Pura Vida and a Few Honest Opinions: My Review of Adventures by Disney Costa Rica
- Marili Rivera
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Let me start with the thing most travel advisors won't tell you upfront: I went into this trip very excited, but also a little skeptical. Adventures by Disney has a devoted following, but I had never experienced it firsthand, and the idea of traveling in a group of forty strangers with two teenagers who have very strong opinions about everything felt like a gamble. I am happy to report: the gamble paid off. With some caveats. Because this is me we're talking about, and I always have caveats.
First, what exactly is Adventures by Disney?
If you haven't heard of it, Adventures by Disney (ABD, as the devotees call it) is Disney's guided travel program for families and groups.
The concept is essentially this: Disney plans everything. You show up.
You are escorted through an entire destination, activities, meals, transportation, special access moments, by a team of Adventure Guides who make sure the wheels keep turning smoothly and that your family never has to think too hard about logistics.
You're not booking tours separately, figuring out transfers, or wondering if the restaurant is going to be good.
All of that is handled, Disney-style, before you ever pack a bag.
It's not a theme park trip.
It's a curated travel experience built around a real destination, with Disney's organizational DNA woven through every detail.
Think: the best field trip you've ever been on, if field trips came with exceptional guides, thoughtfully chosen vendors, and the occasional surprise that makes everyone stop and look at each other like, wait, did Disney just do that?
Which brings me to Costa Rica.
Our crew
My husband and I traveled with two of our kids, ages 17 and 14, on the Costa Rica itinerary. Our oldest wasn't on break, so this was the first time we travelled without him :(
The group total was 40 people, which, I'll be honest: when I first saw that number, I quietly panicked.
Forty is a lot of people. Forty people at a restaurant, forty people loading onto a bus, forty people waiting for anything is a mental image I was not initially at peace with.
I was wrong to worry. More on that shortly.
The guides: Michael and Fico
I want to talk about our Adventure Guides first, because everything else in an ABD experience flows through them, and ours were exceptional.
Michael and Fico ran this trip, and the two of them together were exactly what you'd want: organized, warm, endlessly patient, and genuinely invested in making sure every single person in the group had a good time.
Not a generic good time. An actually good time that accounted for who you were and what you needed.
Fico is a native Costa Rican, and I cannot overstate how much that matters when you're traveling somewhere.
His knowledge of his country was endless.
Not trivia-knowledge. Real knowledge.
The kind that comes from growing up somewhere, caring about it, and wanting every visitor to understand what makes it special.
I found myself listening to Fico explain something and thinking: this is exactly the experience you cannot manufacture.
You either have it or you don't, and ABD had it in Fico.
Between the two of them, we never felt unattended, overlooked, or left to figure anything out on our own.
Our comfort was clearly their priority, and it showed every single day.
The group of 40: better than expected
I'll say this directly, because I know it's the first question anyone asks about a group tour: forty people sounds like a lot until you're actually doing it, and then it isn't.
Part of that is the kind of people who book Adventures by Disney.
There's a self-selection thing that happens.
You're traveling with people who prioritized this type of experience, who have kids, who care about doing things well.
Like-minded people is maybe an overused phrase, but in this context it's exactly right.
The group felt cohesive almost immediately. And when it really came down to it, it wasn't 40 individuals. It was really 8 or 9 small groups.
By day two, forty people felt like forty friends.
My kids were on the older end of the group, 17 and 14, but they still found their people.
That matters a lot when you're a teenager and your parents have dragged you on a structured group tour.
They were engaged, not bored, and that is a success condition I'll take every time.
The experience itself: surprises, exclusivity, and the best vendors in the business
I'm deliberately not going to give too much away here, because part of the joy of an Adventures by Disney trip is the element of surprise.
There are moments built into the itinerary that you genuinely won't see coming, and I want you to have those moments intact.
What I will say: Disney uses the best vendors available in the area.
Every tour guide, every experience provider, every local partner we worked with was clearly the top of their field in Costa Rica.
Everything was clean, impeccable, and ready upon our arrival. No one scrambled.
Nothing felt thrown together.
Whatever the activity was, the people running it were genuinely excellent at it.
And it goes deeper than just the vendors.
Disney knows which guides to request within the vendors they use, and that level of detail matters more than you'd think.
Case in point: our chocolate rainforest tour.
On paper, a tour about chocolate production in the rainforest is the kind of activity that could easily lose a group of teenagers somewhere around the third cacao pod explanation.
