This page is for one thing: getting your Manuel Antonio tour locked in for December 2026 or January 2027. Not a trip-planning essay — the dates, the prices, what is actually available on which day, and how to confirm in a single message. Every number below is our published rate or a figure with its source next to it. Where we have not verified something, we say so instead of guessing.
Fastest way to hold a date: WhatsApp +506 8514-1361. Send your dates, your hotel and how many of you are coming. A person answers, not a bot menu, and you get a straight yes or no on availability.
Because December buys you dry mornings, and mornings are when the forest is working. The wildlife here is resident year-round — December is not a migration month and no month “has more animals” — but December is the transition out of the green season into Costa Rica’s driest stretch, and what changes is the walking and the light. Quepos averages about 249 hours of sunshine in December, against roughly 501 mm of rain spread over about 14 days, with highs near 27 °C (81 °F) and lows near 19 °C (66 °F) (weather-and-climate.com, Quepos station). The rain that does fall here usually arrives in the afternoon or evening. That is the whole reason our tours start early: you walk the trails in the good half of the day, and the month dries out further as it goes on.
What that means in practice: better light for the Swarovski scope, drier trails for the slow, quiet walking that finds sloths, and a canopy that is not roaring with rain while your guide is trying to point out a toucan. We will not promise you a specific animal — nobody honest can, wild animals are not on a schedule. What a certified naturalist changes is your odds and how much of what you pass you actually notice.
The same rates as every other month of the year. We do not raise prices because it is December.
Park entrance, where it is not included, is $18.30 for adults and $5.65 for children, set by SINAC and subject to change — confirm it when you buy. Two adults on the Classic Group in December should budget $30 + $18.30 each, plus their own transport and parking. The $69 Classic Private sitting above the $65 Premium is deliberate: one sells exclusivity, the other sells convenience. Pick the axis that matters to you. See all four side by side on the Manuel Antonio National Park guided tour page.
Three hard constraints shape every December date, and they are the ones travellers find out too late:
Every other day in the window is bookable, subject to the guide calendar — and the guide, not the ticket, is the scarcer resource in high season. There is a finite number of certified naturalists in Manuel Antonio and the good ones are committed weeks out. Group tours cap at 10 people; private tours take the day you choose with a flexible start time.
We do not publish a live seat counter on this page, because a number we cannot keep honest by the hour is worse than no number. Message us with your exact date and you get the real answer for that day, including whether we are already holding park tickets for it: WhatsApp +506 8514-1361.
At the entrance you will be quoted roughly $20–25 per person, and you will have no way of knowing whether the man quoting it is certified. That gap is the whole reason this question shows up on TripAdvisor four separate times. Costa Rica issues ICT certification to naturalist guides; the shirt that says “official” at the gate does not. Our Classic Group is $30 per person with an ICT-certified guide, a Swarovski spotting scope and your photos and video included — booked in advance, with a name attached to it and a receipt. The process to hire a good one is the boring one: book before you arrive, check the certification, and do not negotiate on the roadside at 7 a.m. with your family standing behind you.
They genuinely try, and in December — the busiest month — they try hardest, because more people means more food rewards. White-faced capuchins open zips, go through bags and will take food out of your hand on Playa Manuel Antonio; raccoons and coatis do the same. This is not a rare incident, it is the normal behaviour of animals that have learned humans carry lunch. What works: keep your bag closed and on you, never carry visible food, never feed them, and do not try to take something back from a capuchin. On a guided tour your guide runs interference on this all day, which is a bigger part of the job in high season than most visitors expect.
Toucans, yes — regularly, and December’s dry mornings are good conditions for spotting them in the canopy. Scarlet macaws are possible at the right spots rather than guaranteed in the park itself. Manuel Antonio holds over 350 bird species, and with a scope and someone who knows the perches you will see far more than you would alone. But if birds are the reason you are coming, be honest with us on WhatsApp and we will tell you straight whether the park is your best morning or whether one of our dedicated birdwatching tours fits your dates better. We would rather send you to the right forest than sell you the wrong one.
The Tárcoles bridge is the most famous stop on the San José–Manuel Antonio drive and the crocodiles under it are real and large. Two practical warnings from travellers who have done it: the bridge carries heavy truck traffic, so watch children closely, and do not leave anything visible in your car while you are looking over the rail — vehicle break-ins at that pull-off are a recurring complaint. At Manuel Antonio itself, the beaches inside the park are not crocodile habitat; the estuaries and river mouths along the coast are a different matter, which is exactly why you swim where the rangers and your guide tell you to.
Plan on roughly 3 to 4.5 hours from SJO to Manuel Antonio depending on traffic, the Tárcoles stop and the weather — the wide range is honest, not evasive, and it is why “we’ll land at 4 p.m. and do the park the same day” rarely works. The park walk itself runs about 2 to 4 hours on a guided tour, which is the difference between covering ground and actually stopping at what your guide finds. Wear closed shoes with grip: December trails still get wet, and the main trail has roots and slope. If you arrive on the day of your tour, book an afternoon start and tell us your flight number.
Bookings for tours between 15 December and 15 January are not refundable at any time. Outside that window you get a full refund if you cancel 72 hours or more before the tour. We say it plainly rather than bury it, because the reason is concrete: in those weeks we buy park entrance tickets, boat spaces and ranger permits well in advance, and a seat released at the last minute cannot be resold. The one exception runs in your favour — if conditions on the water, on the mountain road or in the forest become genuinely unsafe, we reschedule or refund you in full, high season included. Full text on our cancellation policy page.
Send us the date, where you are staying and how many of you are coming, and you will get a real answer for that specific day — not a form, not a callback window.
→ WhatsApp +506 8514-1361 and hold your December date
Prefer to read first? Compare the four tour options on the Manuel Antonio National Park guided tour page, read the wider December and January high season guide, work through the 28-question park FAQ, or see what the forest holds in our Manuel Antonio wildlife guide.
Want the whole day planned around you, not just the park? See Private Concierge — a custom Manuel Antonio day built around your own private tour guide.
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Guided by Jason Solano Zamora, Costa Rica Wakoo Tours.