Internary advice - again!;)

1-The caribe side has far more wildlife/nature and bio diversity. Considering you only have 8 days, it makes sense to keep everything near each other, and that would mean the great beaches of Cahuita and Pt Viejo area.

PS- If you are flying into SJO, then the nearest nice Pacific beach is 6 hours drive.

NO active volcanoes with a Lava flow.

Why do you need a resort? Why not a nice boutique hotel, cool lodge or small inn? Resorts are touristy, food bland, and are usually away and isolate you from the locals. These are all on the Pacific side, mainly in Playa Papagayo area, which is in middle of nowhere nature wise, its ranch country up there.

The caribe side is rustic and authentic for sure, but also not sterile rooms, in a typical hotel...

Alby Lodge in Cahuita
Villas del Caribe in Chequita

Go to Tortuguero, Cahuita, Pt Viejo beaches south, and Manzillo-Ganduca Maribe refuge, and raft the Rio Pacuare bach to San Jose.

Zip Lines are best avoided, touristy, and serve no purpose other than you screaming in forest and scaring wildlife for miles.

Corcovado you need to fly in/out, and you need for nights there. A great lodge in the rainforest is Luna Lodge, or Iguana Lodge.

Drake Bay is a nice option if not hiking the loop to ranger stations, I like Jinetes de Osa Lodge.

Best beach towns for surf and swim are Playa Tamarindo, great small hotel is the Capitan Suizo, you can fly to Tamarindo easy.... or drive 6 hours down to Mal Pais/Santa Teresa, and the Milarepa, Flora Blanca or Latitude 10.

*8 days you have time for 3 places and areas, keep it simple...Caribe.

Wildlife, rainforest, beach, rafting... I would go to the Caribbean coast as well. As stated above: Tortuguero, Cahuita (don't miss the National Park) and then pick a beach south of Puerto Viejo. We stayed in Manzanillo, a small village with a wildlife refuge. Beautiful wild natural beaches bordered by rainforest. Lots of nice hotels to choose from:

http://www.puertoviejosatellite.com/stay.php?s=ratehl

Or combine Arenal (the volcano is not active but still a great sight if not obscured by clouds and there are lots of adventure activities) with the Osa. The Osa is great but Corcovado Park itself can only be visited on guided day hikes (and you would probably see just as much wildlife outside of the park). The Sirena ranger station in Corcovado Park is another story: lots of wildlife likes to hang out there and there is a better chance of seeing animals like tapirs, peccaries, maybe even a puma... But to get to Sirena you have to commit to a three day trek (it is a 20 km hike to get to Sirena) for which you need a guide, permits, reservations... I really like the Puerto Jimenez-Dos Brazos de Rio Tigre-Cabo Matapalo-Carate area. If you can afford it look at the lodges in Cabo Matapalo like Bosque del Cabo (lots of great trails) or check out Casa Bambu (better for beach access).
The other spot in the Osa is Drake Bay. The big draw is that you can reach the Sirena ranger station from there by boat. Drake Bay is a small village with cheaper lodging in the village and lodges outside of the village, often only accessible by boat. There is a beach hiking trail and lots of tours are offered.

Thanks a lot for the advice, guys! I think, we are getting clearer and now the program looks like:

Fri night - arrival to SJ
Sat - trip to see the Arenal volcano + hot springs
Sun & Mon - Tortugero
Tue & Wed - Cahuita
Thu & Fr - Manzanillo
Sat - rafting in rio Pacuare & stay in Alajuela
Sun early morning - flight out from SJ

does it make sense in terms of # days per area? And yet another question:) are there sloths in Tortuguero or Cahuita? we would love to see them!

We plan to make the whole program via driving ourselves, are there any watch outs we should consider? (bad roads, anything else)?

thank you for the help!:)
anna

One day and not even a full day for Arenal doesn't seem worth it to me.

We saw lots of sloths in the National Park in Cahuita. And we saw a few near Manzanillo and in Punta Uva.

We traveled by bus (and boat and took the odd taxi).

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