La Paz

We were a group of 6 people off the cruiseship. Our pickup was prompt and Ricky held a sign at the exit. The van was very comfortable and AC worked well. We had a private driver plus Ricky and water was available for us during the tour. Ricky gets a lot accomplished in a short amount of time and at no time did we feel rushed. He is very organized and very personable. He has great English skills but his English writing skills are not so great but he answered all my emails promptly. He delivered all our special requests and our expectations were more than met! This is why I gave him 5 stars as there was nothing we could criticize him for.

Our tour was the 7 in 1 tour which we highly recommend. We added a few extra requests which he met and chose not to do the Puntarenas tour. We started with his favorite places to see monkeys in the wild. He has a special way of calling the Monkeys to come out to him which I will not give out his secret! He had bananas so the monkeys would come to us for pictures. I was the only one that let the monkey climb on me and that was too cool!. Our experience attracted many other tours so we did not stay long. We then went to find some Macaws in the wild to a place Ricky knew there may be. Sure enough we found many there in the trees and also enjoyed the little village with children abound. I brought some Reese's peanut butter cups to share with the children which they really enjoyed!. Then we went to a medicine farm and learned about a few natural plants used for various medical problems. The owner was especially nice and accommodating. Then we went to the Crocodile Man River trip which was about 2 hours. We saw many different birds, monkeys at a distance, many crocs and the unbelievable crazy boat driver entertaining us by feeding the crocs in the water. This was a large motor boat with shade and many people aboard. I would've preferred a smaller more personal boat but still this was great. We had a fabulous fish lunch at a local roadside restaurant . Then we went to a beautiful resort on a hill overlooking the bay. The picture taking experience was perfect along with the beauty of the resort. Ricky even found a poison frog for me to photo. Then we went to a fruit stand which only had a few fruits, it would of been nice to taste the different fruits but we did not. We then went to a woodworkers place but it was Sunday and he was not there so we only saw his samples which were outside on display. Ricky was able to explain a little to us about what he did. We then stopped at a real nice shopping store to buy a few souvenirs which had a great selection. Our last stop was in Puntarenas supermarket to buy a few things like coffee much cheaper than at the tourist places. Thanks Ricky for making our time in Puntarenas a time to remember.:)

From my new book ... I've done almost all of these Panama Canal tours. In my opinion Captain Carl's is one of the best, if you are interested primarily in NATURE. You've got three choices, with some overlap, for Panama tours: Culture, History and Nature. Independent or with the cruise line. I've done the Jungle Land tour several times and loved it!

 

Getting back to the ship ... make it clear when booking with Captain Carl what the back-on-board time is, and he will pretty much know if it will work for you or not. Regards, Richard

Hi Richard! I have read many of your posts and see you recommend this tour highly but it was dated 2005 is that still your opinion? Would like a rainforest experience so I was also wondering if you can get a taxi from the pier that would drive you to the rainforest. Would this be a good option? If so any recommendations to where to go and any guides when you arrive or just a self guided walk. If not, maybe Jungle Land is the best option. Also, our cruiseship arrives Oct 21 so what should we expect as far as likelyhood of rain? Thanks for all the information you have posted

Our group of 4 did Rony's tour in Feb 2015. From Carnival it is a walk outside the cruise terminal but when we finally got out some one was waiting for us. His Van was comfortable and we enjoyed the personal service that was given to us. We did Zipline in Gambalimba Park which we would highly recommend. Thanks for a great tour.:cool: