Your worst excursion/guide experience?

[kelleherdl]

Have you ever felt compelled to formally complain either in person or on the review sheet about a particularly bad excursion or excursion guide?

 

We did last week on the Eurodam. We were in Tunis on the Best of Tunisia tour. While the tour itself was informative and otherwise enjoyable the guide was offensive in his comments and very inappropriate with women from the ship and with women on the street. The guide, I am not kidding on this, made disparaging comments relative to Shia versus Suni muslims. Recognize that Tunisia is almost exclusively Suni, but to have any comment at all on a HAL sponsored excursion was beyond the pale. His comments to women were particularly offensive. Yes, I get the whole cultural diversity thing, and normally would brush an isolated incident off, but this was bad.

 

Yes, I did write a comment on the review sheet identifying the guide....

 

Dennis

[JayS]

On my first cruise (1986) the CD / Tour salesman almost got on his hands and knees to beg that we do NOT go independent in Cartagena Columbia , but was indifferent a to taking an independent in Aruba.

We took his advise. The tour guide was as good as most, except he discourged people buying coffee on the street. His friends came on the bus near the end and sold us coffe at the same price as the street vendors.

We took an independant in Aruba. He drove us around the island saying " In Aruba we speak Papiamento" once every 10 minutes for the 2 hours and nothing else.:(

 

From then on only ships tours or independants recommended on CC.

[CtheW0rld]

on a tour to petra, our guide kept talking on and on and on about his college experience in the UK. he talked more about himself than jordan and petra.

[peaches from georgia]

Our worst excursion was the island tour in Dominica. Lovely island, but the bus was so old and evidently had no shock absorbers. The roads were very primitive and we felt like we were bouncing about 1/2" above and literally hitting every rock and rut. This was several years ago, so maybe the transportation has improved, but I wouldn't count on it. It was a HAL tour, but it is a very poor country and of course it was a local vendor providing the bus.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Our worst excursion was the island tour in Dominica. Lovely island, but the bus was so old and evidently had no shock absorbers. The roads were very primitive and we felt like we were bouncing about 1/2" above and literally hitting every rock and rut. This was several years ago, so maybe the transportation has improved, but I wouldn't count on it. It was a HAL tour, but it is a very poor country and of course it was a local vendor providing the bus.

 

We did this same tour when we were in Dominica for the first time in 2002 -- the mini-vans were terrible!! But we didn't write them up because it is a poor country and they just can't afford to have all the new buses, etc., that you get in some of the other ports.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We had a tour guide that was very poor in Israel -- David -- all he did was talk about himself, his beliefs, and his religion. He spent so much time on his own talk that we arrived at a couple of places -- already closed for the day!! There were various check points with guards and representatives from Cunard -- since we were running late he kept getting calls which he ignored and the bus driver had to handle.

Yes -- we did write him up on the comment card. Someone must have complained to the shore excursion people as we all got 1/2 of our money back for that excursion. That was a nice surprise.

[CowPrincess]

A couple of years ago, we did the Concordia & Copala tour in Mexico through HAL. The guide was a pushy bootch who said things like "When I say get on the bus, I MEAN GET ON THE BUS!!!!" (long before we reached a stop). And made comments about how we had SO LITTLE TIME because our ship was leaving earlier than scheduled. (We actually had arrived earlier, started the tour earlier, so the time we had for the tour was exactly the same.) And at every stop it was "you have FIVE MINUTEs, FIVE MINUTES, DO YOU HEAR ME?" Some places we got 10 or 15 minutes. At every stop she was yelling "Hurry up, hurry up, get on the bus!!!!" And every time we stopped, she'd say "you only have enough time to see xxxxx" and "if you're late we are leaving without you".

 

On the way back to Mazatlan, she started her Diamonds International pitch and went on and on about DI. Handed out coupons, handed out brochures. We stopped in front of DI and she said "30 minutes, only 30 minutes, don't wander, you have only 30 minutes". So really no opportunity to go anywhere BUT to DI.

 

The tour bus pulled back up, and we all got on it -- then the guide disappeared (back into DI, is what I was told) and the bus took us on a ride thru the streets, for about 25 mins, till we got back to DI to re-board the guide. So her big push to keep us moving was for her own benefit only.

 

Several of us were soooooooooooooo PO'd we went right to the Shorex desk, where we were told "Too bad, here's a comment card".

[yiddishkopf]

It didn't happen to me but happened on a recent tour of San Diego. We were on the Zandaam and had returned from Hawaii and Ensenada to San Diego to disembark those leaving the ship and those embarking for the 6 day trip to Vancouver. We were staying on until Vancouver so we scheduled a tour of San Diego. I left the tour early and took a cab back because I was meeting my great nephew and his wife and 2 adorable girls for lunch. I informed the guide that I was leaving and he told me where to get a cab.

