Has anyone ever used Okeydokey tours with Charlie Soto

[spinard2000]

WE just returned from a cruise to Costa Rica and we used OkeyDokey with Charlie Soto. At first I was hesitant to book a tour operator other than Carnival but we did and I am so glad we did. We did the A-2 tour and Rey was our tour guide. We went zip lining, toured a banana plantation, had lunch on Bonita Beach, took pictures of Colon from a high spot in town and our final stop was at a local grocery store to buy coffee. I highly recommend this tour if you are visiting Costa Rica. Rey did a fantastic job showing us his country. Zip ling was great! You won't be disappointed.:D

 

We had Rey as well, through another tour operator, Juan Espinosa. He was fantastic and we learned alot about CR as well as having a fantastic time. If you go with Okeydokey, definitely request Rey. Or you can contact Juan and have a private tour with Rey as your guide. juanadriel@yahoo.com

Our group arranged to do the zipline. banana plantation and playa bonita for lunch. In between we stopped at a local family's fruit stand. It was a great day!

[SheilaS]

Just got back from a great tour with one of Charlie's tours. We had Harrison...I have to say he was one of my top 3 favorite tour guides!!

 

I am sorry to say that I don't remember the driver's name, but he was super nice also...going out of his way to show us special things along the way.

 

Most of us did the ziplining, but a few went on a little walk thru the rainforest or just watched the zipliner for a while and then went to the the last platform area to meet the rest of us.

 

Wonderful day!!

 

Charlie is a class act that has his stuff together. Thanks, Charlie!!!:)

[katieemily]

We used Charlie for our recent cruise visit to Puntarenas and had a great tour. We did the A-4 tour which took in the "Crocodile Man Cruise" on the Tarcoles River and we had an inclusive lunch at a wonderful hotel, high in the hills, where we enjoyed magnificent views and good food. There were other enjoyable aspects but these were the highlights for us. I highly recommend Charlie's tours.

John

[PointCruiser]

Hi Guys: Can anyone recommend Charlie Soto or comment on his services? I have been in contact with this and he seems quite nice. I would like an opinion from someone who has used him. Thank you. Larry :)

 

We had a terrific tour with Charlie Soto's OkeyDokey Tours last month (January 2010 off the Island Princess) in Porto Lima, Costa Rica. The tour was exactly as advertised, and the tourguide, Carlos was fantastic. This was worth every penny, and it was a lot cheaper than the ship excursions. While it was billed for a 5 hour duration, we continued to tour for about 7 hours...because there was time. The entire day was perfect. We saw howler monkeys, sloths, iguanas, leaf cutter ants, had a lovely walk in the rainforest, some of our group went zip lining, we went on a calan boat tour, and we had an authentic lunch at the beach.....a great day!:)

[path145]

I will have first hand experience with Okeydokey Tours in five days! I'll post a review when I come back.

[ina905]

we had the pleasure of goiing on tour with okeydokeytours. it was fantastic. it included the banana plantation, river cruise, zip line, and lunch on the beach. The driver and guide did everything to insure that we had a wonderful cruise.we stopped at a grocery store at the end of the tour to get a chance to buy coffee (delicious!) at non-tourist prices. i have never been on a better tour, and highly recommend Charlie. he can be reached at okeydokeytours@hotmail.com .

by the way, this tour was about half of what a comperable ship's tour would have cost, and way more individual attention-just myself, my husband, the guide, and the driver!

charlie even called mid-tour to ask us if everything was okay, and was there anything else we needed or wanted to see.

[aharris0614]

We had a terrific tour with Charlie Soto's OkeyDokey Tours last month (January 2010 off the Island Princess) in Porto Lima, Costa Rica. The tour was exactly as advertised, and the tourguide, Carlos was fantastic. This was worth every penny, and it was a lot cheaper than the ship excursions. While it was billed for a 5 hour duration, we continued to tour for about 7 hours...because there was time. The entire day was perfect. We saw howler monkeys, sloths, iguanas, leaf cutter ants, had a lovely walk in the rainforest, some of our group went zip lining, we went on a calan boat tour, and we had an authentic lunch at the beach.....a great day!:)

 

Which tour did you do? the A-1?

[ina905]

i forgot to add-we did the A2 tour. you can request a driver. If you have the opportunity to request Danny as your driver, please do so. He was wonderful-a warm, friendly, kind man, and so knowlegable(sp)-he loved his homeland and wanted to provide us the opportunity to love it too!

[path145]

This was the BEST tour we had on our cruise! Charlie was waiting at the gate and directed us to where to meet our guide. Rey and and our driver Salvadore (hope I spelled that right) were great!

