Papa's Place — Attraction in La Fortuna

Our family of 5 did two different bookings with Papas Place, each on a different day. First was the cooking class with Priscilla, her mom Sophia and a their assistant and translator Billy. Our family consisted of myself, my husband, 22 yr old daughter and her nearly 80 year old grandparents. We all had the most amazing time, learning about new types of fruits and vegetables, cutting and preparing various parts of the meal, and then helping to make and cook frsh tortillas. And of course at the end we got to try all the wonderful foods. The chicken, red beans, and rice were incredible as where the fried plantains and soup. It was a very filling and delicious meal and we had the best time getting to know Billy, Priscilla and Sophia (Priscilla's mom).

After dinner we even got to go out to their garden for a night tour where we saw several red eye tree frogs among others, as well as a snake who was feasting on frog eggs near the pond. Billy and Priscilla knew just where to find all the night critters and provided interesting educational info about the frogs.

Even my skeptical in laws had a great time and also enjoyed the food. Priscilla is just an amazing cook.

The other tour we did with Pappa's Place was a sloth Tour. Gerald (Priscilla's husband) was our guide and took us to spots around the La Fortuna area to see probably 6-7 sloths total. We saw both 2 and 3 toed sloths and also saw several amazing varieties of birds such as Tucan, a poisonous dart frog, as well as an iguana high in a tree. The best part was watching the sloth move down the tree and seeing one hanging upside down scratching its head and grinning at us. Gerald used a very high powered scope to take amazing close up video and photos with our phones so we got great images to share with our friends and family. After seeing a ton of wildlife, we went back to Gerald and Pracillas lovely home where Pracilla and her mom Sophie where cooking typical Costa Rican foods. In the tour description it mentioned a "snack" but this was more like a meal for the 5 of us, all freshly made. It was absolutely delicious and incredibly filling. It ended up being our main meal that day.

We cannot praise Gerald and Priscilla enough, they went above and beyond our expectations and were so incredibly friendly and welcoming. They have left a special impression of Costa Rica on our hearts and we will have the fondest memories of this time with our family spent in such a joyful way learning about Pura Vida first hand from these...

We booked a tour with Gerald in late October. It was the most fantastic and personal experience we had in Costa Rica.

The tour started early around 7 am at Geralds house, which is called Papa’s Place close to the Arenal volcano and La Fortuna. We have been the only guests. For the tour, Gerald had a brand new van and a set of binoculars for us. We were both driving and walking around at different spots to find Sloths but also other animals. Gerald knows where the sloth are hanging around. It is very important that - differing from other tours in town - the sloth are not moved to any certain place, but are observed and remain in their natural chosen habitat. Other operators in town are putting sloth into very dense spaces for something like a “sloth walk” on a couple of 100 meters, but this is against their natural behaviours. Gerald is respectful for the environment and the animals natural habitats. This is why the tour involves driving around between different areas. Gerald explained everything to us in English, which we could perfectly understand.

First, we spottet a whole lot of Tucans, followed by a group of monkeys. 45 minutes into the tour, we found our first sloth. Actually it was a mama with a baby. Gerald found an angle where we could perfectly see the baby’s face and take pictures. Later we spotted several active sloths at different locations around the town. After around 3 hours and seven sloths, we finished the tour at Gerald’s house. His wonderful fiancé prepared some homemade snacks and coffee for us and we had a very personal coffee snack together, which was a perfect ending of our tour.

We can highly recommend Gerald as a respectful, knowledgeable and personal guide offering you a...

My family and I just left La Fortuna/Arenal and I wanted to give a huge recommendation on this tour!!! It’s not our first time here and have previously done similar tours, but this by far blew the others away in our opinion. We are a family of 2 adults and 1 seven year old.

If you are looking for a night tour, check out Papa’s Place. It was awesome!!! We’ve done Oasis in the past which was good (as recently as last December), however, we much preferred this tour. @mike Guia was our incredible guide. We saw tons of frogs, snakes, beetles, bullet ants (he got them up close so we could check them out), etc. But it wasn’t just what we saw that made it special. It was super informative and Mike was beyond wonderful with my daughter. He took his time in explaining all the animals and plants we were seeing and even the smallest beetle became fascinating. Mike also helped in taking some cool pictures for us too. My inquisitive daughter is a nature lover and we all learned so much….she was still talking about it thru breakfast and lunch today 😂. Definitely much more personal than Oasis in my opinion. While we were leaving, they were starting a cooking class, and while we didn’t have time to participate in it, it smelled delicious !!! My biggest regret was not finding this place and Mike sooner!!! Would have loved to do more tours with them. This will definitely be our go to place when we visit in the future.

If you’re looking for a night tour where you will see a lot, get personalized attention and actually learn about what you’re...