Hey Jory!

Thanks so much for your interest! We currently offer discounts for Costa Rica day tours only so unfortunately we can’t help with a discount for a 2-day (i.e. overnight) rafting trip. 🙁

Pura vida!

Hello Lisa!

Quick question (just to make sure I understand your intent)… you’re wanting to drive from San Jose to the river, go white-water rafting on the Pacuare River, then drive from the river to the boat dock and arrive at the dock before 4:00pm, correct?

Two additional questions:

1. Have you already arranged (separately) boat transportation to Tortuguero? I’m inquiring about this to better understand why your arrival time must be before 4:00pm.
2. Which dock are you planning to travel to Tortuguero from: La Pavona, Cano Blanco, or Moin?

Until soon!

if so how do Ido that and how much does it cost?

I found out that the raft trip finishes about 2-2:30 so I don’t think we could change and make it to the dock, drop off our car, buy a ticket for the last public boat at 4:30. I read somewhere that people can rent a private boat service for $50. How do you contact them?

Hi Lisa!

Thanks so much for your responses. 🙂

For the Pacuare River Rafting Tour, you’re asking the right people! Ricky (co-owner of Pura Vida! eh? Inc.) used to be a white-water rafting guide on the Pacuare River for years. Between the two of us, we’ve rafted the river more than a whopping 2,000 times. For more info about the specific rafting tour experience, don’t miss our related blog post: https://costaricatravelblog.com/pacuare-river-rafting-tour/

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to experience the Pacuare River Rafting Tour and make it to Tortuguero on the same day. There is a slight chance you may be able to make that arrangement work, but since it will depend on several factors that are outside of your control, we’d strongly advise not building your trip itinerary around it.

Typically, the rafting portion of the Pacuare River Rafting Tour wraps up between 2pm and 3pm, but an exact time is impossible to plan for. Factors that determine the tour finish time include but are not limited to the river’s water level on the day of the day (which influences how fast/slow the river trip is run), the number of people participating in the tour as well as where they need to be picked up, road traffic, and the weather. I think the earliest we’ve ever had a rafting trip finish was around 1:30pm, but early finishes are uncommon. The tour can also run late.

Since you plan to depart for Tortuguero via the dock in La Pavona, and since this particular dock is an approximate 2-hour drive from the rafting tour endpoint near Siquirres, in order to make it there by 4:00pm you’ll need to make sure you’re able to complete the rafting tour by 2:00pm. Since this is impossible to guarantee, our best recommendation would be to either plan to visit Tortuguero on a different day, or else plan to raft the Pacuare River on a different day.

If (instead of rafting the Pacuare River first) you head straight to Tortuguero, you could spend your two nights there, catch a very early morning boat out, drive to Siquirres (where the rafting tour begins/ends), and raft the Pacuare River that day. Alternatively (if you want to raft the Pacuare River first), you can plan to raft the Pacuare River, spend a night in the Siquirres area (accommodations are limited), then depart early the next morning for the dock in La Pavona.

To be honest, though both of the above-mentioned options are possible, we wouldn’t recommend either one. We don’t recommend travelers drive to La Pavona on their own because the area isn’t particularly safe. Instead, we only recommend that travelers who want to visit Tortuguero either do so as part of a package that includes accommodation and transport, or (if you’d prefer to book your Tortuguero accommodation separately), as part of a transportation-only package that includes combined ground and boat transportation. These packages do provide some logistical issues for people who plan to rent a car, and in these cases, we typically recommend that a traveler either waits to pick up their car until after they’ve explored Tortuguero, or else get rid of their car before they travel to Tortuguero if Tortuguero will be visited at the end of their trip.

If your itinerary is already set and you’d like to proceed with your original plan to arrange your own boat transport to Tortuguero, in this case, this would be the discount for the Pacuare River Rafting Tour that you should use because it’s the discount for the rafting tour option that does not provide transportation (i.e., it assumes you’ll drive yourself to and from the rafting tour start/endpoint near Siquirres): https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/pacuare-river-rafting-tour-adult-siquirres-exploradores-outdoors/

Pura vida! 🙂

Thank you so much for your information. Since we can’t do the Pascuare river maybe on on way to La Fortuna on July 27th we can do the Sarapiqui rafting? Is it cheaper if we drive ourself? Do you know what time we would need to be there? I am also interested in your mambo combo $115 tour with the rafting and canyoning. If we got it could we split up the two activities on 2 seperate days? If not how much $ are they to do seperately? We could also possibly do them both before we go to Monteverde on the 29th of July. We have a rugular hat isn’t an SUV so I read that we need to take the longer paved road from Arenal to Montaverde and I believe we would drive toward the river that way so we might want to drive there.

Hello Lisa!

