Los Cañones Canopy Tour
Real Deal Team Experiences in Costa Rica
Located just 10 minutes away from the heart of La Fortuna you’ll find the Los Lagos Resort, a family hotel with their own canopy tour. The Los Cañones Canopy Tour is perfect for adventurers and amateurs alike! At The Real Deal Tours, we share our personal experiences so you can ensure you are choosing the right tour for you.
My Canopy Experience
From the hotel, it was about a 2 km ride up to the mountain until we arrived to the canopy tour location. We walked into the canopy office where we were loaded up with all the safety equipment needed to enjoy the ride. Side note, I have to admit I was a bit nervous here while strapping into the harness as heights are not my kind of thing, but I was pleasantly surprised that the tour was too much fun to even think of being scared! That’s why I would not hesitate to recommend this activity to other people that may experience some butterflies in their stomach when they think about doing a canopy tour in Costa Rica. I think it is normal (maybe even proof of sanity) to have a little fear of heights, but even for those hard core adventure types, this canopy tour in Arenal is awesome.
The Los Cañones Canopy tour is about 1.5 hours long, yet the length of time pretty much depends on the number of people that are in your group. There are 12 cables in total, starting from 50 meters and up to 500 meters, which is over 1600 ft in length of zipline fun!! The scenery at Los Lagos is unique; the jungle below is stunning and full of life. The proof of wildlife is the sounds you hear in the jungle while zipping by. Actually, every now and then you’ll catch a high pitch shriek like monkey, but not particularly coming from the kind of monkey that inhabits this jungle!! Yup, you’ll scream like a girl!
A few notes specific to the Los Cañones Canopy Tour. You are allowed to bring your camera during the canopy tour but you cannot use it while on the cables. If you do decide to bring your camera, you can get really beautiful shots at some of the platforms, but definitely bring a neck string or something to secure your camera and avoid losing it in the density of the jungle down below! On the other hand, you could also opt to leave your camera behind because Los Cañones offers a camera man that joins the group during the canopy tour and takes pictures of everyone. I purchased the CD at the end of the ride for $20 bucks and left back at the hotel the worry of bringing my camera along. I have done tours before where they sell you one individual photo for the same price….ridiculous! Plus the CD is per couple or family, so worth it to be able to share your vacation memories with friends back home….or just prove to them that you did a canopy tour in Costa Rica which was my case.
The day of my canopy tour it was raining a bit, which is pretty normal in a tropical country like Costa Rica. It is the RAINFOREST after all. A little rain won’t stop a canopy tour from happening and it kind of gives it a little edge when it does! Keep in mind the possibility of some drizzle so don’t bring anything that could get ruined if wet.
Once you start to see the facilities of the Los Lagos hotel, it means the canopy tour is about to end. The cool part is, you don’t have to leave yet! As part of Los Cañones Canopy Tour you get the chance to stay at the resort, enjoy the facilities and even try some of their spa treatments if you wish, so definitely bring some extra money with you. I have to admit I knew about this already,so I placed my appointment spa services online beforehand and came well prepared and ready to try a massage (You know, planning ahead after all the stress and tension from the fear of heights, makes sense right?). The least I can say about my Back, Neck and Arm massage: it was heaven! They really know what they’re doing at that Los Lagos Spa; it was very enjoyable, the setting is unbeatable and the massage was the perfect bonus to a day of adventure if you ask me.
Los Lagos Resort also includes a free visit to the frog and ant farm, the butterfly sanctuary and the crocodile farm. You are also treated to a bath in the natural hot springs! There is an observation point of the Arenal Volcano that is just absolutely breathtaking. The canopy and hotel facilities are open to the public from 7am to 10 pm, so you can easily spend your whole day there! Inside the hotel there’s a restaurant with breakfast, lunch and dinner service opened during the same hours of operation as the canopy facilities. It was a good thing they have some good food, I was kind of starving after using up so much energy hiking, flying and screaming from the top of my lungs!
My Canopy Advice:
At the Los Cañones Canopy, kids 8 and up can participate safely as long as the harness fits them both around the legs and waist. Sometimes they allow children as young as 6 years old ride along, but the child must be able to follow instructions and have the strength to break on the cable. The smallest the harness closes up is about 30 cm (11.8 in) and it can be as wide as 100 cm around the waist (39.4 in); if you’re a bit chubbier, for sure work on the extra pounds before your trip so you can take part on this canopy experience. There’s no maximum age to participate either, but being an activity that requires some physical effort, definitely have good health and be in good shape to take on the challenge.
Tour times are regularly at 8 am, 10:30 am, 1 pm and 3 pm, but you’ll be asked to arrive about 20 minutes before so everyone and everything is ready to start on time. Transportation from most hotels in the area is included, so that’s pretty convenient. For special groups or special tour times, there’s always the option to book a private canopy tour, so that’s also great when looking for something with flexible times. You can just contact us for availability and pricing.
Travel light, wear comfortable clothes, definitely long pants or at least to a comfortable length with the harness on (Avoid shorty shorts! I wore knee length pants, but the poor girl on the tour in daisy duke shorts looked very uncomfortable!). A shirt with sleeves covering your shoulders can avoid getting sun burnt and closed-toe shoes much better for walking in the jungle. If your flip-flops flop off, you most likely be unable to recover them in the dense forest below. Put some sunscreen on before the tour starts and definitely leave anything valuable at the hotel safe, again anything that falls during the canopy tour most likely will be unrecoverable. Don’t worry about bringing a bottle of water, you might not even need it and it could get in your way while trying to hike and fly through the jungle. If you want to wear a cap is OK, you can leave it underneath the helmet. What you cannot miss bringing along is a LOT of energy and a great sense of adventure!
We hope this helps you decide if a canopy tour in Costa Rica is the right activity for your family. Pura Vida!