 

We did the A-1 Tortugero Canal tour. There were only me, my boyfriend Brian, and one other couple with our guide Rey and driver Salvadore... we were a family for the day!

 

We visited a fruit stand to sample many kinds of wonderful and tasty local fruits. On the way to the banana plantation we were looking for monkeys and sloths in the trees. Any time Rey saw something that he thought we would find interesting, we stopped and he would explain what we were looking at. At the banana plantation, Rey showed us how they grow, harvest, and prepare bananas for shipping.

 

On our way to the Tortugero Canal we passed a boy on the side of the road who was holding a sloth so we stopped to get a good look and I got a great photo of me with the sloth! At the canal we boarded a roomy boat with (I believe his name was) Roberto and his young son. We drove around the canal and they pointed out many different kinds of wildlife.

 

After the canal we went to a beach restaurant (unfortunately I don't remember the name) where we had a typical Costa Rican "Sunday" lunch, consisting of delicious chicken, rice and beans, and plantains. It was great! Rey said it was not an everyday lunch but something they would have on special occasions.

 

After that, we drove high up to get an expansive view of the port and the city, great photo opp! Then we visited a local supermarket where Rey helped us pick out some Costa Rican coffee.

 

I was able to get lots of great photos and wonderful memories. In the short time we had there, Brian and I felt that we got to see a good cross-section of Costa Rica, and because we were a small group we were able to have more one on one time with our guide and learn many things about Costa Rica!

 

Rey was very aware of the time and made sure we got back in time. We made it back to the ship with time to shop!

[gail811]

Just back from the Feb. 16th sailing of the Miracle. We used okeydokey tours and were thrilled! We did the tour to the Veragua Rainforest. Harrison was our guide in the van both ways.

 

 

His English is perfect; the product of a mom who teaches the language. He is very personable and answered any questions we had. We stopped twice along the road to view sloths high in the trees.

 

 

Once to the park we had Danny as our guide.

 

 

Danny went slowly through each exhibit and made sure everyone could see what was behind the glass before moving on.

I e-mailed ahead to have the wheelchair at the park reserved for my sister. It was easy to navigate the trails and getting her on and off the tram was easy.

 

 

The walk to the waterfall was not too difficult and well worth the effort! All in all we had a wonderful day!

[CGMom]

This was the BEST tour we had on our cruise! Charlie was waiting at the gate and directed us to where to meet our guide. Rey and and our driver Salvadore (hope I spelled that right) were great!

 

We did the A-1 Tortugero Canal tour. There were only me, my boyfriend Brian, and one other couple with our guide Rey and driver Salvadore... we were a family for the day!

 

We visited a fruit stand to sample many kinds of wonderful and tasty local fruits. On the way to the banana plantation we were looking for monkeys and sloths in the trees. Any time Rey saw something that he thought we would find interesting, we stopped and he would explain what we were looking at. At the banana plantation, Rey showed us how they grow, harvest, and prepare bananas for shipping.

 

On our way to the Tortugero Canal we passed a boy on the side of the road who was holding a sloth so we stopped to get a good look and I got a great photo of me with the sloth! At the canal we boarded a roomy boat with (I believe his name was) Roberto and his young son. We drove around the canal and they pointed out many different kinds of wildlife.

 

After the canal we went to a beach restaurant (unfortunately I don't remember the name) where we had a typical Costa Rican "Sunday" lunch, consisting of delicious chicken, rice and beans, and plantains. It was great! Rey said it was not an everyday lunch but something they would have on special occasions.

 

After that, we drove high up to get an expansive view of the port and the city, great photo opp! Then we visited a local supermarket where Rey helped us pick out some Costa Rican coffee.

 

I was able to get lots of great photos and wonderful memories. In the short time we had there, Brian and I felt that we got to see a good cross-section of Costa Rica, and because we were a small group we were able to have more one on one time with our guide and learn many things about Costa Rica!

 

Rey was very aware of the time and made sure we got back in time. We made it back to the ship with time to shop!

 

Was Charlie's team quick to respond to emails? I ask b/c I sent a note earlier in the week inquiring about a trip and haven't heard back yet. I am wondering if my message was blocked and I should contact him via phone/fax instead. Thanks!

[chamima]

Was Charlie's team quick to respond to emails? I ask b/c I sent a note earlier in the week inquiring about a trip and haven't heard back yet. I am wondering if my message was blocked and I should contact him via phone/fax instead. Thanks!

 

He always answered pretty quickly. I would email again. If I remember correctly his daughter was due to have a big celebration of turning 15 around now so maybe your email got lost in the excitement. (We had a tour with him 2 weeks ago and he was very excited about his daughter's birthday.)

