White water rafting in Costa Rica

[LivetoCruise412]

My family & I are going on the Freedom 6/6 and one of the stops is Costa Rica. We are really thinking of doing the white water rafting excursion through Carnival. Can anyone give me some insight on this excursion. Like is the water really rough and scary? Are the sights as your going down the river unbelievable? You see kinda have a fear of the water but I seem to be out voted on this one and would like to know just what I'm setting myself up for. I know that there is a description on the Carnival site, but I would rather here from all of you cause I know you'll tell me the truth. Thanks;):)

[cccer]

We did this tour two years ago and I can tell you it was wonderful. I have never white water rafted before and I had a great time. My wife did some WW rafting in Colorado many years ago and she said this was tame compared to that. I heard the have some harder water there, but this is not part of the Carnival tour. One woman fell off her raft during the excursion and we picked her up, but other than that, every stayed onboard.

Go for it and have a great time.

[Lady_Jag]

OK, so my experience might not be helpful, but here goes:

 

I stayed a week in Costa Rica a back in the 90's and booked a white water rafting tour with my DH (then boyfriend) at a travel agency there. I am not a good swimmer and not a fan of "thrill" rides, so I had a few of the same reservations you did.

 

We took a scenic, yet hair-raising, bus ride up a mountain where the narrow steep road had no rails on the side and the bus driver drove like...well like a Costa Rican bus driver. :eek: LOL!

 

When we reached our destination, we had the choice of a Spanish-speaking guide or an English-speaking guide. I could speak Spanish a lot better back then, but we chose the English-speaking guide because hubby no habla ni una palabra de espanol (spoke not a word of spanish). As luck would have it, the other people in our raft were from Miami and spoke fluent Spanish, so since the guide was more comfortable in her native tongue, she would give us instructions and info in Spanish, then translate for my hubby.

 

At the very first rapid, the guide told us in Spanish something about a hole in the river that was coming up, and that we should just keep paddling and fall INTO the raft if we were going to fall. I thought "my Spanish must be lousy, because I think she just said there was a hole in the river."

 

Then she turned to my hubby and said "there's a hole in the river coming up, but you should just keep paddling and fall INTO the raft if you are going to fall." :eek:

 

Sure enough, the raft in front of us drifted over to the hole and DISAPPEARED! It was like it was swallowed by the river! A few seconds later, the whole raft popped back up like the river had reguritated it, and the GUIDE was the one who had fallen out into the river!! I didn't have time to even THINK about panicking before we plopped into the hole as well. Just as quickly, we popped back out to the other side, all 8 of us still in the raft!

 

I looked at my hubby like "what the h*** did you talk me into?!?" but after the initial shock, I thought "Hey! That was cool!"

 

After that first category 4 rapid, the rest of our trip was beautifully serene, and just category 2s and 3s that punctuated a nice "lazy river" type ride. I wished I had taken a waterproof camera, because I could have gotten some beautiful scenic shots of the vegetation and wildlife. Toucans flew by and showed off some really amazing colors! There was even a point where we could float along next to the raft and enjoy the water.

 

I'm so glad I did it and it really wasn't that challenging, even for a bad swimmer like me! In fact it wasn't even 1/2 as scary as the bus ride up the mountain and back into town! You'll have a great time!

[LivetoCruise412]

Thank you for answering me. With my water luck we will hit a "whole in the river" and I will be the one to fall out of the raft. But I'm sure we will have life preservers on and my husband knows what a chicken I am when it comes to water that I'm sure he will grab me out of the water asap. I have told them all that if I drown it will be on their consience

[dclark]

I did that trip last dec. Do not book with CCL unless you want to pay more $ for less time on the water and a long walk down to the river. They use buses that can't go down the winding little road, so they kick the people out at the top and they have a long, long walk.We saw them walking in a long line, like ants.

The river was pretty tame when we went, no one fell out. We stopped once to stretch and look at a water fall, had a chance to float on our back down a hundred feet to the boats.Oh, how calm? My wife has carpal tunnel and sat in the middle with no paddles, she did fine. I brought along my digital camera with the waterproof housing.

 

Our guide was good, a proud member of the Costa Rica raft team. Afterwards, they passed out fresh pineapple. This was booked through Danillo. he told us that when people book direct, not through CCL,it is cheaper for you and more $ finds its way to poor costa ricans.