Marino Ballena National Park: Fees, Hours, Whale Seasons and Getting to Uvita

Verified on 25 September 2026, on SINAC’s own Spanish and English pages for the park, ARESEP’s regulated bus-fare register, and the shuttle and tour operators’ own sites.

A non-resident adult pays USD 6.78 to enter Marino Ballena National Park, IVA included, and pays it by credit or debit card only. That is SINAC’s Spanish park page; its English page prints the same fee before tax as USD 6. One ticket covers all four official sectors — Uvita, Colonia, Ballena and Piñuela — for the whole day. SINAC’s Spanish page gives two humpback whale seasons: whales from the north December to April and whales from the south July to November, with resident dolphins all year. The whale-tail sandbar can be reached only at low tide.

The data describes a USD 6.78 park paid at the gate — Ballena is on neither of SINAC’s online-booking lists — but SINAC’s two language versions of the same park page disagree on the hours, the children’s fee and the whale months, and both versions are set out below.

Entry fees

The adult rows reconcile: 6 × 1.13 = 6.78, the 13% IVA (our arithmetic). The child rows do not. The Spanish page, which is the one that states its figures include tax, charges a non-resident child USD 5.65; the English page says children under 11 enter free. We are not choosing between them — budget for the Spanish figure and treat the English exemption as unconfirmed.

• Payment: “El pago se realiza únicamente con tarjeta de crédito o débito” — card only, at the official entry posts.
• Validity: the English page states the ticket is valid for the four official sectors, per person, per day.
• No online booking: Marino Ballena appears on neither SINAC’s SICORE ticket-portal list nor the online section of its Compra y Reserva en Línea page, both read on 25 September 2026. That page instead links a SINAC list of parks sold only at the gate, by card — and Marino Ballena is on it.

SINAC’s non-resident fees for other parks, set side by side, are on our Costa Rica trip cost page.

Opening hours — the two language versions disagree

The Spanish page says all four sectors are open every day of the year. The English page gives a single schedule for the whole park: every day, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Both were live on 25 September 2026. The per-sector times are the more specific statement, but that is an observation, not a resolution.

Whale seasons

SINAC’s Spanish page: humpbacks “se presentan en dos temporadas del año, las que vienen de la parte norte (diciembre a abril) y las del sur (julio a noviembre)”, and resident dolphins can be seen all year.

SINAC’s English page says something narrower and inconsistent with itself: “Humpback whales come every year (July to October)” in its introduction, and “Humpback Whale watching in season (July to November)” further down. It does not mention a December–April season at all.

One operator reported the start of the 2026 southern season on its own site: Whale Watching Uvita’s banner reads “July 7 ‘26: We’ve spotted the first Southern Hemisphere Humpbacks whales of the season.” That is the operator’s statement, not SINAC’s.

Other species SINAC lists for the park’s waters: spotted and bottlenose dolphins, manta ray, hammerhead shark, parrotfish and mackerel.

What two Uvita operators charge

Both prices as published on the operators’ own sites on 25 September 2026. Whale Watching Uvita states its tour includes the park day pass, so its price already contains the entry fee above; Ballena Tour’s listing does not say either way.

The whale tail, the reef and the tide

• The tómbolo (“whale tail”) is reachable only at low tide. SINAC’s Spanish page: “solo se puede acceder a ella durante las 6 horas de marea baja”, and it tells visitors to check the tide table before the visit. The English page adds that the tail’s shape can only be seen from high ground or from the air, and that the tide table is posted at the entrance.
• Playa Arco is also enterable and exitable only at low tide; its official entrance is the Ballena sector.
• Snorkelling: SINAC’s English page permits mask and snorkel only — “diving fins are not allowed” — near the tail at low tide. The Spanish page places coral reefs on the left side of the tail and around Isla Ballena, and states the park holds 17 species of coral.
• Size: 5,160 marine hectares and 171 terrestrial hectares, with 15 km of coastline from the mouth of the Río Morete to Punta Piñuela. SINAC describes it as the first protected area in Costa Rica created exclusively for its marine resources; the current decree, 21294-MIRENEM, dates from 9 June 1992.

SINAC’s Spanish page lists hand-washing areas, showers and toilets in every sector. Its list of what is not allowed includes alcohol and drugs, pets, smoking, single-use plastics, vehicles on the beach, horse riding, campfires, loud sound equipment and selling inside the park.

SINAC’s park page puts the dry season at mid-December to mid-April and the rainy season at mid-April to mid-December. The meteorological service’s own figures for the Pacífico Sur region are on our best time to visit page, and NOAA’s month-by-month water temperatures for the Pacific coast are on our sea temperature by month page.

Getting to Uvita and Dominical

SINAC’s own directions: take a Tracopa bus from San José that runs via the Costanera and stops in Uvita, then arrange private transport to the sector you want; from Pérez Zeledón, Transportes Blanco runs San Isidro–Uvita. The park’s Cómo llegar page adds that any Tracopa bus to Cortés, Golfito, Palmar Norte, Paso Canoas or Ciudad Neily via the Costanera Sur can drop you at the entrance to a sector.

