Close Encounters of the Croc (and Butterfly) Kind - Excellent tour! We did the butterflies and crocs tour and had a great time. Our guide was very knowledgeable, skilled with handling the butterflies, and was very enthusiastic. The tour... read more presented 9 varieties of vivid Costa Rican butterflies up close and also boasted a variety of reptiles. The sanctuary does very good work raising the animals, and we’d highly recommend a visit!

  Do not miss the opportunity to visit this fascinating sanctuary of native Costa Rican reptiles, butterflies, assorted plants, wild monkeys and birds. A natural stream runs through the property, providing... read more a ‘green’ solution for the animals. Many are rescues, all cared for by knowledgeable staff.

The butterfly pavilion must be experienced to be believed! Walk among Blue Morphos and other species in their native habitat to observe and learn about breeding, care and preservation.

  I finally got to see my fill of beautiful blue morpho butterflies here!

Our guide, Sofia was great and explained all about the different species of butterflies,... read more and their life cycles, environmental niches and differences between species. I was so impressed that she was only 14 years old!

It does get hot in the conservatory, so I suggest early morning for the tour. By later in the day, there is shade on some of the walkways to see the crocodiles and turtles.

We saw a variety of butterflies and chrysallis pods, and even got to hold a blue morpho caterpillar! Outside the butterfly conservatory, we saw various species of rescued turtles, caymans and crocodiles (babies, young adults and huge older adults!). As they had been fed the day before, there were lots of turkey vultures hanging about too! We also saw tilapia as well as basilisk lizards - perhaps you may catch them running atop the water!

I really enjoyed the stories our guide told us, of how each crocodile was rescued and named, and the importance of education in saving these amazing prehistoric creatures from human ignorance.

I love that this tour was not too long for children, and that the tour area itself was small. This would be a great first or last stop for families as you get to see cool new animals, learn about them from a younger guide, and aren't exhausted by a 12 hour tour or 2 hour hike through a rainforest!

  A group of 8 of us did a night jungle walk through the property with both Juan and Diego. Both of them were super informative and really cool guides for... read more the evening as we walked though the property with flashlights in hand that they supplied. They pointed out interesting frogs, snakes, butterflies, crocodiles, spiders, lizards and other stuff and added cool info about each. Definitely would recommend doing this night tour for anyone interested it some after dark Costa Rica adventures. It was raining that night too but it didn’t matter the tour was still fun.

  We took a tour of Manuel Antonio National Park in the morning, and had a tour reserved here for the afternoon; we were so tired after the morning we almost... read more canceled and I’m so happy we didn’t!! This tour was much better than the national park- we saw WAY more animals (capuchin monkeys up close, howler monkeys, sloths, woodpeckers, macaws, very interesting frogs and insects, lizards, and of course the crocodiles and butterflies after the walk), plus the walk itself felt more authentic and was very beautiful. Our guide Juan was so nice and incredibly knowledgeable. Another plus was that there was no restriction on bringing in snacks, which was a big problem for us in the national park with young kids. Honestly we would have done this instead of the Manuel Antonio National park tour.

  We did the butterflies and crocs tour. Juan was fantastic! Kept our whole group (age range from 5 yo to 55 yo) engaged. He was just wonderful! Highly recommend!