Tropical Tours Shuttles in Costa Rica

Booked 24 hours before leaving from Playa Teresa to La Fortuna/Arenal. Pick-up was exactly on time, we approached an impassable road accident a few hours in. Our driver Leo kindly escorted us to the closest ferry, covered the fee, and made sure another shuttle was waiting in Puntarenas. Alberto was also fantastic and got us safely to our destination on the second leg. These guys will 100% get you where you need to go. Can’t recommend enough 👍🏽

I was a bit hesitating after reading some of the negative reviews but I was pleasantly surprised. The shuttle was on time and the drivers were friendly & helpful. We did have to switch buses a few times but this only took a few extra minutes and the driving was nothing crazy for Latin America. We felt safe the whole way. Would definitely travel with them again!

Tried rides with Tropical Tours Shuttle as well as EcoTrans, and I would choose EcoTrans. At the start I asked them questions on WhatsApp, where only some were answered. When it came to the morning to get picked up, we were ready before the pick up time and waiting to be picked up. After waiting 20min, I asked them what order were we in getting picked up to confirm they were still on their way. They never ended up responding to this day (but we did get picked up). The drive itself was less than ideal. We were travelling from Nosara to Tamarindo. Driving would take under 2 hours. But this is a shuttle so of course we didn't assume that. Would 2.5 hours be reasonable? 3 hours? It ended up taking us over 4 hours. We wish this was more clear from them. The trip ended up going from Nosara headed south to Samara then back up. By the 2 hour mark we were close to where we started. With Ecotrans, we took small detours as well to pick people up (to be expected with shuttles) but we wish such a detour was clearer. Most of the passengers were very surprised as well. The driver didn't speak English, so we relied on a bilingual passenger to translate. The drive felt like the driver was rushing due to how long the trip was, ignoring speed bumps. Very drastic contrast to Ecotrans whose drivers explicitly slow down on every speed bump (almost to a full stop, felt a bit excessive tbh). Finally, feels like they really tried to maximize each ride by jamming as many people in as possible. When the shuttle was mostly full, all the passengers were always surprised when they tried to jam more people into the shuttle. There ended up not being enough space for luggages, so they started strapping them to the roof! Compared to Ecotrans shared shuttle, where the routes seemed more direct and their number one priority didn't feel like maximizing the number of people per shuttle. All in all, would book Econtrans next time. Their rates were generally more favourable, but wanted to compare the two and booked where Tropic Shuttle was cheaper. Next time, I would probably pay the extra for the few trips where Ecotrans costs slightly more. Just compare their ratings. Edit: Their (now deleted) reply says this is "free advertising" for Ecotrans. Maybe they're right, but think about how big of a difference the quality of service must be for some random customer to go out of their way to give free advertising. In my 20 years of having this Google account, I don't review often yet I travel a lot but for some reason felt inclined to write this review. Customers can make their own conclusion based on that. Notice how they didn't bother addressing the actual concerns mentioned in my review. They also say Ecotrans is a company "no one knows about" yet has a substantial number of Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars. Again, go figure but the customer can make their own conclusion. One thing that they got right was they have complex routes! Going from Nosara to Samara and passing back to go to Tamarindo is definitely more complex tham needed! People are definitely free to choose how they travel and I strongly suggest they go with Ecotrans :)