Thursday, January 06, 2011

All I can say is WOW at this tripadvisor review.


The title of the post on the latest TripAdvisor review for Adventure Antigua is “Great deck hands. No drinks. Little swimming” and the author decided to give us three stars out of five. These days some people look at reviews on Trip Advisor and read between the lines but so many do not and it's reviews like this one that really can hurt a company. It's my opinion that the review is totally flawed because the person obviously decided to go on the wrong cruise. Have a read first:

This boat tour is good for first timers. I am used to private charters and this one is tough if you want to have any freedom. Day is packed full of stops but this can make it feel like you have no time to sit on the beach and enjoy. We only got to swim at a beach around noon. Spent the morning driving to a couple locations and talking wildlife. Skip the Ecotour if you watch the Discovery Channel. You know all of this stuff already.
No drinks on board until 3:00. This is because there is a serious climbing/hiking adventure at Hells Gate around 1:30. I cannot stress enough how this portion of the day is NOT for children. Do not attempt to bring them on this part of the trip. It is extremely dangerous (even for adults). If you have any fear of heights this is not for you!

Lunch is very good. Staff are excellent and very friendly.

All in all, a good day on the water but I'd skip it if you prefer deserted beaches, rum drinks, and floating in blue Caribbean seas.
Clearly the person would have had more fun on a private charter which we do several times a week at this time of the year. Many people charter our boats to go to deserted beaches where they can drink and get sun all day long without hearing one bit about pelicans or any of the other stuff they would have learned on The Discovery Channel. In fact, they would have been better off on either the Xtreme Tour or the Half Day Catamaran cruise too which both spend proportionally more time on the beach and less time hearing "eco mumbo jumbo". The tour they did was called THE ECO TOUR which should have told them something about what to expect. The Eco Tour spends a few hours speaking about turtles and touring the mangrove habitats. Of course we have drinks all day long too, but no ALCOHOLIC drinks until the end. With several snorkeling options we only ever serve alcohol on regular tours after the water activities as a safety measure. This tour was designed around things that we did as kids and I have been taking kids on this tour since 1999. All kids are welcome and enjoy this tour more than most. Man this one didn't make me happy at all. Anyway, that's the nature of this business. We do an alternative tour to the regular ones that traditionally have been on offer here in the Caribbean. We will get fewer people loving it but the ones that like this kind of tour will be very very happy. All of us at Adventure Antigua are extremely proud of this tour and we are happy that many of the other recent TA reviews differ to this one. If you have been out on the tour and enjoyed it please write a review for us too. Thanks!
eli
PS to post a review of your own please click here and to read more about our tours click here.