Thank you again for all of these details. You have a few options…

For one, you can do as you note and raft the Sarapiqui River on your way to La Fortuna, assuming you’ll be taking the route to La Fortuna that passes through the Sarapiqui region. However, the Pacuare River (like the Sarapiqui River) can also be experienced on your way to La Fortuna, so if that river is your preference, you can still raft it. To confirm, the most common route taken between Tortuguero and La Fortuna passes through Siquirres (where the Pacuare River is run) and Sarapiqui (where the Sarapiqui River is run), so you could opt to raft either river.

For the Pacuare River, it is cheaper if you drive yourself. Here’s a link to the discount we offer for the Class III/IV Pacuare River rafting tour self-drive option: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/pacuare-river-rafting-tour-adult-siquirres-exploradores-outdoors/

For the Sarapiqui River, we currently only have a discount for the tour that includes transportation (you don’t have to use the complimentary transportation if you don’t want to), but that discounted rate is likely lower than what the tour would normally cost if it was available without transportation. Here’s a link to the discount we offer for the Class III/IV Sarapiqui River rafting tour: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sarapiqui-river-rafting-tour-adult-la-fortuna-desafio-adventure-company/

For the Mambo Combo, it is not possible to split up this activity. However, it is possible to experience the two tours that it includes (the Lost Canyon Canyoning Tour and the Class II/III Sarapiqui River Rafting Tour) on separate days. The Mambo Combo is the cheaper option because you get a deal by experiencing both activities during the same day, but if it works better for your schedule, you can request one tour for one day and the other tour for the next. Here are links to our discounts for each:

Mambo Combo Tour (Lost Canyon Canyoning Tour and the Class II/III Sarapiqui River Rafting Tour): https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/mambo-combo-tour-canyoning-tour-and-sarapiqui-river-rafting-tour-adult-la-fortuna-desafio-adventure-company/

Lost Canyon Canyoning Tour: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/lost-canyon-canyoning-tour-adult-la-fortuna-desafio-adventure-company/

Class II/III Sarapiqui River Rafting Tour: https://puravidaeh.ca/discounts/sarapiqui-river-rafting-tour-class-2-3-adult-la-fortuna-desafio-adventure-company/

Note: Desafio Adventure Company (the rafting tour operator) is not currently running trips down the Class II/III Balsa River, so all Class II/III rafting trips (including the Mambo Combo Tour) will be run on the Class II/III section of the Sarapiqui River instead.

Regardless of which option you pick (to either go with the Mambo Combo Tour or experience the canyoning and rafting on separate days), it would be best to plan for these activities during your days in La Fortuna. The canyon and river visited during these tours are not on the way to Monteverde, so it would be best not to experience them on the way to that destination.

One last side note… since you mentioned you’ll be leaving Tortuguero on July 27th and that you’ll likely want to experience the rafting tour (and possibly the canyoning tour) shortly after that time, I should mention that the last possible day we’ll be able to offer discounts to you would be this Saturday, July 17th. This is because all discount orders must be placed through our website a minimum of 10 days before any desired tour date in order to be considered for processing. I thought I’d just mention this in case you hadn’t spotted that policy on our website so you don’t miss out on securing the discounts you’d like for your trip! 🙂

Pura vida!

Hello Lisa!

Absolutely! As per the tour operator Desafio Adventure Company’s policies, they can accept cancelations (or changes) without penalty up to 48 hours before the tour for groups of 1-6 people, so as long as your change request is made to them before the 48-hour window, and so long as there’s still availability for the tour you’d like to change to, your request will be accepted without issue. Here’s a link to additional policy information for Desafio Adventure Company in case you’d like to see it: https://puravidaeh.ca/partnerpolicies/desafio-adventure-company/

Pura vida! 🙂

The retina in my eye tore and I have to have another surgery in 2 weeks which is during our trip, I also am seeing through black spots all over where it’s bleeding. My doctor said it is risky for me to go so unfortunately we are going to have to cancel our whole trip. I put so much time in to planning and am so thankful for your help. We hope to reschedule it sometime later in the year or next and will definitely book our tours through you. Is it possible to get a refund for the 4 person tour price but keep the $5 so I could be a member of your club?

Good morning Lisa!

Ouch! I’m so sorry to hear about your retina. 🙁 That sounds downright awful. I hope the recovery period is short and that you’re back to feeling like your regular self again in no time.

No problem at all about the Pura Vida! eh? membership refund. I’ve just issued the full refund amount to you via PayPal, and you should have received a separate email from PayPal about that. Though your Pura Vida! eh? membership is now inactive, your DIY Costa Rica membership remains active, so feel free to log on there (https://www.diycostarica.com) and browse the content at any time. We’re in the process of building a handy Costa Rica Destination tool on our DIY Costa Rica website, so you’ll be able to access that too when it goes live and when you’re ready to resume planning for your upcoming trip.

Pura vida! 🙂