Starting at $104 per adult

Overview

If you like chocolate, you’ll love sampling everything from the nibs to pure organic chocolate at the Rainforest Chocolate farm just outside of La Fortuna. Cacao trees grow abundantly in several parts of Costa Rica providing many opportunities for superior chocolate production. This Arenal chocolate tour will show you how chocolate is made from picking cacao pods off the trees to tasting the many different concoctions created alone and with other natural ingredients (some simply decadent!).

Have you ever thought about where chocolate comes from? Yes, it is true, chocolate really does grow on trees! If fact, cacao beans, from which chocolate is made, grow inside large yellow pods that hang off the limbs and trunk of the cacao tree. On this chocolate tour you’ll learn the process of crafting high quality chocolate from bean to bar.

The tour begins when you are picked up from your La Fortuna hotel and whisked away to the Rainforest Chocolate tour on a nearby cacao farm. This guided tour introduces you to the early history of chocolate, going back almost 4000 years. Considered the “Gift of the Gods” it was consumed in sacred ceremonies by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, including Costa Rica. It wasn’t until the 1500s that chocolate was brought to Europe by Spanish explorers.

The chocolate making process is quite labor intensive and time consuming which is why real, dark chocolate is more expensive than its multi-ingredient, commercial counterpart. On this hour and a half tour, you will be rolling up your sleeves and seeing for yourself the great effort involved with real chocolate production: from harvesting the fruit, cracking open the pod, drying the seed, roasting, grinding, and of course tasting what may just be the best chocolate you have ever tried.

As you crack open a cacao pod, you might be surprised at what you will find. The beans inside of the pod are surrounded by a white, pleasantly fruity pulp that provides the perfect growing environment for the beans to sprout. This white pulp is especially enjoyed by monkeys and other tropical forest creatures as well as enjoyed by local children.

You’ll be given plenty of opportunities to taste this rich, delicious chocolate and learn about it’s health benefits as well. Real chocolate can easily be included as part of a healthy diet since it is one of the best plant sources of iron, magnesium and antioxidants. If you are a chocolate lover, by the end of the tour you will likely be completely blissed out on chocolate.

Over the past several years, chocolatiers in Costa Rica have created small boutique businesses making pure organic chocolate available throughout the world.

Please bring comfortable walking shoes, lightweight clothing, rain jacket, hat and bottle of water. This tour includes transportation, admission and bilingual guide. Total combined time of tour and round trip transportation is approximately 2.5 to 3 hours. One way transport from your hotel in the La Fortuna area to the farm can take between 15 and 45 minutes depending on the location of your hotel.

What to Bring

  • Camera
  • Rain Jacket

Location and Availability

The Chocolate Tour - Ride Cr is available from Arenal, Arenal Zone 2, and Arenal Zone 3

Tour Times

  • 8:00am
  • 10:00am
  • 1:00pm
  • 3:00pm

Tour Type

  • Learning Family
  • Culture

Cancellation Policy

Cancellation Policy

Location

Latitude: N 10° 27' 24.16"
Longitude: W 84° 39' 6.74"

Reviews

  • Overall 96.5% (150 Guest Ratings)
  • Experience: 95.9%
  • Expectations: 96.4%
  • Guides: 97.2%
  • Logistics: 96.4%
  • Value: 95.4%

08/11/2023

Not what I was expecting (envisioned a totally different setup) but still a great experience

08/02/2023

We appreciated how knowledgeable the staff were as they taught us about the chocolate and importance of sustainability.

06/30/2023

Totally interesting & informative!

06/18/2023

Another amazing experience.

05/23/2023

Phenomenal guide...just loved the day!!!

03/01/2023

Very fun and informative

01/12/2023

Excellent and informative tour. Whole family loved it and it was just the right amount of time.

01/01/2023

Fun activity and learned something new.

12/20/2022

This was a lot of fun and very educational and interactive.

11/07/2022

Wonderful! Catherine was fantastic!

07/14/2022

This was an unexpectedly wonderful tour! It was fun, informative, organized, well paced, and offered a lot of variety and delicious chocolate treats. I was surprised how much I loved it. I would highly recommend it to anyone in the area. The only downside was the torrential downpour of rain for most of the time we were there. The staff did provide umbrellas for us.They certainly can't control the weather, and did a great job in spite of the discomfort and inconvenience.

06/17/2022

Our guide was hilarious, informative and passionate about fair trade chocolate.

05/18/2022

The guide’s sense of humor really added to the experience. Very informative tour with a great experience tasting the cocoa bean before it becomes chocolate and after as well of the hands on experience of making chocolate.

05/07/2022

So much fun! Chocolate tasting was wonderful

01/26/2022

Amazing tour guide!

01/14/2022

So interesting and so informative. Our guide was knowledgeable and was good with the group.

12/24/2021

Great learning experience and tasting!

11/23/2021

Very fun and interesting tour. We learned a lot and we loved the all you can eat chocolate!

11/10/2021

So entertaining!

06/29/2021

Transportation was perfect and individualized. The tour was informative and fun. We loved it!

02/23/2020

It was good,

02/12/2020

Our guide was awesome. Super fun couple hours learning about chocolate.

01/19/2020

Tastiest tour we took! Very knowledgeable!

12/29/2019

This was a very interesting tour, and the guides were awesome.

09/23/2019

We had a great time learning about cacao/chocolate. The driver was on-time & courteous & waited for us at the grounds to return. The guides at the Cacao plantation were friendly & knowledgeable. We enjoyed seeing the whole process from seed to plant to pod & the steps involved.

09/11/2019

Katherine was awesome. It was one of our best tours

07/07/2019

Who wouldn't like all you can eat chocolate? Very Educational at a slow pace which we enjoyed the pace.

05/26/2019

El Chapo Guapo was really passionate about the chocolate process and made the discussion fun for everyone

05/05/2019

Tour was excellent, though a bit overpriced.

01/10/2019

I thought it was extremely informative. Loved that we got to taste the chocolate and in several forms.

01/08/2019

Again, the small group size makes the experience so much more rewarding.

12/24/2018

We much appreciate that you moved the date on this tour when the arrival of some of our group was delay a day because of missed plane connections. This was a terrific mellow tour following the more physical hanging bridges tour

10/21/2017

The Chocolate Tour was amazing and that's something to say since me and my partner do not typically care much for chocolate. Our guide was hilarious providing us with so much information but in a fun way. We performed dances, picked our own Cocoa, and sampled plenty of chocolate. I would even go again if I was to go back because of the amazing experience.

07/26/2017

Instructive, tasty

06/08/2017

It was fine. A more compact walk than I was expecting (which was good for me) and the shelter used to demonstrate steps in the process was very rustic and charming. Learned a few things, bought some good chocolate. Not too exciting, but a good way to pass a half-day.

05/23/2016

Less expectation because they did not sell PLENTY of products to bring home.

02/14/2016

This was good tourist fun on Valentine's day.

02/09/2016

very interesting, guides and location. Staff was very entertaining.