 

When the rest of the tour arrived at the dock, my SO told me there was a man cursing the guide and gesturing at him--the guide had left the angry man and his wife at the Del Coronado Hotel and left without them. Their bags were on the bus including the man's glasses. At first my SO thought the man doing the shouting was a drunk, but when he learned what had happened, agreed that the left behind travelers had every right to be angry. All the guide had to do was count the number of people on his bus.

[CtheW0rld]

At first my SO thought the man doing the shouting was a drunk, but when he learned what had happened, agreed that the left behind travelers had every right to be angry. All the guide had to do was count the number of people on his bus.

 

how late were they? it is not fair to hold up a whole busload of people for a couple stragglers.

[cruisemom42]

How far back do you want to go....;)

 

When I was a kid on a Sitmar cruise (1970s), we stopped in St. Lucia and took an excursion to visit the volcano. The vehicle was little more than a small pickup with the back converted to bench seats for 4; no seat belts. The drive up the hills was scary enough, but on the drive back down, the truck kept having "engine trouble" (my dad, who snuck a look at the gas gauge, swears the guy was out of gas). For some reason, the truck would run for a while in reverse. So the guy would start the engine, drive BACKWARDS down the twisty, curvy roads (with us in the back having a birds eye view), then when the engine switched off, he'd put it in neutral and "coast" for a while.

 

We finally made it most of the way when a taxi came along and took the four of us (my family plus one of the ship's entertainers) back to the port. We were quite late, and those were the days before "cruise cards" so we weren't even sure if anyone would be aware that we were missing and if the ship would even still be there. :eek:

 

I was so relieved to see the funnel of the ship as we got close to port. The entertainer (a singer named Manolo Molini, who I believe was Italian) kept assuring me the ship wouldn't leave without him as he was singing that night! Guess he was right.......

[Atomica]

Worst, by far, was a couple of years ago in Bar Harbor. The motorcoach kept stalling out on the steep road up to the top of Acadia National Park, and each time it did, it would stop and roll about fifteen feet back down the hill before the brakes were applied. This was follwed by about five minutes of trying to restart the engine each time.

 

Six stalls later, we reached the top and were told we had ten minutes to take in the sights because of how long it took the bus to get there in the first place!

 

$60 per person well spent... ;)

[Koshlong]

My worst experience wasn't really very bad; but it did irritate me. In Martinique, we signed up for a ship's tour so that we could go to St. Pierre and not miss the ship. The tour guide's English was so poor that he kept asking us what words he should use. If his first language had been French, that would have been somewhat interesting. However, he was GERMAN. Darned if I know how he got to be a guide in a French port.

[Rosethorn40]

Our worst excursion was the island tour in Dominica. Lovely island, but the bus was so old and evidently had no shock absorbers. The roads were very primitive and we felt like we were bouncing about 1/2" above and literally hitting every rock and rut. This was several years ago, so maybe the transportation has improved, but I wouldn't count on it. It was a HAL tour, but it is a very poor country and of course it was a local vendor providing the bus.

 

In 2004 we were also on a tour in Dominica going up narrow, twisty roads in the oldest, run down bus I have ever been on (I think the guide told us it was a relic from the Cold War days from an Eastern European country-Romania?). As we were bounced side to side, watching oncoming traffic pass us with inches to spare I really thought we were going to plunge off the mountain. I remember once looking out the window and seeing an overturned bus in a ravine thinking we were going to be right next to it in a matter of minutes. Needless to say we survived.

 

What our guide told us was not only Dominica poor, but there were no mechanics on the island, so everyone bought the oldest, cheapest vehicles they could find, and when they broke down they just abandoned the car/truck/bus wherever it broke down and hitched a ride to the nearest town to buy a replacement. Most of the cars & buses came from eastern European countries, and were poorly built/maintained to begin with.

 

While a hair raising experience, it wasn't a bad experience, and it gave me a good story to tell. Now about that bad tour experience...................

[sapper1]

On our Oosterdam cruise last month we stopped in Topalabampo so those so inclined could go on the 18 hour Copper Canyon Tour. To pass the day we decided to take a beach excursion through HAL.

We were put on a musty old bus with at least eight cracks in the windshield. The beach was in an isolated area with a few shacks in the area where we parked.

The beach looked OK at first glance but we soon found that the sand was a very fine muddy material that stuck to you like glue. The surf whipped up the muddy sand and made it impossible to swim because the water was so gross.

There were only enough beach chairs for half the people there and no snacks were available for purchase----only beer.

A few people gave up and took a taxi back to the ship but we toughed it out. We were told we would have some fish before we went back to the ship so when the guy in the dory appeared offshore and started cleaning the fish he had caught, we knew that was our lunch. That turned out to be not half bad.

