Hello Cara!

Great questions–we can certainly help. 🙂

To start with your departure flight, most international airlines request that travelers arrive at the airport around 3 hours prior to the flight departure time, so a 12:30pm departure time would normally require you to arrive at the airport around 9:30am. The drive between the airport (the SJO Airport) and La Fortuna takes roughly 2.5-3 hours, and the Springs Resort & Spa is another 20-minute drive beyond La Fortuna, so in order to arrive at the airport around 9:30am, you’d need to leave the resort around 6-6:30am. Early morning departure times aren’t an issue (travelers take them all the time), so if it would be your preference to spend your last night at the Springs Resort and travel to the airport from there, you can arrange this. If you’d prefer to avoid the early morning start, you can spend your last night in the country closer to the airport and travel between La Fortuna and that hotel the day before your departure flight. Note that since you mentioned you’ll be traveling during Easter Week, which is one of the busiest weeks of the year in Costa Rica, route drive times may take longer than the average times noted above (you may also want to give yourselves extra time at the airport).

For plans for the day before your departure flight (assuming you plan to travel from La Fortuna to San Jose that day in order to spend your last night near the airport), we can help! The Pacuare River Rafting Tour is the most popular tour we receive requests for, but since it has a minimum age limit of 12 years, unfortunately it isn’t an option for your family. White-water rafting trips down the tamer Reventazon River (which is run by the same company as the Pacuare River Rafting Tour) are an option, as the minimum age limit to raft that river is 6 years. Would this be an activity that would interest you/your family? We’re still in the process of moving all of our tour discounts from our old website over to our new website (this website) and all of our Reventazon River Rafting Tour discounts aren’t yet visible to the public. I’ve gone ahead and made our discount for the Reventazon River Rafting Tour (from La Fortuna) public on our site so you can see its description and our discounted rate; you can see the details here: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/reventazon-river-rafting-tour-adult-la-fortuna-exploradores-outdoors/

Pura vida! 🙂

Hello Cara!

Sure thing! To start, it’s almost always an option to drive yourselves to/from tour operators’ offices in/around La Fortuna, so this is a great fallback plan if you decide it’s not worth it to pay tour operators’ transportation fees.

For transportation to/from the Springs Resort, you’re correct! Due to its distance from La Fortuna, most tour operators do not automatically include round-trip transportation to/from the resort with their tour rates (though a few select tour operators do).

I should point out that there are two different types of tour operators in Costa Rica:

1) Tour operators who automatically include round-trip transportation to/from hotels that fall within a normal pick-up zone (extra fees are charged to travelers who stay at hotels that fall outside of the normal pick-up zone)
2) tour operators who do not automatically include round-trip transportation to/from any hotels (extra fees are charged to all travelers who want the tour operator to provide round-trip transportation; prices vary by hotel location).

To add confusion, some tour operators charge their transportation fees per group (typically 1-4 people, 1-5 people, or 1-8 people, depending on the tour operator) and others charge their transportation fees per person.

Transportation costs to/from the Springs Resort depend on which tour you’re interested in experiencing as each tour operator in Costa Rica sets their own transportation rates. To give you a rough idea of pricing, tour transportation fees could be as low as $30 for a round-trip service (i.e., pick-up and drop-off at the Springs Resort) for your entire family, or up to $20 for a round-trip service per person in your family. Below are a couple of examples to help you understand how tour transportation pricing in Costa Rica works.

Example A:
Desafio Adventure Company is a tour operator that automatically includes round-trip transportation to/from hotels that fall within a normal pick-up zone (extra fees are charged to travelers who stay at hotels that fall outside of the normal pick-up zone). They typically charge $20-25 (per group, not per person) for a one-way pick-up or drop-off service at the Springs Resort, or $40-50 (per group, not per person) for the round-trip pick-up and drop-off service. If you participated in one of Desafio Adventure Company’s tours, it would be best to budget around $40-50 per tour for your family, assuming your group size is less than 4 people.

