www.CostaRicaTicas.com

If that is true, which I've no reason to doubt, that is an excellent price. from my experience the prices tend closer to $80 on these tours and there's not much price variation between travel agencies. As to the 5-in-1 vs. 4-in-1 that really comes down to how they count up the attractions (e.g. does the drive back through BC Nat'l Park count as one of the highlights?). The link someone provided above actually counts out 10 items of note.

I believe the tours are all very similar in content, but there will be some variations between them and, as in GT's case what they might deliver on a particular day vs. what they normally advertise and even more importantly as I noted before differences due to the tour guide you happen to get. For example I went on one tour whose coffee farm stop was pulling off the side of the road near a coffeee field and expalining the process of picking and processing beans for 15 minutes, while another one actually stopped at a coffee farm and processing plant and walked us through the full process for well over an hour. Incidentally, neither of those were anywhere near as thorough as the Cafe Britt Tour. OTOH, the tour with only the 15 minutes had an extended boat ride on the Sarapiqui while the other one I mentioned had to cut that out.

In GT's case, and I don't know the particulars, it might have been due to a change in schedule to weather, which nobody can control, trying to time their arrival at Poas while it was reasonably clear or even due to some of the participants oversleeping and holding up the van thus putting everyone behind schedule, which one has control of for oneself but not for the others. As a further aside, that goes to show one thing I like to emphasize about any group tour, it is important not to be one of those thoughtless people that mess things up for the others and this is one common drawback you can often face on such tours.

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't just go on price or advertised content. You can try to divine the minor differences between brochures, but you won't be able to really tell the differences in the quality of the food, stops, guides etc. until you get out on the road and there still probably will be differences between groups even within the same tour company due to the guide you get, the number and consideration of your fellow participants, weather, scheduling, traffic, etc. My advise is to not sweat it too much and to go with the flow. It is all good and you'll probably have a great time which ever tour you take. Is it really, worth worrying about whether you lucked into or otherwise picked the absolute best tour ever?

Finally, you should probably check out Rocco's lead but the easiest and most convenient thing to do is probably just to use the tour desk at the HDR since whereever you are staying you will undoubtedly be walking through the lobby of the HDR a few times each day and the folks who staff those desks are very knowledgeable and helpful.