When we got back to the ship I wrote a very polite note suggesting that HAL might want to rethink offering this tour as it was not up to HAL standards. I was not expecting a refund but we received 50% back.

[Sprocket]

My worst experience was on a tour of Fort Lauderdale then on to Miami Airport. The tour guide must have told us 20 times she had MS but not to worry about tipping her. Hmmm....

She then proceeded to slam a very prominent Fort Lauderdale businessman every time she saw one of his businesses or bill boards. I don't know if she was a disgruntled former employee or what but she was very unflattering about him to say the least.

Then she forced our poor driver to take the bus down streets she knew we were not allowed to use. One of them quite near the water had a large fountain in the middle of the road....unfortunately our driver lost the argument and down there we went. There was not enough room to manuever around the fountain, and it took about 20 minutes of backwards and forwards for the driver to get us out of there. The poor bus driver was terrified she was going to get a ticket. The guide blew it off, which I found very unprofessional.

When I got home I called Hal with her name and what tour I was on

and about a week later I received a check in the mail for the cost of the tour.

[cruz chic]

On our Oosterdam cruise last month we stopped in Topalabampo so those so inclined could go on the 18 hour Copper Canyon Tour. To pass the day we decided to take a beach excursion through HAL.

We were put on a musty old bus with at least eight cracks in the windshield. The beach was in an isolated area with a few shacks in the area where we parked.

The beach looked OK at first glance but we soon found that the sand was a very fine muddy material that stuck to you like glue. The surf whipped up the muddy sand and made it impossible to swim because the water was so gross.

There were only enough beach chairs for half the people there and no snacks were available for purchase----only beer.

A few people gave up and took a taxi back to the ship but we toughed it out. We were told we would have some fish before we went back to the ship so when the guy in the dory appeared offshore and started cleaning the fish he had caught, we knew that was our lunch. That turned out to be not half bad.

When we got back to the ship I wrote a very polite note suggesting that HAL might want to rethink offering this tour as it was not up to HAL standards. I was not expecting a refund but we received 50% back.

I'll second that. I've had a few nasty excursions but this one is pretty much the top of my list. You saved me typing it up.

[CowPrincess]

Sapper1 and lorekauf, did you do the HAL excursion? When we were there, there were also complimentary shuttle buses offering trips to Maviri. We were glad we went, but also glad we'd paid very little :) (I got an amazing pic of a bird's footprint in the sand that was as big as my foot -- and I have BIG feet.)

 

Okay, I'm gonna write up my Go with Gus Humanitarian tour impressions. It'll be a while before I get it posted.

[Hlitner]

Many years ago we took an Princess excursion from Izmir to Ephesus. Our guide rushed us through the ruins in a little over an hour so she could get us to a so-called jewelry factory which just so happened to open for our bus. We were locked inside that place for nearly 1 1/2 hours and just about everyone was furious except for one lady who did shop. When we got back to the ship nearly everyone complained and Princess refunded the entire tour cost plus gave us appology letters. As a result, we became self-educated experts on doing our own thing in both Europe and Asia and have only taken two or three excursions in our last 50+ cruises (nearly 2 years at sea). After about forty years of international travel we still love to travel and very seldom ever use a tour or guide (there are a few expections). We have had wonderful experiences that can never be duplicated on organized excursions where tourists are controlled like cattle.

 

Hank

[photomikey]

All the guide had to do was count the number of people on his bus.

All the left-behind passenger had to do was be back to the bus on-time.

[Janice Jones]

We took an island tour on St. Thomas in March. We rode on the back of a pickup where there were rows of seats and it was very crowded and uncomfortable. Before the tour started, the guide had what appeared to be an altercation with her superior and then we took off. Since she was in the cab and we were in the back, we received no information and could not make any requests. Few stops were made for picture taking. We made a fairly long stop at some gardens where she walked with us to the entrance. We were told at the entrance that each person was supposed to have a yellow sticker. That is when she walked away and the person at the entrance told us to go on in anyway. This tour was in sharp contrast to the wonderful tours we had at the other Caribbean islands.

[kyriecat]

I've had two tours that were bad enough to complain about. Both times it was due to the guide and the ship being late to dock. Once we arrived in Civitavecchia almost 2 hours late due to bad weather. It was our first time in Rome and we booked a ship's tour. I booked the more expensive "exclusive" tour that limits the group size to 10 guests to provide a more "personalized" tour. It was supposed to be an 11-hour tour but our guide rushed us through every stop. We were supposed to have lunch but ended up with only about 15 minutes to eat. I barely had time to take photos at most stops. He had a date so he left us in Rome with a bus driver who didn't speak any English to take us back to the ship. Our 11-hour tour lasted less than 9 hours (ship to Rome back to ship). I was very angry. No tip for him and a complaint to the excursions desk. We ended up getting a little money back but not enough to be acceptable. I booked my own private tours and explored on my own the next time we were in Rome.

