Private Tour St Lucia?

[plucasana]

Hi everyone,

 

Is there a TOUR GUIDE for a tour for two that includes the following sights:

 

1. pitons

2. Botanical Gardens(waterfall)

3. Zip line

4. Ladera lunch

5. Banana Plantation

6. Volcano

7. Jalousie beach

 

Is it even possible to see all of this in just one day, or would you rather

skip the zip line?

 

thank you for all kind of input!

 

pluca

[reedprincess]

Hi everyone,

 

Is there a TOUR GUIDE for a tour for two that includes the following sights:

 

1. pitons

2. Botanical Gardens(waterfall)

3. Zip line

4. Ladera lunch

5. Banana Plantation

6. Volcano

7. Jalousie beach

 

Is it even possible to see all of this in just one day, or would you rather

skip the zip line?

 

thank you for all kind of input!

 

pluca

If you want any beach time at all, you'll probably need to skip the zip line (I am assuming the shorter zip line course at Morne Coubaril, as that is the only one in the Soufriere area? If it's the others you would definitely have to skip - there is just no way you could get all those things in with the travel time needed to get around). St. Lucia may be a small island, but with the mountainous roads, it takes much longer than it looks to get places.

You can easily hire a taxi driver to cover all the spots you want to go to. A full day hire will cost around $200-$250US depending on how long, how many stops, etc. Plus any entrance fees, lunch and drinks along the way.

For a private/custom tour with drinks, etc try Serenity TVL, James Touring, Franks Tours or maybe Real St. Lucia Tours. Any of them can put together a private tour (I'd start with Serenity personally, then in the order listed). Be prepared for a hefty price tag. Personally - I would skip lunch at Ladera - stop for a cocktail and the view definitely, but lunch itself is, IMO, not worth the $$$ anymore. For a delicious gourmet lunch, go across the highway to Hotel Chocolat. For a more local experience, try Martha's Table on the Jalousie road - excellent local lunches for a fraction of the Ladera price, and on the way to Jalousie.

The order of your tour will go more like this: Marigot Bay view site (quick photo stop, banana plantation (which is a fairly quick stop on the side of the road), Piton view stop (10 minutes), volcano (45 minutes), botanical gardens and waterfall (1hour), lunch, beach time, then back. It takes a minimum 1 hour to get to Soufriere, and a little longer getting back due to traffic through the city - do leave yourself plenty of time to get there/back. It's doable though, if you skip the zipline.

Good luck - hope that helps. Enjoy your visit!

[DaisyandSika]

We went with James Touring. James and Desiree were wonderful. We went to Anse La Reye, Canaries, Soufriere, and Marigot Bay. Made some photo stops along the way, visited the botanical gardens, and stopped at the beach. They are very knowledgeable of the area and fun to travel around with. Ask James to stop at the bread place in Canaries. It's a delicious snack.

 

If you could round up a few more from your cruise who would be interested in sharing your tour, it would defer the cost. James' van can hold a few, 10 people if I remember correctly.

[plucasana]

Thank you so much for these useful replies!

I obviously am new to this :-)

 

Thanks again!

kind regards

 

Pluca

[Fourseventeen]

we hired a private cab driver to tour us around for the day. I cant recall her name off the top of my head but the rate was very reasonable..we found her at the taxi stand just outside the terminal.

[Snowdogg]

I am also looking to do something similar in St Lucia, when we are there the 1st week of August. My family and I only have 3 must sees. Pitons, Botanical Gardens(waterfall) and the drive in Volcano.

 

Any idea how long doing this would take from the cruise port ?

 

Anyone have experience with James Touring or A-Touring ?

 

Any other suggestions ?

[Starfire_rules]

Another vote for James Tours! He is very personable and informative. We had the best time with him. He went above and beyond for us. We are using him again in February.

[CincyCruise]

Here's my review of Real St. Lucia tours. We would have had time for one or two more activities if we had really wanted to cram them in.

 

We booked a private tour for four while visiting St. Lucia for a day off of the Carnival Valor. The cruise ship excursions weren't all that appealing and the pricing of a private tour with Real St. Lucia was less that what the cruise offered. Our guide, Danny, met us promptly at the terminal and took us to his van. He was a wealth of knowledge about St. Lucia and shared many great facts as we began our trip.

 

Danny was a great driver and made us feel comfortable along the winding roads. As we headed to see the Pitons he made several stops along the way so that we could take pictures. He explained that there would be vendors at the stops and let us know that all we had to do was say no thank you if we weren't interested. He also stopped to allow us to try bananas, fresh coconut water and some great local bread. Once we had seen the Pitons we were able to customize the rest of our tour. We opted to visit the volcano, stop for lunch and visit a rum distillery.

 

The lunch was one of the highlights of our entire vacation. Danny took us to a hidden spot in one of the fishing villages. He phoned ahead and our order was ready when we arrived. We had a mix of great local food - chicken, fish, rice, bananas and root vegetables. We also got to try a cherry drink and a tamarind drink.

 

On our way back Danny quizzed us on all of the facts that he had shared and entertained us with riddles. One of the down-sides of cruising is that the time spent at each location is often so short that it's hard to get a feel for the island. That wasn't the case in St. Lucia due to this fabulous tour. I would recommend Real St. Lucia Tours and Danny to anyone who wants to see more of the beautiful island of St. Lucia.

[plucasana]

Wow! Thank you so much for this great review!

[Skai]

It's been a few years since St. Lucia, but I still would absolutely recommend Herod as a tour guide.

 

Here is his newest website(I believe) -- http://www.herodstours.com/land_sea_safari.html

 

There are other guides that offer the same 'circuit' so-to-speak, but they generally have copied his original design, and none of them offer a home-cooked lunch at Mom's -- A real highlight.

 

Some have stated that he's a little harder to get a hold of at times (and I believe he may still require a minimum persons to book -- Usually easily filled/shared by and with one's own roll call), but we had a great day with him, and his Land & Sea tour sold me on the idea of arranging all of our future port tours privately from then on forward.

[Ozwald]

Try Fabian Tours. They will customize a tour for you and your friends. Not sure if you will be able to fit all of that in, but we did a tour of island with banana plantation,, saw botanical gardens and diamond waterfall, skipped volcano, reviews were not so great, Saw Pitons, did not climb them, and went snorkeling at Anse Chastanet. They got us back to the ship on time, we sampled many island foods and fruits, price included in tour, and went where we wanted to go. If driver suggested something we could say yes or no and therefore, make our snorkeling time at beach longer, which is wht we wanted.

IF you get stung in water while snorkeling, our driver told us not to worry, it was a "piss Ant", and to spit in the water to scare them off.!