What a disappointing experience. Coiba NP had potential but it is such a letdown to come here experiencing the park. The place gets glowing reviews though so what's up with that?

It's mainly from backpackers (i found mainly were German or Swedish) who just want to chill in dorms, cheap accomodations, snorkel for a day, have beers at the pool and maybe surf. Hey, that's all cool with me but that would be reviewing Santa Catalina and not Coiba. With the road now tarred and wifi reaching the village (there is even a pharmacy!) it is understandably a nice laid back place to vacation.

To get to the park itself you need to sign up for either snorkeling or scuba diving. I had prepaid 2 days diving. What follows is a rough and uncomfortable 70min long ride to the first group of islands. Those….suck. Definitely nothing spectacular to see at them. Sure they talk about the occasional whaleshark and manta sightings but the fishes are so sparse and there is no coral that it is almost like on a highway through the desert to spot vultures. You get to stop at one of these islands for surface interval and lunch and hope for some birds and mammals but nada.

Ok, what went wrong? You don't want to do daytrips. You want to do a multi day trip into the park to avoid the commute, plus you can stay inside the park and venture further to see bigger and better marine life. Mammals, macaws are touted as a big draw, and antelopes are seen only on the large Coiba Island. You will not go there. In one day out I saw one single bird crossing our path.

So whereas I'm a huge fan of wildlife protection and I understand that visiting edges of parks is never going to give you the real park experience, in Coiba it really seemed like there was a chance to experience that but there are so many better places to snorkel and dive  especially without the rough boat ride.

Until now I also hadn't mentioned that it takes 5h from Panamá to Soná and 1½h to Santa Catalina so you will spend a whole day getting here. There are options to continue to del Torro if you don't want to get back the same way.