Parasailing in Manuel Antonio costs $100 for a single flight, $155 for a double and $210 for a triple, all plus 13% tax, and the whole experience takes about 30 minutes of which 10 to 15 minutes are actually in the air. It launches from the Quepos beachfront, not from inside Manuel Antonio National Park. Wakoo Tours does not operate parasailing — we guide the national park, the Damas mangrove and the night walk — so this page gives you the real numbers and shows you how to fit a flight around the park day you are already planning.
The published rates for the Manuel Antonio area are $100 single, $155 double and $210 triple, plus 13% IVA, with deposits of $20, $30 and $40 respectively. Tax-inclusive that works out to about $113 for one person, $175 for two and $237 for three.
The double is the number most people should look at. Two adults flying tandem pay $175 all-in, which is $87.50 each — cheaper per person than a single flight and the same amount of air time. Unless you specifically want to be alone under the canopy, flying in pairs is the obvious move.
For context inside a Manuel Antonio budget: the SINAC national park entrance is $18.50 per adult, and a Wakoo guided group tour of the park is $30 per person for guiding only or $65 with the entrance ticket and hotel pickup included. A tandem parasail flight costs roughly what a guided park morning costs for two people. It is a short, high-adrenaline purchase, and you should go in knowing the price is for ten to fifteen minutes of flight.
No. Parasailing does not operate inside Manuel Antonio National Park; the boats launch from the Quepos and Manuel Antonio beachfront, with Aguas Azules beach listed as the operating point. The catalogue listing says so directly: the tour is not done inside the national park.
That is not a technicality — it is the whole reason the activity is available on days the park is not. The park is a protected reserve with a daily visitor cap and a closed day; the water off Quepos is open ocean. Boats work out of the Marina Pez Vela area and the Espadilla stretch, which are a five to ten minute drive from most Manuel Antonio hotels.
What you actually see from 400 feet up is the reason people buy it: the full arc of Playa Espadilla, the Punta Catedral headland that joins the old island to the mainland, and the forest canopy of the park itself from above. You get the park’s coastline in one frame — which is the one view you cannot get from inside it.
The listed experience is 30 minutes — 15 minutes of instruction and 15 minutes of flying — and the operator notes the full outing including the boat ride and preparation runs one to two hours. Included are professional equipment and professional guides.
Break that down honestly. You are picked up or you meet at the beach, you get a safety briefing and a harness fitting, you board, the boat runs out, you are winched up off the back platform, you fly, you are winched down, and you come back in. The actual time with your feet off the boat is 10 to 15 minutes. Anyone selling you “an hour of parasailing” is describing the logistics, not the flight.
What is not included: hotel transportation in most cases, photos and video (usually an add-on), and gratuity for the crew. Ask about the photo package before you fly — the crew shoots from the boat and it is the one souvenir that is hard to reproduce afterwards.
The maximum combined weight per flight is 400 lbs, the minimum age is 3 years old, and children aged 3 to 8 must fly in a double or triple with an adult. Group size per flight runs from 1 to 3 people.
The 400 lb combined ceiling is the constraint that catches families out. Two adults at 180 lbs each are at 360 and fine. Two adults plus a child at 200, 170 and 60 is 430 and will be refused or split into two flights, which changes the price. Weigh the group honestly before you book a triple, because the crew will weigh you at the beach and there is no negotiating with a parasail wing.
Beyond weight, the normal restrictions apply: no flying while pregnant, and recent surgery, back or neck problems, or heart conditions are a reason to skip it. The harness takes your bodyweight through the hips and thighs and the landing on the boat platform is a controlled drop — it is gentle, but it is not nothing.
No — Wakoo Tours does not operate parasailing, and we are not going to take a commission on an activity we do not run. Our licensed guides work Manuel Antonio National Park, the Damas Island mangrove by boat, the night walk at the Sukia reserve, Corcovado, and the birding circuits at Playa del Rey, Carara and San Gerardo de Dota.
What we do is make the rest of your day work around it. A parasail flight eats ninety minutes of a morning or an afternoon and nothing else. If you fly in the afternoon, book the 7:00 a.m. park group and you will be back at the hotel by 10:30 with the whole rest of the day free. If you fly in the morning, the Damas Island mangrove boat tour is the afternoon that pairs best, because it runs on the tide rather than on the light.
