Amazing Costa Rica Adventure!

Costa Rica | Jul 20 - Jul 27, 2024

This hotel is located on a ridge with wonderful views of Monteverde. Our room was spacious and comfortable with panoramic views and the hotel is in walking distance of the main town center (although down a little hill).

We loved our bungalow (number 121) at Tulemar. We had our own balcony with views of the jungle and the Pacific ocean and lots of wildlife. I told our travel planner (Holden at Serendipity Adventures) that I wanted to see wildlife from our room and he found us the best room in the whole resort (in my opinion). Our balcony was on the feeding route of different monkey troops and so every day between 3 and 4 pm monkeys would climb trees right next to our balcony. One day 10 squirrel monkeys even climbed onto the balcony right next to us and wrestled and played with each other while we looked on! It was truly magical! We had our own concierge (Miguel) who was available via WhatsApp to answer questions and book reservations for us. Since the phone in our room wasn't working he also called shuttles for us and placed room service orders for us. He was extremely responsive. The service was excellent!

Our guide was enthusiastic and so knowledgeable. He was able to help both the 77-year-old avid photographer and the 10-year-old boy in our group spot, photograph and learn interesting facts about the flora and fauna in the park. We saw everything from grasshoppers and spiders to rare coatimundis, sloths and howler monkeys.

This tour was fun and educational. We all enjoyed learning the details of how chocolate is made (and the history of how it became the sweet we know today) and about how sugar cane is turned into sugar (and sugar cane juice, which we all got to drink). The last part of the tour covered coffee (at which point my youngest got a little antsy) but it too was interesting without being too lengthy and didactic.

Our guide was great and found a family of coatimundis for us to observe. Watching the mothers and babies climb trees and walk across the path right in front of us was a highlight of this hike.

We had a wonderful time and the staff was so helpful and accommodating. When my youngest froze on top of the ziplining platform and refused to continue (even though his older brother had already gone and was fine), they helped me get back to the base lodge with him and gave us a refund, radioed ahead so the staff could tell my older son what happened and help him continue on the course, and showed us where to wait at the end of the course for my older son to arrive. My older son said the ziplining was beautiful and exhilarating. We all enjoyed the views from the hanging bridges, the beautiful butterflies and the sloth sanctuary. Seeing sloths up close was really amazing!

We had a wonderful time! The river was exciting but not too scary and the views from the raft were amazing!

The ride through the rainforest was beautiful and so fun. It poured rain on us, but because it was so hot, it was actually really refreshing. The horses were well-trained and gentle and they matched the people well to the horses.