Arenal Volcano and Hotsprings in Costa Rica– A very Tinggly Experience

We are often approached by businesses looking to partner with us, to promote them and advertise on Two Monkeys Travel and to most of them, we say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks!’ But recently we were approached by a new start-up company offering something a little different – the gift of experience.

Tinggly offer the gift of EXPERIENCE, the FREEDOM OF CHOICE and TIME to make the most of them – That’s three of our favourite things!

Here’s how the Tinggly Experience works:          

You want to buy a gift for someone – a friend, a family member, a loved one, your pet armadillo…anyone you want!

Instead of racking your brains for what to buy, having no idea and inevitably choosing something that will be exchanged or shoved under a bed until the next garage sale, you buy a Tinggly Gift Box.

For one single price, Tinggly offers hundreds of experiences for you friend, family member, loved one or armadillo to choose from.

How do you know when they’re available? You don’t have to – They have to years to claim their Tinggly experience!

What about the feeling of excitement of opening a wrapped gift in person? They can have that too – A Tinggly gift box can be sent by post, email, or printed out and given with your own personal touch!

What kind of experiences are there to choose from?

350 experiences in 80 countries sound like a pretty decent range to me, especially when we could be in Costa Rica today, then Croatia tomorrow!

A quick look at the website and I can choose to browse a world map, covered in little red pins, or I can browse all of the experiences by country and category.

There’s everything from a Floatation Therapy session in Barcelona, James Bond Island tour in Thailand, Great Wall hike in China or even a safari meat dinner in the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi (where I had my birthday parties as a child!)

Tinggly and Two Monkeys Travel

So far, we like what we see, and what we see is experiences and memories being valued over objects and stuff, which is a big part of our life philosophy. To be able to give experiences to other people is even better.

We’re going to be working with Tinggly, trying out different experiences and writing all about it on Two Monkeys Travel, so you can get real-life reviews of what the Tinggly experience is really like!

In fact, we had our first ever Tinggly experience just last week, right here in Costa Rica. We’ve always wanted to try out a luxury thermal spa in Costa Rica, so we decided to try out the Full-Day Pass to a Thermal Spa in Costa Rica, at the Tabacon thermal spa, close to the Arenal Volcano.

Here’s how the Tinggly Experience went for us.

The journey to Arenal National Park

Firstly, everything was organized really well, we were picked up from our hotel in San Jose, exactly as organized by a minibus with an English-speaking tour guide. The bus had to pick up other people around the city, but we were on our way fairly quickly.

The guide was great, full of interesting information and facts all about Costa Rica, its history, the landscape, politics, and the volcanos, to keep us entertained.

One thing to bear in mind, is that if you’re booking this experience from San Jose, then the drive to Tabacon takes around 4 hours and is broken up with a stop at an artisan craft gift shop for about 30 mins, then another 1 hour stop for lunch at little further along the way, all included. Lunch was really good, with a choice of pasta or traditional Costa Rican casado. From the restaurant, we then headed to a viewing point for the Arenal Volcano, one of several active volcanos in Costa Rica. The scenery was spectacular and we had plenty of chance to take photos of the panoramic view of Arenal National Park.

Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort

The thermal hot springs were only a few minutes’ drive from the viewpoint, we arrived there at about 2 pm. Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort is the most luxurious, most famous and of course most expensive thermal spa in the area, and it’s obvious why!

In completely natural surroundings, the naturally heated, volcanic mineral water flowed through rivers, into deep, hot pools and down cascading waterfalls, which pound water onto your tired aching muscles to give the best hydrotherapy massage I have ever had! We moved from pool to pool, testing out the different temperatures and absorbing the natural mineral goodness.

We had about 3 hours in the spa, which after all of the driving and the stops for lunch and so on, was not quite the ‘Full Day Pass’ that it says on the Tinggly Gift Box, but that’s because we were based in San Jose, so the Arenal Volcano viewpoint and lunch was a great way to break up the journey. To be perfectly honest, 3 hours in those thermal waters is more than any human needs all at once!

After the spa, we all met in the restaurant for an amazing Costa Rican buffet dinner, with 3 courses of the best food we’ve had in Costa Rica, including a sirloin steak carvery! Also all included.

From there, the long drive back to San Jose, but everyone was so relaxed from the spa and full from the amazing food that most slept through it!

Overall, our first ever Tinggly experience was really enjoyable, well organised and most importantly, incredibly relaxing!

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