Payment for a Manuel Antonio National Park tour happens in two separate places, and almost every confused email we get comes from not knowing that. You pay Wakoo Tours for the guided tour when you book online, and you pay SINAC — the Costa Rican park service — separately for the park entrance ticket, which costs $18.08 per adult. Nobody can take your money at the gate, and nobody can sell you a ticket on the day you arrive. This page explains exactly what you pay, when, to whom, and what happens when you need to change or cancel.
You pay online at the moment you book, through the booking calendar on the tour page — you choose your date and your exact departure time, and payment is taken there. There is no invoice to chase afterwards and no second transaction on the morning of the tour. Departures run from 7:00 AM, with the last one at 12:30 PM, and the time you select in the calendar is the time your guide is holding for you.
If your booking needs a custom quote — private transport for a group, an unusual pickup point, an itinerary that is not one of the four standard options — we quote you the exact figure on WhatsApp before you pay anything. We would rather give you the number than let you assume something is bundled that is not.
There is no separate deposit: the tour price is paid in full when you book, and there is nothing left owing to Wakoo Tours afterwards. This is worth saying plainly because deposit-then-balance is common in Costa Rican tourism and travellers reasonably expect it. With us, the amount you see at checkout is the amount that leaves your account, once.
The only money that comes after that is the park entrance ticket, and it does not come to us at all — see the SINAC sections below.
No, and this is the single most important thing on this page. Manuel Antonio National Park has not sold tickets at the entrance for years: every ticket is bought in advance through the official SINAC system, and if you show up without a valid ticket for that date, the tour cannot run and the booking is non-refundable. That is not our rule, it is the park’s, and we cannot override it for you.
The same logic applies to the guided tour itself. Because your guide is reserved for a specific departure slot and turns other travellers away to hold it, the tour is paid at the time of booking rather than on arrival. If cash on arrival is genuinely the only way you can pay, message us on WhatsApp before you book and we will tell you honestly whether we can work with it for your date rather than let you travel on an assumption.
Four options run to Manuel Antonio National Park, all priced per adult:
On every option except Premium, the $18.08 park entrance is paid separately to SINAC, so you pay only the exact national-park rate with nothing added on top by us.
The $18.08 breaks down as $16 set by SINAC plus 13% Costa Rican sales tax, which is where the odd cents come from. Children aged 2 to 12 pay $5.65. That money goes to the national park service, not to Wakoo Tours — we do not mark it up, and any operator quoting you a round $20 or $25 “entrance fee” is adding a margin on a government price.
If you see $18.50 quoted anywhere for the Manuel Antonio entrance, including on older pages of our own site that we have been correcting, $18.08 is the correct figure.
SINAC tickets go on sale exactly two months before your date — a tour on December 20, 2026 has its tickets open on October 20, 2026. That window is why the order of payment matters: we hold your guide first, and the ticket is bought the day the window opens for your date. Booking your tour eight months out is fine and sensible; the ticket simply cannot exist yet.
For every option except Premium, you reserve and pay for your own ticket online before the tour — $18.08 for adults, $5.65 for children. We tell you when your window opens rather than leaving you to discover it.
For most dates, if you need to change or cancel, message us and we will work with you — the earlier you tell us, the more we can do, because a guide held for a slot cannot be resold at the last minute.
There is one hard exception, published and applied without variation: bookings for tours between 15 December and 15 January are non-refundable at any time. That is the peak-season policy on our December booking page, and we would rather you read it here before you pay than discover it afterwards. It exists because those are the dates on which we turn away the most travellers to hold your slot.
The other non-refundable case is the one above: arriving without a valid SINAC ticket for your date means the tour cannot run, and that booking is not refunded.
The tour runs, and that is not a way of keeping your money. Rain rarely stops a Manuel Antonio walk: wildlife stays active, the forest is at its best in a light shower, and we tour in the mornings, which are usually the driest part of the day. A rainy forecast is not a cancellation reason on our side, and a guide who tells you otherwise is usually rebooking you into a fuller slot.
If the weather turns into something genuinely unsafe rather than wet, that is a different conversation and you should message us.
Manuel Antonio National Park is closed every Tuesday, and for the 2026-2027 high season that means nine specific dates. No operator, no price, and no amount of paying extra gets anyone inside the park on these days:
If a booking form lets you pay for a park tour on Tuesday December 22, 2026, that alone tells you what kind of operator you are dealing with. Our calendar does not offer those dates for the park walk; we will put you on the day before or the day after, or on one of the tours that runs outside the park boundary.
The gap is $30 to $69 per adult between Classic Group and Classic Private, and the honest answer depends on group size. Two people pay $60 shared against $138 private — a real difference. A family of four pays $120 shared against $276 private, and what that buys is pace: stopping as long as your children want at the sloth, leaving when they are done, and not waiting on eleven other travellers.
If your reason for wanting private is only “we do not like groups”, the Classic Group walk caps small enough that most travellers who were worried about it tell us afterwards it was not an issue. If your reason is a mobility limit, a nap schedule, or a photographer’s patience, private is the one that actually solves it.
Manuel Antonio has a long-running problem with people in the entrance road presenting themselves as official guides and taking cash. Four checks, all of which cost you nothing:
For two adults on the Classic Group tour in December 2026: $30 + $30 for the tour, plus $18.08 + $18.08 to SINAC, is $96.16 total for the park day. On Premium the entrance is already inside the $65, so two adults is $130 with nothing further to pay. Those are the real all-in numbers, and nothing else is added at the gate, in the van, or at the end of the walk. Tips are welcome and never expected.
Yes, on every option except Premium. The tour is paid to us online when you book; the $18.08 park entrance is paid to SINAC through the official ticket system. Premium at $65 includes the entrance.
No. The full tour price is paid at booking and there is no balance due later.
No. The tour is paid when you book, and the park has not accepted payment at the entrance for years.
$5.65 for children aged 2 to 12. Under 2 enter free.
Exactly two months before. A December 20, 2026 tour has tickets available from October 20, 2026.
No. Bookings for tours between 15 December and 15 January are non-refundable at any time.
The tour cannot run and the booking is non-refundable. This is the most expensive mistake a traveller can make here, and it is entirely avoidable.
No. Tips are welcome but never expected, and no guide of ours will ask.
Planning the rest of the day around what you pay? Compare all four options side by side on the Manuel Antonio National Park guided tour page, see every combination on the Manuel Antonio tour packages page, and read the ticket mechanics in full on the Manuel Antonio park tickets guide.