Manuel Antonio Beach — Attraction in Quepos

The park itself is beautiful, but the staff behaved terribly.

First, we had to wait in line under the sun while the staff at the bag check and ticket entrance moved like sleepy — or even dying — flies. They were all about “Pura Vida” — fine, but this was just careless.

Then, our 3-year-old wanted to buy a coconut right outside the entrance. We weren’t allowed to enter the park with it — okay, fair enough — but we also weren’t allowed to throw it away in their eco trash bin. I had to leave and walk half a block just to throw away a damn coconut.

And then came the most absurd part: at the beach, our toddler caught a tiny crab and released it. A security guard saw this and tried to kick us out of the park. It was ridiculous and humiliating. We tried to calmly explain ourselves, but the guard called in three more people over the radio — none of whom spoke English — and all four of them started escorting me, my husband, and our small child out of the park. They followed us all the way to the exit.

Honestly, there’s no need to visit this place for the animals — you’ll see sloths, toucans, monkeys, crabs, and iguanas on any Manuel Antonio beach. And as for spotting anything else — I doubt there’s much more to see inside anyway.

Playa Blanca, located not far from Jacó, is far more beautiful — the water is calmer, the sand is whiter, and the scenery is much more impressive. So no, I absolutely don’t recommend paying to be...

We were a little unsure about visiting was is apparently " the most visited National Park in Costa Rica". However we had a fabulous time in the park, seeing a lot of wildlife and avoiding most of the crowds.

We booked tickets in advance through the official website and arrived early at about 8am. We also chose not to have a guide. You are not allowed to take food or single-use plastic into the park. If you want to eat you need to go and sit in a cafe in a giant cage and buy expensive and not very good food.

We had a good walk on most of the trails around the park (some were closed). You do get a good sense of jungle and wild habitat on some of the more remote paths. We also had a nice long chill and a snorkel on a beautiful but quiet beach called Playas las Gemelas, where there was some coral and many fish. This was away from the crowds on the beaches on the peninsula where the monkeys are very bold and can take bags looking for food.

We managed to see a fair bit of wildlife too: deer, sloths, Coati Iguanas on the beach etc.

I think this place is well worth a visit and if you want to avoid the crowds, you can do this by going early ( or probably later in the day) and going to the less obvious places.

I think the Park service does a brilliant job, balancing the number of tourists with the need to keep a reduced impact...

This beach has next level beauty. The Pacific has an emerald hue here. It gets very busy however, as it is attached to the most popular National Park in Costa Rica. My advice would be to go early and before your tour of the National Park to avoid the crowds. I visited here after the tour, and as the park rangers police this beach, they very forcefully make sure you are on your way home by 4pm. They blow their whistles loudly and continuously, which is kind of annoying. It does not take away from the stunning unspoiled natural beauty of this place. There is no plastic allowed on entry which is great, so you will be relieved of your plastic water bottle should you have one. They allowed me to bring my snorkelling gear in thankfully. The water is lovely and clear, so there is fish to see, but I ran out of time to really make the most out of that, due to that 4pm cut off. The sand is lovely and soft with a tint of black in there. There are also rinsing facilities and toilets behind the beach. The black iguanas co-exist side by side with people on this beach, that it becomes the norm after a while. Be careful of the many capuchin monkeys who will appear out of the rainforest, and are determined to steal your small items if...