If you’re planning a vacation to Costa Rica, why not bring your hotel and restaurant? The most delightful way to experience Costa Rica’s wonderful beaches and coastal rainforests is from a cruise ship, and when you treat yourself to a Costa Rica cruise, getting there will be a big part of the fun!
Coata Rica cruises range from budget seven- or eight-night voyages with a single Costa Rican port of call in Puerto Caldera, on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, Seabourn’s to four-week cruises that start in Puerto Caldera and work their way along along the Central American Coast, stopping in Puerto Quepos and Puerto Menos, before touring the Caribbean and ending in Fort Lauderdale.
These Costa Rica cruises traverse the Panama Canal to reach from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, but before they begin, allow your passengers to spend a day in Puerto Caldera to enjoy the sights of San José. One of the most popular attractions is the National Theater in the Plaza de las Culturas. Modeled after the Paris Opera, the National Theater houses magnificent Italian paintings, sculptures and frescoes.
Coat Rican cruise ship passengers who want a glimpse of the country’s wild side before heading to the Panama Canal can take an excursion to Poás Volcano National Park during their day in Puerto Caldera (Caldera refers to the volcanic crater). Some Poás tours also include side trips to the Doka Coffee Estate and the town of Sarchí, the heart of Costa Rica’s artisan community.
In Sarchí you can buy hand-carved wooden figures and elaborate walking sticks, hand-woven wall hangings, leather goods and toys. You can also purchase charming miniature replicas of Sarchí’s famous hand-painted wooden carts to use as planters or decorative accents. Or you can spend your day offshore rafting the Corobici River, gliding through the heart of the Costa Rican jungle, and glimpse some of the hundreds of species of birds that make Costa Rica a bird watcher’s paradise.
Windstar is one of two cruise lines that sail to Costa Rica’s Golfo Dulce, where you’ll find the largest rainforest in Central America and one of the few rainforests on Earth that slopes directly down to meet the ocean. Declared a national treasure by the Costa Rican government, Golfo Dulce is such a remarkably diverse ecosystem that you can actually identify 100 different species of trees growing on a single acre.
During your stop in Golfo Dulce, you can explore the small town of Golfito, established in the 1930s as a banana port, and organize an excursion to Corcovado National Park and the extraordinary black sand beach of Zancudo.
Even Windstar and Seabourne offer only a few Costa Rica cruises each year, and they don’t measure up. Even when arranging these cruises through online discount cruise booking services at 50% off, you can expect to pay a minimum of $7,500 for a four-week cruise. For your money, though, you’ll get a month on one of the world’s two most luxurious cruise ships. Windstar ships are real sailboats, motorized sailing yachts with automated rigs. They can be under full sail within two minutes of activating their rigging, and the largest of their fleet of four ships has a passenger capacity of just 312. Sailing on Windstar entitles you to complimentary water sports activities , such as windsurfing, snorkeling and kayaking. right next to the ship’s water sports platforms.