But our guide, who went by the unforgettable nickname "El Chapo Guapo," was so funny and so genuinely engaging that no one looked at their phone once.
That is not an accident. That is Disney doing their homework down to the individual.
And then there was the moment that captured Fico perfectly.
We were gearing up for snorkeling when I caught him off to the side, speaking quietly in Spanish to the local guide.
Because I speak Spanish, I understood every word. Fico was explaining how to clear a foggy mask lens, and then he turned to the guide and asked, "do you have Vaseline?"
Apparently Vaseline is the trick.
The guide said no.
And Fico, without missing a beat, told him, "dude, you gotta get that for the next group."
That's the thing about Fico.
He wasn't just making sure our group had a great experience.
He was making sure the group after us did too.
That's not a job. That's a calling.
The food: fine, with a buffet caveat
Genuinely fine.
There was plenty of authentic Costa Rican food throughout the trip: gallo pinto, fresh ceviche, local produce, the kind of food that actually tastes like the place you're in.
But there was also a fair amount of buffet-style dining, and I'll be honest: that's not my preference.
It's a product of traveling in a group of forty, not a failing of ABD specifically, but if you're someone who cares deeply about sit-down, plated dining experiences, this is worth knowing going in.
The food was good.
The format, occasionally, was not what we would have chosen.
And for families with picky eaters, the options were there.
You were never stuck.
Case in point: my 14-year-old, a devoted member of the chicken nuggets faction, polished off plate one and was still very clearly hungry.
He didn't say a word.
Michael noticed anyway, and plate two magically appeared.
That is the kind of attentiveness that you simply cannot put a price on, and it is exactly what separates a great guide from a good one.
The Hotels: Where I have to be honest with you
This is the part of the trip I keep turning over in my mind, because I genuinely don't know whether what we experienced is an ABD thing or a Costa Rica thing, and I don't want to be unfair to either.
We stayed at three properties over the course of the trip, and the quality was uneven in a way that surprised me.
Marriott Hacienda Belén, San José
Our first stop, and the most underwhelming of the three.
There is nothing wrong with this hotel in an objective sense.
It's a Marriottproperty, so it was clean and it functions.
But it set a tone I wasn't expecting.
For the price point of an ABD trip, I expected more.
The property felt like a comfortable business hotel, not a destination experience, and in a city like San José I felt like there was room to do better.
Arenal Kioro Suites & Spa, Arenal
Mixed feelings here, and I want to be specific because I think the specifics matter.
The views are nothing short of extraordinary.
Arenal Volcano sitting right there in your sightline every single morning is something I won't forget.
The hot springs were lovely and became a welcome nighttime routine.
And then there was everything else.
The rooms felt dated.
The bathrooms were oddly laid out in a way I couldn't quite get used to.
And the overall upkeep of the property had slipped, not in a way that was alarming, but in a way that was noticeable when you're paying for something premium.
The views earn a star back. Everything else costs one.
El Mangroove, Guanacaste
The best of the three, and the one that matched my expectations for what an ABD hotel should feel like.
El Mangroove is a genuinely beautiful property.
Great setting, quality finishes, the kind of place that makes you want to linger.
If the entire trip had been at this level, I would have had zero hotel notes. This one cleared the bar, clearly.
So: is the uneven quality an ABD calibration issue, or simply what's available in these specific regions of Costa Rica?
I honestly don't know, and I'd be curious to hear from others who've done this itinerary.
What I can say is that it's worth having an honest conversation with your travel advisor about hotel expectations before you go, so you're not caught off guard.
Would we go back?
Yes. Not necessarily to Costa Rica again, only because we tend to not repeat destinations. We have too many places on our list!
But to the ABD format, absolutely for the right itinerary. This is a great investment for land vacations (like Costa Rica). The driving around here was nuts and we were so grateful for Julio!
We came home having genuinely discovered something about ourselves: we like traveling in an escorted group of like-minded people.
My husband and I have done plenty of independent travel, and there's a version of us that would have looked at this trip and said, we could plan this ourselves.
We could have.
But we would have planned a different trip, and not necessarily a better one.
What ABD provides is not just logistics management.
It's access, it's expertise, it's Fico explaining his country to your kids in a way that sticks with them long after you're home.
You can't plan that.
The right ABD itinerary for your family is a real conversation worth having.
Some destinations will clear the hotel bar higher than Costa Rica did.
Some itineraries will suit your family better than others.
The formula is right. For us, it came down to wanting the experience with slightly better properties.
For the right family, on the right itinerary?
I'd put Adventures by Disney on the short list without hesitation.
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