 

I also had a bad guide in Sicily. Another mistake in taking a ship tour. The ship arrived over an hour late due to engine problems. We were supposed to see Mt. Etna then have a stop in Toarmina for some free time. We did the Mt. Etna stop then just drove through Toarmina - no stopping, no free-time. I complained to the guide because according to the tour description, we were supposed to have 1 hour of free time in Toarmina. It appeared to be a lovely little city and I wanted to explore. The guide told me that he had to wait over an hour for us so that was our "free time". We were supposed to have a 6-hour tour but only got 5 hours. Again, no tip for him. The excursion desk refunded half our money. I would rather have seen Toarmina. :( I'll have to go back sometime.

[Aruba]

The worst for me was in Instanbul when our guide spent much of his time -- and OUR time -- insisting that there never had been a massacre of Armenians a hundred years ago or whevever it was supposed to have happened and that it was all made up. He was like a broken record...and not just while we were in transit but also when we were inside attractions. He wouldn't shut up about it.

 

A runner-up, which had its comic side, was in Portland England. We were doing a ship's excursion to Stonehenge and Salisbury. A truck had overturned and spilled its entire contents over the highway, shutting down traffic on this major route. And the contents of the truck? Toilets. Yes, more toilets than you have ever seen in your life, all lying on the road. It was a kodak moment, believe me. Obviously the delay and subsequent shorter amount of time we had at the historic sites wasn't the guide's fault -- BUT, rather than spending her time speaking to us about Stonehenge, she spent the vast majority of her time chitchatting with the driver about alternative routes for her to get home at the end of the day after they left us all off at the ship. Fortunately I bought guidebooks, otherwise I wouldn't have even known what I was looking at.

[cruz chic]

Sapper1 and lorekauf, did you do the HAL excursion? When we were there, there were also complimentary shuttle buses offering trips to Maviri. We were glad we went, but also glad we'd paid very little :) (I got an amazing pic of a bird's footprint in the sand that was as big as my foot -- and I have BIG feet.)

 

Okay, I'm gonna write up my Go with Gus Humanitarian tour impressions. It'll be a while before I get it posted.

Yup, it was a HAL tour. I shy away from the shuttles from the pier. Usually what happens is there are too many people that want to go and not enough buses. I'd rather pay the money then wait for hours if it's worth it. In this case it wasn't.

[Parrot57]

This was not technically a shore excursion but a problem getting to the ship. We purchased a package from NCL which included pre trip hotel, transportation to and from airport and transport to pier. We were arriving in Seattle a few days early in order to sightsee. Since NCL made all the arrangements we thought we were fine.

 

First there was no transport to the hotel from airport. I guess NCL "forgot" we were arriving. After a run around on phone with NCL we got our own transportation. Never did get reimbursement from NCL. We were supposed to get a "welcome package" at the hotel. They never heard of it. The day before sailing myself and several others were at the desk asking about times, etc. Hotel finally found the "welcome package". A one page letter telling us the time to meet the shuttle in the lobby and information that the hotel would collect our luggage from the hallway by 8am the next morning. Of course, the hotel never heard of having to collect our luggage but they grudgingly agreed to do so.

 

Next morning, we wait and wait. No shuttle. Finally about 2 hours past due a bus arrives. The woman driving ran in and asked the hotel where we were. Eight of us were pointed out but she said she was told only 6. All 8 of us showed our documentation, etc. from NCL and after many cell phone calls she agreed to take us. She immediately pulled away and we said what about luggage which was sitting on the curb with no attendant. She said not my problem I was told to take people . A 15 minute trip turned into an hour because she did not know where she was going. It turned out she was late getting to hotel because she got lost then too. At the pier no one could tell us about our luggage. We started the embarkation process. Fortunately we had a suite and were taken to meet the concierge. We informed him of the luggage situation and he immediately got on the phone. After several calls with everyone playing the blame game he said enough of this. We don't know who he called next but we were told not to worry. We did get the luggage.

 

Debarkation was also a mess. Porter took luggage to the bus. After waiting a few minutes everyone was told wrong bus and we had to get off. No porters around and we schlept luggage to another bus. Same thing. Finally 3rd bus took us to airport. They dropped us off quite a distance from the terminals and we were told to make our own way. You can imagine the grumbling as a bus load of people carted much luggage to the airport. Thank God it was not raining. From now on I make my own arrangements.

[catl331]

In Ketchikan we had arranged a Dolly Varden tour to the Totem Village and was met by a local who yapped so much about himself, his lovelife, his kids, and his fishing. He stopped first at a fishing area to show us his friends fishing. He then went to see if they were biting and left us half on the side of the road (no parking area). Eventually we went to see the totems to discover that the carvers had left for the day and the shop was closing! We did get to take pics around the totems. Live and learn!