Hello BC Eagle!

I’m excited FOR you! 🙂 This trip itinerary looks great. It’s very similar to what we often recommend to travelers. Upon first glance, and in my opinion, it doesn’t need much tweaking. Here are a few extra tips in case they can help at all:

-All days of the week are the same for rafting, so there’s no real advantage to choosing one day or the other for this activity. Sometimes Saturdays and Sundays may be a bit busier if some local Costa Ricans decide to go rafting on their day off, but this doesn’t really impact the overall rafting experience.

-Rafting the Pacuare River is a great choice, and we recommend it highly, but it does require a bit of a drive (roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes each way) from La Fortuna. The rafting experience is well worth the trip, but you may want to consider moving it up by a day so you don’t have two long travel days (rafting then traveling to Tamarindo) back to back. If your family isn’t bothered by car rides, though, you can keep the trip plan as is!

-For snorkeling in Guanacaste, this is best accomplished at Islas Catalinas, a set of islands that sit off the coast just up the coast from Tamarindo. Visits require guided tours. Alternatively, if you’re not interested in a full snorkeling excursion, you can opt to take a sailing tour that includes a short (usually about an hour or so) snorkeling component. Marlin del Rey (based in Tamarindo) runs a great sailing tour in Tamarindo, and they usually stop around Bahia de los Piratas (a local Tamarindo snorkeling spot) so guests can snorkel during the sail.

Lastly, as a heads up (in case you aren’t already aware), Costa Rica is in the middle of a national tax rollout program, and currently, either a 4% tax or a 13% tax applies to tourism services (the rate depends on the tour operator; you can learn more about the tax rollout program and which tour operators apply which tax rates on our sister site’s Tax Information page: https://puravidaeh.ca/tour-pricing-and-tax-information/). According to governmental policy, the current tax rates apply until June 30th, 2022, and either an 8% tax or a 13% tax will apply to tourism services beginning July 1st, 2022. Since you plan to visit in July, the rate that tour operators will charge you for tax will be either 8% or 13% (as opposed to 4% or 13%). Just wanted to mention this upfront in case it helps you for vacation-budgeting purposes. 🙂

Pura vida!