Regulated bus fares (ARESEP register, resolution RE-0115-IT-2026, in force from 4 September 2026):

*Our conversion at the BCCR reference sell rate of 453.50 colones to the dollar on 26 August 2026; the rate moves daily.

Tracopa’s own fare page shows the same CRC 5,550 to Dominical on its San José–Uvita services, matching ARESEP to the colón; the fare page we read on 25 September 2026 carries no Uvita row, so the Uvita figure above is ARESEP’s. The register also lists a “Quepos–Uvita” fare of CRC 2,620 on route 695 (Puntarenas–Jacó–Quepos), but that Uvita sits 27.50 km from Puntarenas on that route, between Caldera and Pozón — a different place, not the Uvita at Marino Ballena (our reading of the register’s distances). The San José–Quepos leg on the same Tracopa route is covered on our San José to Manuel Antonio page.

Easy Ride shared shuttles, as published on its own pages on 25 September 2026, per person, one way:

Easy Ride gives SJO→Uvita as about 4.5 hours and Uvita→SJO as about 4 hours; we print each direction’s own figure. The Manuel Antonio end — where to stay and the park there — is on our Manuel Antonio and Quepos page. Sierpe and Uvita are both boat departure points SINAC names for the San Pedrillo entrance of Corcovado National Park.

What SINAC and the operators don’t publish

These are gaps in the published information, checked on 25 September 2026:

• Tide times. SINAC tells visitors to check the tide table and says it is posted at the entrance; its park pages carry none.
• An age band for the non-resident child fee on the Spanish page, which is the page with the USD 5.65 charge.
• Tracopa’s San José–Uvita departure times. Its schedule page is an interactive selector, and the version we read on 25 September 2026 shows no times.
• Whether Ballena Tour Costa Rica’s USD 85 includes the park fee.
• A daily visitor cap for Marino Ballena, on either SINAC page.

How we researched this

Scope: this page reports source research, not an on-site visit. We read SINAC’s Spanish and English park pages and the Spanish Cómo llegar and contact pages on 25 September 2026 — the source for the fees, payment rule, sector hours, whale seasons, tide rule, coral count, size, rules and bus directions. The regulated fares come from ARESEP’s current bus-tariff dataset, pulled the same day; the Dominical cross-check from Tracopa’s own fare page. Shuttle fares, times and departures come from Easy Ride’s own route pages, and tour prices from the two operators’ own sites, all read the same day. Where SINAC’s two language versions disagree, both are printed.

Last verified: 25 September 2026. Park fees and hours change by decree; shuttle and tour prices change without notice.

Figures on this page labelled our arithmetic or our conversion are calculated by us from the sourced inputs cited below — the 13% IVA reconciliation and the dollar conversions. Every other figure is reproduced as its named source published it.

Sources

• SINAC — Parque Nacional Marino Ballena (Spanish) — the IVA-inclusive fees (USD 6.78, USD 5.65, CRC 1,130, CRC 565), card-only payment, the resident-senior exemption, per-sector hours, the two whale seasons, the six-hour low-tide window, Playa Arco, 17 coral species, 5,160 / 171 hectares and 15 km of coast, the 1992 decree, services, prohibitions, dry and rainy season, and the Tracopa and Transportes Blanco bus directions.
• SINAC — Marino Ballena National Park (English) — the USD 6 pre-tax fee, the under-11 and elderly exemptions, the 7 a.m.–4 p.m. schedule, the four-sector day ticket, the July–October and July–November whale lines, the no-fins snorkelling rule, the tide table at the entrance.
• SINAC — Marino Ballena, ¿Cómo llegar? — Tracopa buses via the Costanera Sur stopping at the sector entrances.
• SINAC — SICORE portal and Compra y Reserva en Línea — the online-booking park lists, on which Marino Ballena does not appear; and SINAC’s gate-sale list (PDF), on which it does.
• SINAC — Corcovado, ¿Cómo llegar? — boats from Sierpe, Drake or Uvita to San Pedrillo.
• ARESEP — current bus tariff dataset — routes 613 and 665: CRC 6,650 / 4,990, CRC 5,550 / 4,160, CRC 540 / 0, CRC 1,840 / 1,380, the operators, distances and resolution RE-0115-IT-2026 from 4 September 2026; and route 695’s Puntarenas-side “Uvita” at 27.50 km from Puntarenas.
• Tracopa — Tarifas — CRC 5,550 to Dominical on the San José–Uvita services.
• Easy Ride — San José airport shuttle, from San José, Uvita shuttle and from Dominical — the USD 69 and USD 45 fares, durations and departure times.
• Whale Watching Uvita — Whale watching tour — USD 79.50 / USD 95, USD 45 child, inclusions, times, group maximum, and the 7 July 2026 first-sighting banner.
• Ballena Tour Costa Rica — the USD 85 three-hour whale and dolphin tour.
• BCCR — reference sell rate — 453.50 colones to the dollar, 26 August 2026, the basis of every dollar conversion.

Written by Estuardo Enriquez. This site is independent, has no affiliate relationship with any operator named here, and is not connected to any previous owner of this domain.