Saying “we don’t do that” costs us a booking and saves you a bad one. The parasail operators in Quepos are equipped and licensed for it; we are not.
Morning flights are calmer and more reliable, and the December-to-April dry season has far fewer weather cancellations than the May-to-November green season. Wind and afternoon storms are what cancel a parasail day, and both are morning-light and afternoon-heavy on this coast.
The numbers behind that: Manuel Antonio averages roughly 8.3 hours of sun a day in December against about 5.1 hours in September and 5.2 in October. In green season the rain is overwhelmingly an afternoon and evening event, so a 9:00 a.m. flight in October has a genuinely good chance of going ahead while a 3:00 p.m. one does not.
Sunset flights are the ones people ask for and the ones most likely to be moved. They are spectacular when they run. If your trip is short, book the flight early in your stay so there is room to reschedule — operators will move you for weather but they cannot conjure a slot on your departure day.
Yes. Parasailing operates on Tuesdays because it launches from open water outside the park, which is closed to visitors every Tuesday of the year. That makes Tuesday the single best day to spend on the water in Manuel Antonio.
The closed Tuesdays in the peak season window are December 1, December 8, December 15, December 22 and December 29, 2026, and January 5, January 12, January 19 and January 26, 2027 — nine dates when the park gate does not open at all.
A full Tuesday that wastes nothing: parasail flight in the morning out of Quepos, lunch at Marina Pez Vela, Damas mangrove boat tour in the afternoon, and the night walk after dark at the private Sukia reserve, which needs no SINAC ticket and therefore runs on Tuesdays too. Three activities, zero dependence on the park gate.
Parasailing is a low-effort, equipment-dependent activity, which means the safety question is entirely about the operator, not about you. You do nothing athletic — the winch does the work — so what matters is the boat, the wing, the harness and the crew’s judgement about wind.
Four questions worth asking before you pay a deposit: is the operator registered with the ICT (the Costa Rican Tourism Board); is there liability insurance covering passengers; how recent is the equipment inspection; and what is the wind threshold at which they cancel. An operator who cancels readily for wind is a good sign, not a bad one.
The one thing in your control: do not fly if you have been drinking, and tell the crew honestly about back, neck or heart issues. The harness loads your hips and the landing is a controlled drop onto the boat platform.
Bring reef-safe sunscreen, sunglasses with a strap, a hat you are willing to lose and a waterproof case if you plan to hold a phone — and expect to get wet, because some operators do a deliberate toe-dip on the way down. Leave everything loose on the boat.
On cancellations: weather cancellation is the operator’s call and is normally refunded or rescheduled in full. Read the deposit terms — the listed deposits are $20 single, $30 double and $40 triple, and the refund policy for a customer cancellation is usually much tighter than for a weather one. Get that in writing before you transfer.
Practical scheduling advice: never put the flight on your last day. Put it on day two or three of the stay so that a weather cancellation has somewhere to go. This is the single most common mistake visitors make with any water activity in Manuel Antonio.
Book the flight directly with a Quepos parasail operator, and book the park side with us — the national park has a daily capacity cap and its entrance ticket has to be reserved in advance through SINAC, which is the piece most visitors get wrong. Entrance is $18.50 per adult, the gate runs 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with last entry at 3:00 p.m., and the park is closed every Tuesday.
Wakoo handles the SINAC reservation inside the tour so you are not fighting a government booking portal at 6:00 a.m. from your phone. Our group guided tour is $30 per person for the guiding only, or $65 per person with the park entrance ticket and round-trip hotel pickup included. Private guiding is available if you want the pace set by your family rather than by a group.
The order that works: lock the park date first, because that is the booking with a capacity limit and a closed day. Then put the parasail flight on a Tuesday, or on the afternoon of a park morning. Send us your dates and we will tell you which mornings are still open.
Parasailing prices on this page are the rates published by third-party operators working the Quepos and Manuel Antonio beachfront and are quoted for reference; Wakoo Tours does not sell parasailing and does not set those prices. Park entrance of $18.50 is the SINAC rate. Wildlife is wild — no tour can promise a specific sighting.