Night Walk Tour — Attraction in Monteverde

Overall, the night walk tour was decent. The guide highly notes that wildlife is unpredictable and we might not see anything at all. So I think I was lucky to see the snake, various insects, female tarantulas, and a sleeping bird. It was great that our guide was happy to take close ups of the animals with a special light so the animals aren't a blurry mess. The reason I took a star off was because flashlight provided wasn't good and barely lit 3 feet in front of me. I had to rely on other people's flashlights to see anything at the distance - which was practically everything... It seemed like there were more people on the tours that they didn't have enough to provide to everyone so they took out old flashlights... Additionally, Our guide was focused on answering our groups questions and didn't bother to be on the look out. On one hand, it was great that he was enthusiastic to provide information but, on the other hand, I felt like he could have been more vigilant on animal watching...

My partner and I came back to the trail the next day before sunset. We saw even less wildlife but it was interesting to see the path and location in the daylight. The sunset was just beautiful. We had a little snack at the Night Walk Tour building and a Coati friend came by...

This tour was not what we expected. The trails were heavily industrialized, which took away from the natural experience. Most of what we saw were small insects (several stick bugs and leaf bugs), despite the pictures advertising more interesting wildlife. Obviously that’s hard to control but with most other wildlife tours in Costa Rica, the guides know where to find the animals and he just didn’t seem to know besides the one tarantula. The other tour got to see scorpions, other bigs spiders, and frogs which is what we were aiming for.

Our group was the full 12, which was expected but the guide didn’t do a great job managing everyone. People were constantly shining flashlights in faces and at animals, with no real direction from the guide. He also wasn’t making sure everyone was with him, it was difficult for people to hear or see the animal at all at times. The pictures we received afterward did not show several of the creatures we saw and was this shared Google album with another tour’s findings, making it feel impersonal. And they were mostly videos that were shared, not photos. Overall, it felt disorganized and not worth the money. Would...

We had a fantastic night tour with Dauner who was so friendly and enthusiastic. The guides work together to ensure that everyone has a good shot of seeing the wildlife, which was really nice. Dauner was so knowledgeable about all of the animals, fungi and plants we found and also took fantastic photos and videos through his scope so that we could focus on enjoying the moment. While we were waiting for the tour to begin we watched the sunset from the most beautiful viewing point and saw wild pigs! At the start of the tour we were looking at fantastically camouflaged insects when Dauner got a call to say that a mammal had been spotted! So we went to join another group that had come across a kinkajou and an olingo! We got to observe both in the trees and also spotted several armadillo on our walk! A highlight for me was Claudia the tarantula - Dauner tempted her out of her burrow so she could show off for us all! We also saw a tiny, very well camouflaged frog, a tiny lizard and some very cool fungi. The tour was fantastic and I would...