[path145]

Was Charlie's team quick to respond to emails? I ask b/c I sent a note earlier in the week inquiring about a trip and haven't heard back yet. I am wondering if my message was blocked and I should contact him via phone/fax instead. Thanks!

 

I'd email him back or try calling. He always responded to my emails by the next day at the latest.

[vtwgalmm]

Do they have a web site? I'd like to see what they offer. Thanks

[chamima]

It was on page one of this thread.

http://www.okeydokeytours.com/

[syrupcity]

Just returned home last night from Panama Canal cruise which had a stop in Costa Rica.

It was there that I had the tour of my life. Carlos of Okey Dokey tours took us (a group of 12) all over the area. First was the Canal looking for wildlife, rain came free :), walk in the rainforest, visit to a fruit stand to taste native just picked from the tree fruit, held a sloth, drank green coconut milk, visited a banana plantation, bought coffee in a visit to a grocery store, and zip lined. Late lunch was served that was delicious.

Everyone who went was still talking about the exordinary trip three days later.

Ship did not offer zip lining. I was a little hesitate to just chose a tour group on line. It was all the good remarks that I read at cruise critic that I booked Okey Dokey. I am so glad I did. :o

[Bela]

I got a reply within 36 hours. No problems. I'll be going on the A-1 in less than a month. Charlie said we'd have Rey and Stayton :) THanks for the recommendations. I'll let you know how it goes when I get back.

[Moochanator]

My family and I (4 adults-2 kids) did the A-1 tour on 4/16/10 and we had a very good experience. Our guide was Jorge ("George" was how he introduced himself) and our driver was Marco (Marcos?)

 

I would highly recommend the tour and George as a guide.

 

Some notes...

#1) The entire tour was just for our group (6 of us) while the other operators through the cruise line charged more and had huge charter buses full of people for what amounted to the same tour.

#2) George was very attentive to make sure we were seeing what we wanted to see and going where we wanted to go. It really felt like it was our tour.

#3) George passed us off to another guide at the Tortuguero Canals. the boat guide's (don't remember his name) English was so-so but certainly good enough to show us the wildlife and tell us a little bit about it. He went out of his way to make sure we saw a little bit of everything. (took us a while but we did finally see a tree full of monkeys)

#4) It started raining during the Tortuguero canal tour so, while the boat guide handed out ponchos we still got a little wet on the way back.

#5) The "Authentic Costa Rican Lunch" was actually pretty good.

#6) We elected not to do the shopping portion of the trip because the weather was so lousy and the kids were tired.

#7) I don't know if this is normal but when they dropped us off right in front of the ship- very convenient.

#8) In order to meet our guide we had to keep walking through the craft tent and through the little port authority building to where the fence was. On the other side of the fence was where George was standing

 

I'd definitely use Okekdokey again.

[ladylawyer]

Another happy Okey Dokey customer, here!

 

We had Ray (guide). Wonderful time! Loved seeing the monkeys and crocs. Lunch was very good, with many choices. 32 thumbs up from my group of 16! ~ LL

[nic624]

Hi,

 

I did a tour with OkeyDokey two weeks ago. Rey wsa our guide and we went to the banana plantaion and zip lining. It was interesting to see exactly how banana's were produced. The zip liningwas simply amazing and is highly recommended. The only unfortunate thing is we ran late zip lining due to a crowd in front of us, so we did not get to do the boatride portion of this excursion. Not a big deal as that was not why we went on this excursion, just pointing it out incase someone is expecially interested in that part. Rey said we did have time, and well I am not doubting him, I did not want to run back onboard.

 

I would highly recommend a tour with OkeyDokey.

[dj127]

I reserved a tour thru Charlies w/OkeyDokey and he responded. since then I need to update reservation to add more people and I have been waiting for several days now and no response.................any tips???

DJ127

[Putterdude]

I reserved a tour thru Charlies w/OkeyDokey and he responded. since then I need to update reservation to add more people and I have been waiting for several days now and no response.................any tips???

DJ127

 

I would try him again by email, I seem to recall that sometimes he has problems with his ISP.

[dj127]

Thanks Putterdude. I have sent him 3 e-mails, no response....... he must be on vacation!

[dj127]

I finally heard from Charlie. Numbers have been added and we are now all okie dokie!

DJ127

[caly603]

Looks like most everyone loved their experiences with Charlie's tours. The only thing I don't see is any pricing except for early 2008- none on his website either. Has anyone taken the A2, and what was the price? Would you say when you left and when you got back as well, please?:)