Example B:
Sky Adventures is a tour operator that does not automatically include round-trip transportation to/from any hotels (extra fees are charged to all travelers who want them to provide round-trip transportation; prices vary by hotel location). They typically charge $17 (per person) for round-trip transportation to/from the Springs Resort. If you participated in one of Sky Adventures’ Arenal-area tours, it would be best to budget around $17 per person in your family. For other travelers reading this response who are interested in Sky Adventures’ Monteverde-area tours, the round-trip transportation cost to/from Monteverde hotels is $10 per person.

If you decide to use tour operator transportation, one way you can reduce transportation costs overall is to schedule morning activities with a drop-off in downtown La Fortuna, then afternoon activities with a pick-up also in downtown La Fortuna. Tour operators that automatically include round-trip transportation to/from hotels that fall within a normal pick-up zone (like Desafio Adventure Company and others) provide pick-ups and drop-offs in downtown La Fortuna for free. So, you can pay to get picked up at the Springs Resort for one tour in the morning, get dropped off in downtown La Fortuna after that tour wraps up, spend some time eating lunch or shopping around town in between tours, get picked up in downtown La Fortuna for a different/afternoon tour, then pay to be dropped off at the Springs Resort when that tour finishes. Opting not to return to the Springs Resort in between tours can help you save time as well as costs associated with transportation fees.

Pura vida! 🙂

Hello Cara!

Let me answer your questions for you! 🙂

1. If you’re planning to spend the last night in La Fortuna (i.e., if you’re in the market for a rafting tour that begins and ends in La Fortuna, not a rafting tour that can provide transportation between La Fortuna and San Jose), your best option would be the Balsa River Rafting Tour, which is a class II/III river (the same as the Reventazon River). We recommend the Balsa River Rafting Tour (https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/balsa-river-rafting-tour-adult-la-fortuna-desafio-adventure-company/) run by Desafio Adventure Company, whose normal minimum age limit for the tour is 10 years. Sometimes Desafio Adventure Company will allow younger children to participate in their rafting tours if the tour is run during a less intense/drier month (Easter/March/April usually qualify) and assuming the child’s height/weight/waist measurements allow them to safely wear a life jacket. If you decide to book this rafting tour option, we’ll check in with you about the child’s measurements and will forward them on to Desafio to have them confirm whether the 9-year-old will be able to participate. The current tour start time for the Balsa River Rafting Tour is 9:30am (note that a pick-up scheduled at the Springs Resort will be before this time).

2. Absolutely! This happens quite often with family groups, actually. In this case, you would simply select the same tour time with each reservation. For example, if you were to book 1 adult and 1 child for the Arenal Sky Trek Canopy Tour (which includes the Sky Tram Aerial Tram Ride) and 1 adult and 1 child for the Arenal Sky Tram Aerial Tram Ride only, you’d order these:

1 adult for Sky Trek: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sky-trek-canopy-tour-ziplining-adult-la-fortuna-sky-adventures/
1 child for Sky Trek: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sky-trek-canopy-tour-ziplining-child-la-fortuna-sky-adventures/

1 adult for Sky Tram: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sky-tram-aerial-tram-ride-adult-la-fortuna-sky-adventures/
1 child for Sky Tram: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sky-tram-aerial-tram-ride-child-la-fortuna-sky-adventures/

When you’re placing your order, simply select either the 8:00am, 8:30am, 9:00am, 10:30am, 11:30am, 12:30pm, 2:00pm, or 3:00pm tour time. These are the slots when the Sky Trek and Sky Tram can be experienced at the same time. Note that since the Sky Trek tour lasts approximately 1-1.5 hours longer than the Sky Tram tour, the adult and child who do not go zip-lining will need to wait at Sky Adventures’ facilities while the others finish their tour (it’s not possible to follow the others while they zipline). There’s a restaurant and a nice indoor sitting area (with a beautiful view of the Arenal Volcano) on-site, so at least you’ll be comfortable while you wait. 🙂

Pura vida!

Hello again Cara!

We just received word from Desafio Adventure Company that they’ll no longer be enforcing an extra fee for transportation to/from the Springs Resort with reservations for their tours. I recall you mentioning that you plan to stay at the resort, and since you’ve been looking into tours and activities for your time in La Fortuna (some of which may be operated by Desafio Adventure Company), I thought I’d let you know in case the change affects your decisions at all. 🙂

Pura vida!