Hello Beth!

Thank you so much for your patience with us! 🙂 About your itinerary…

That’s a very busy day! To begin, technically everything is feasible, but I think you’ll find that it’s very rushed, especially the tours of either Arenal 1968 or the national park in the morning, and the La Fortuna Waterfall in the afternoon.

If you’re looking to tour a place in the morning (before your tour at the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges), you can certainly tour Arenal 1968 or either of the 2 sectors of the Arenal Volcano National Park, but ideally it would be best to have more than 1.5 hours to explore whichever you pick. The same would be by comment about visiting the La Fortuna Waterfall during the afternoon. Though it’s possible to visit the waterfall in 1 hour, you’d only have time to hike down (quickly), take some photos, and hike back up (quickly), leaving little time to enjoy the waterfall itself, swim (if you wish to do so), and visit the property’s on-site orchid garden.

One quick question… whereabouts do you plan to stay the night after AOL? I saw your note about staying somewhere else outside of town. Depending on where you’ll be staying the night you plan to visit the hot springs, I may have another idea of something else that could work.

For pick-up times for the hot springs pass, these are often flexible, depending on the tour operator’s vehicle/driver availability. We can usually make a request for an earlier pick-up without problem, (such as 4:30pm), if this would be preferred (in order to arrive at EcoTermales for 5:00pm). Similarly, we can also request a pick-up at 5:00pm if you want more time to finish an afternoon activity.

As for whether visiting Arenal 1968 or either/both sectors of the national park are worth it, this depends entirely on what you’re looking to get out of the experience. Some travelers I’ve communicated with think all three provide boring experiences. Several others love the challenging hike at Arenal 1968 (especially the climbs over lava rocks), as well as the fantastic bird-watching opportunities at the national park (especially within the Arenal Peninsula sector). If you’re looking to get something specific out of a visit to either site, feel free to let me know and I can get back to you about whether any/all sites offer it. 🙂

One last thought… if you opt not to tour Arenal 1968 or the national park in the morning, but you have some time to kill before your tour at the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park, you may want to check out the trails on-site at AOL. They have tons, including one to the Danta Waterfall, that may interest you. You can read more about the trails at the Arenal Observatory Lodge here: https://costaricatravelblog.com/arenal-observatory-lodge-trails/

Pura vida!