Costa Rica has been on my bucket list for quite some time so I was very excited to find a cruise that included it! Costa Rica isn’t on many itineraries, but there are some sailings here. Ships visit the Caribbean side of the country and dock in Limon.
We woke up tired from the long day in the Panama Canal, but we energized at the thought of seeing sloths! My son was the most excited about this port and seeing the rain forest. When we got off the ship, music welcomed us. As we approached the end of the dock, I realized it was live music! All the Princess Tours had the buses lined here. For our excursion booked outside of the cruise line, we exited the port and met our representatives outside. They stood with signs with passenger names and I found ours! We loaded into our bus and waited for the last two to arrive, but they never came. We left without them and ended up having seven of us.
Costa Rica was the country I was most excited to visit, but also the country that I had the hardest time choosing an excursion. I knew we wanted to see a national park and wildlife, but wasn’t sure which one to see! The well-known parks are located a couple hours from Limon, but there is another one closer. We decided on the closer option because I plan to come back to see the other side of the country. Our tour was called “Rainforest and Banana Exploration.”
Our 45-minute drive to Cahuita National Park took about 75 minutes because we made frequent stops for wildlife viewing. We saw our first sloth! It was high in a tree and difficult to see. The second one was closer, but still fairly far away. Next, we saw a tree full of monkeys!
Cahuita National Park is a rainforest located on the Caribbean Sea. We spotted more sloths and monkeys here and also saw the less exotic raccoon. It was a far less exotic park than I was expecting, but still gorgeous. The beauty of the Caribbean Sea stole the show for this park, but watching the monkeys was a close second. My son was the most excited about the rainforest, but when we got here, all he wanted to do was play on the beach. We took about 30 minutes to walk on a nature trail through the trees. It was a flat walk and the scenery was similar the entire walk. The path ran parallel to the beach and every so often there were paths to take you from the nature trail to the beach. Instead of walking back on the nature trail, we opted for a walk back on the beach instead. The beach was gorgeous, but the water was very rough. Our guide said that it’s often too rough to swim in, but there are other beaches nearby that are calmer.
We backtracked our journey on the bus to a banana plantation. We had passed very large banana plantations on our way to the national park and I assumed we’d go to one of those. Instead, we went to a much smaller tourist stop. The plus is that it had a variety of plants that were each marked, but I wouldn’t call it a banana plantation. We strolled through the plants while reading the identifying signs. Afterwards we ended in the gift shop which was really nice. We grabbed a popsicle, chips, and coffee.
The disappointment with the banana plantation was that they didn’t have any fruit to buy and eat nor did they give us samples of bananas. Eating the fruit is the best part! I asked our guide if we could stop somewhere to buy some fruit to try. She said yes. A benefit to a small tour! We stopped at a small fruit stand near the port. The two men in the stand were very nice and accepted US dollar payment. I purchased two mangoes and two bananas and it cost me $1 USD!
Our tour dropped us off in front of the port entrance. We still had plenty of time so we explored a little more. We walked towards the sea and what looked like a beach, but it was very rocky. Every country has their unique way of asking for money. In Costa Rica, the line is, “Let me show you a sloth.” We had a few people offer to show us sloths while we walked through the city park and they weren’t asking out of the kindness in their heart. There were mostly locals in this area of town. We stopped here for awhile so my son could play in the playground. Brian was a little aggressive with pushing my son on the merry-go-round so that ended our playground time abruptly.
Back on the ship, Brian headed to the pool while my son and I relaxed in the room. We ordered room service which has become my favorite thing! A full pizza, French fries, alcoholic drink for me, and mocktail for Colton arrived promptly after pushing a few buttons on the app. The room service is seriously faster than if I went about the ship collecting these same food and drink items.
We ran into my son's new BFF after dinner and they made a playdate together at the kid’s club! It was Olympic themed tonight and my son won a bicycle race and earned himself some candy, a medal, and a small bag. Tomorrow we have a day at sea which is a welcome break from all the activity the last two days!
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