to do a white water tour. Very thorough in safety recommendations, good equipment, great guides and an amazing experience. We also went on the Volcano hike - although really interesting we found that our guide wasn’t that engaged in the hike and didn’t realize we were the last hike of the day so all of the animals were tucked away (I would recommend making sure you get an early tour if you do this hike). We would have loved to do the hanging bridges and ziplining here but unfortunately we didn’t.

We then went to Monteverde which was amazing! Wow is all we can say when thinking about Monteverde Lodge and Gardens. The lodge itself was amazing, the gardens spectacular and we had a great corner balcony room. It is also amazing that they have a butterfly garden in the hotel! The staff was amazing and surprised us with a dinner in the butterfly garden for our honeymoon. We also did the Cloud forest hike with Monteverde Experts - amazing tour guide. He was so passionate and really took his time to show us everything - if you do this excursion make sure to use this company. We also did horse back riding which we weren’t too crazy about - it was again the last tour of the day we found our horses to be tired and barely moving and again not much to see. Our guides also didnt explain much to us - in hindsight we would have omitted this although we did request for it to be booked and would have rathered book the hanging bridges etc.

We then made the trip to Manuel Antonio - which was an incredibly long drive 7 hours when it was supposed to be nor more than 4. Although this was a slight setback we fell in love with Manuel Antonio right away. We stayed at Makanda which is an amazing resort with amazing staff- we were treated like royalty and would highly recommend staying here. We visited a local beach recommended by one of the staff members at Makanda and loved it and also visited Ronny’s Place (amazing dinner venue with incredible sunset view), Emilo’s Cafe (amazing seafood) and The Wagon (amazing pizza). We had a tour organized for Sea kayaking and snorkelling - although we enjoyed this (physically challenging) our tour guide wasn’t the greatest he indicated he was feeling under the weather and stayed in his kayak while pointing at a rock we should swim towards to see fish, we would have liked to have someone in the water to tell us what we were looking at. He also told us we need to be back in the kayaks in 20 minutes and then proceeded to paddle back. We had thought this would be an entire morning event as indicated on our itinerary but ended up having our kayak, snorkel and lunch all by 11:30 am...in hindsight we would have either booked through a different company, done a different excursion or discovered more of Manuel Antonio on our own. Despite this we still loved the snorkelling but would recommend that they get new life jackets and clean their snorkels.

Randall was amazing to work with and we thoroughly enjoyed booking through KimKim they made the process so easy for us and would absolutely use them again if booking another trip to Costa Rica. Thanks Randall for all of your hard work and being so helpful with organizing our honeymoon!

Yenyi was patient as we went through multiple iterations of the itinerary to settle on one that included something for everyone in the family.

Costa rica as a country is a must visit.

Pros: very friendly people , the food is a gastronomic delight , attractions are breathtaking, the place is squeaky clean and yes you can drink tap water !

Cons: Knowing spanish is a huge plus, It's about 30-40% more expensive than neighbours(Mexico, Cuba etc) but well worth it.

The easiest experience ever! First time using kim kim and would definitely use it again! Adriana was my specialist/travel agent. She was a pro and knew exactly what i wanted to do. The hotels books were very nice and the activities were everything we expected. My favorite part was the white water rafting! Over all happy and easy experience.

We had a great trip despite the driver being 20 minutes late to pick us up at the airport. The Holiday Day Inn in San Jose wasn't anywhere near a 4-5 star hotel but was fine.

Rafting with Wave Company in La Fortuna was a great. The Baldi Hotel/Springs was nice but they had constructions going on the entire time we were there which was loud.

Ziplining (forget the company) in Fortuna was aweseome, small outfitter with great guides.

The Hanging Bridges at Mystic was great but could do without the walk down to the waterfall as the crowds were a real turn off.

Biking with Arenal Bike Company was nice.

Monteverde Lodge and Garden was really nice, very quiet and the grounds were impressive and the proximity to town was ideal for walking to restaurants.

We opted for another zipline which we booked through the hotel, Sky Adventure would have been fine but nobody mentioned how cold it would at that high location.

The horseback riding was one of our favorite tours, we had a private guide which made a huge difference.

Si Como No was a huge hit with my daughter. The only tour we had was to the Manual Antonio Park was fine but could didn't care for the crowds.

Randall did a great job but would have appreciated a bit more information on what to expect on each tour and how long each tour would last. Aside from that, he did a great job.

Everything was well planned out for us which made the trip so easy. We had a few challenges with the EcoLodge in LaFortuna - while breakfasts were excellent , the lunch we had there was BAD, fish was old and made our stomach upset. Also the hair dryer burst into flames while in use. The receptionist had the hair dryer replaced but we were nervous about the electrical outlet being hazardous and were unwilling to use any others nor would we use the replacement hair dryer - there were NO compensation offered for this. All other hotels had no issues and were very nice. All excursions were enjoyed ( rafting, zip-lining, nature tour, boat tour/snorkeling, turtle watch). The nature walk in Monteverde was nice - however the tour was regarding plants, insects, and birds and we'd asked to see wildlife (sloths, monkeys, tucans, mackaws) so that was a let down - park informed us we should have been signed up for a night tour to see that. I'm glad Monica really encouraged us to get the hot spot Wi-Fi and the GPS - they were extremely beneficial!

My daughter and I very much enjoyed the trip planned for us by Sylvia which met our interests and our budget. All of the tours were great (cacao farm, waterfall, hanging bridges) and the guides and drivers were excellent. Despite a bit of traffic noise, we also appreciated the lovely views at each of our accommodations. At our first resort near La Fortuna, we had a direct view of the Arenal Volcano, lush vegetation and colourful birds from the patio of our cabina. At our second resort in Tamarindo, we had a beautiful view of palm trees, the beach and the Pacific Ocean from the balcony of our low rise hotel. The staff we met at each resort were terrific and we spent many enjoyable moments chatting with them.

Great trip but missing voucher so did not know the plans for the big birthday day. Had to make other plans.

We were very pleased by the places and lodging chosen for us by John. We particularly loved the remoteness of Mawumba Lodge and then later the accessibility of Shahwamda Lodge to to the Jaguar Rescue Center, where we were able to see baby sloths, and eat the best swordfish ever at Pura Gula restaurant. Our guide Umberto was professional and knowledgeable, and our drivers--Ronnie, Patricia, and Jose--were wonderful ambassadors of their country.

Our trip to Costa Rica was amazing thanks to kimkim. We had no idea what to expect and from the moment we were picked up in the airport, we new we made the right choice. A representative greeted us and introduced us to our driver & from that moment on it was a carefree and memorable vacation. Our trip guide helped us plan it from beginning to end! Customizing it to our liking every step of the way. (If you will be visiting, make sure to check out La Fortuna waterfall...it is absolutely breathtaking!) This was our first time using kimkim, but after the service they provided...it won't be our last! I already started spreading the word to my family and friends about kimkim!!

The entire experience of working with Kim Kim was terrific. I was able to customize a plan that included all of the activities my family wanted to do in Costa Rica. In country, every single driver, guide, etc was very punctual. We never had to wait for anything and all of the activities we planned were excellent. We loved stand up paddle boarding in Lake Arenal, zip lining in the cloud forest, and playing at the beach in Manual Antonio. The company Desafio was especially fun for our excursions in Arenal. Two out of the three hotels were great- clean, convenient, and comfortable. The third hotel was not exactly up to the standards we were hoping for so we were disappointed there. But overall, the trip was so memorable and I would recommend the use of Kim Kim to anyone wanting to plan a trip to Costa Rica.