Sunny Liston vs. Godfrey Tours

[tinalouise69]

We are going to be in St. Thomas in November with group of 6. We are looking at some tours as we want to have the opportunity to shop, go to a beach for a couple hours & get an island tour/go to Mountain Top.

 

We have narrowed it down to Sunny Liston Tours & Godfrey Tours as they are less expensive than the cruise ship excursions. Anyone have any feedback as to which is better?

 

We are leaning towards Sapphire Beach as the choice for the beach & know that according to Godfrey Tours, they do not currently go there. However, if Godfrey Tours is significantly better than Sunny Liston - we would choose a different beach location for the day.

 

Does anyone have any feedback on either of these tour operators...or perhaps other similar alternatives with another operator? Trying to firm up my plans for November...

[mrpayroll]

Godfrey and Sonny basically go the to same places other than Godfrey not going to sapphire. Also Sonny blares music the entire time ( some people enjoy that )

[audcc77]

Godfrey does a great tour. He has been doing this for decades and I've taken his tour twice. Since he knew I just took his tour 2 months ago with my girlfriends, he actually altered the tour when I came back a few months later with my husband and son so that I wouldn't be seeing the same things again. Godfrey takes a lot of pride in his work, is a good driver and is a safe driver.

[momfor2girls]

We used Godfrey and he was great. He met us at the ship and at each designated meeting point on the tour at the appointed time. He also had plenty of cold soda's and water for us. He was very informative and as a previous poster said he was a safe driver. We enjoyed our tour with him very much. Have fun!

[woffojl]

I must say that we just used Sunny in June while sailing the Valor, and the tour was great aside from the loud music, commentary, and singing blaring through the PA system. It was fun at first, but got old very quickly. By the end of the tour my whole group was "over" it. We ran into Godfrey's group all along the way, and I will definitely use him in the future. This trip was action-packed as there were 5 ports. I would do every excursion again (in a minute) except for this one. The "IT/Marketing"person in me was captivated by the quality of Sunny's website and figured since he had obviously invested in effectively marketing/branding his company, that the tour would measure up. The tour was great, but by the end (for me and my group) it had lost its luster.

[jamin jul]

I have used both in the past and both do a great job! I liked how happy Sunny was on the tour. He did play music and he did sing. We really had a good time with him:) I think he would take you to either Megans Bay or Saphire- it depended on where everyone wanted to go. That was afew years ago- so things might have changed.

[Tiggertastic]

we went with godfrey and everywhere we went we heard sunny before we saw him

 

They seemed to go to the same places when we checked them out but we were not interested in the beach personally so we picked Godfrey. We did not have godfrey as the driver all the way through. He took us shopping then another driver took over after the shops and both were good.

 

There was a great group in the bus and we had a great time -

 

I have to say that we only did godfrey in the end because he was the cheapest

[letiha]

I was just reading a few reviews on trip advisor regarding Godfrey Tours being late back to the boat, thats my worst nightmare.

[cv322]

I've gone with Godfrey every time I've been to St.Thomas, & every single time we went to Sapphire Beach...I know that his website no longer shows excursions to Sapphire, but in March of this year 45 people (all from our CC roll call) wanted to go to Sapphire Beach...so I emailed Godfrey and he said yes, he would take us. It was $20/pp and we were there all day long, & then he picked us up to go back to the ship. It was a great day. :)

Edited September 29, 2013 by cv322

[cv322]

I was just reading a few reviews on trip advisor regarding Godfrey Tours being late back to the boat, thats my worst nightmare.

 

I think Sonny Liston staff wrote those reviews! Hahahahaha!

[springfire]

Something people should know, trip advisor has a bunch of fraud reviews. It should just be one area to check out but please review in other places.

[canadarocks]

Something people should know, trip advisor has a bunch of fraud reviews. It should just be one area to check out but please review in other places.

 

On Trip Advisor especially, I always check how many "reviews" or "posts" a person has. I realize everyone has to start somewhere, but I've learned to pay very little attention at anyone with less than 5. The same holds true to a lesser extent here as well. ;)

[demodawn]

We did Godfrey tours first time was good. Next three times have done sonny. His tours much more fun and he interacts a lot more. Each time we had different people with us and it's a good way to see the island. So I would say if you want shapphire go with sonny. This time we are renting a car.

[JohnQ]

Does someone have Godfrey's website link?

[JawjaFatBoy]

Does someone have Godfrey's website link?

 

Here ya go!

 

http://www.godfreytoursvi.com/

 

We are leaning heavily towards taking one of his tours. I just sent off an email with a few questions regarding some possible timing issues and his reply will make our decision.

[JohnQ]

Thank you Fat Boy!

[brownnydann]

Here ya go!

 

http://www.godfreytoursvi.com/

 

We are leaning heavily towards taking one of his tours. I just sent off an email with a few questions regarding some possible timing issues and his reply will make our decision.

 

We're also going to book with Godfrey tours, I just send him an email for our visit next month.

[tinalouise69]

I actually decided to go with Sunny Liston's tour for a couple reasons even though he is a little more expensive than Godfrey's Tours.

 

First and foremost, I had friends of mine visit me a couple weeks ago and when we started talking about our upcoming cruise - they told us about this 'fabulous' tour they had in St. Thomas that did a little bit of everything. They could not remember the name - but immediately when I mentioned Sunny's name they knew it was him. Secondly, when I contacted both of them, the response from Sunny/his staff seemed much more responsive and professional - though they both seemed very nice. Lastly, our group really wanted to visit Sapphire Beach & Godfrey's Tours said they do not go to that beach - that we would have to choose between Coki Beach and Magen's Bay.

 

Sunny Liston's tour was my initial choice & I almost second guessed myself. Think I am sticking with my gut on this one.

[PlayTheAces]

We hooked up with Godrey quite by accident a couple weeks ago. We had debated booking a tour on the ship, but finally decided to wing it and see what we felt like doing once we got to the port.

 

We ate a leisurely breakfast and let the crowds get off first, then finally meandered off the ship. There were a couple of the tour trolleys parked near the ship, and Godfrey just happened to be one of them.

 

I asked him about the tour, and he recited the list of locations they pretty much all hit, with an option to get off at Magan's Bay beach for a couple of hours. The price he offered to take us for was half of what the tour costs if you book it on board, and my wife had never seen the whole island, so away we went.

 

As we left the port we were the only ones on the trolley, but Godfrey had a list of others from the ship who would be accompanying us and was doing some serious communicating on his phone. He dropped us off downtown to do some shopping, said he'd be back in an hour, and took off. At this point I wasn't sure if we'd see him again or not. But I honestly wasn't too concerned.

 

An hour later he returned as promised and we boarded the trolley. Another fifteen minutes or so and the rest of our group was on board as well, and everyone had a cold drink in hand. I never did figure out why we hadn't all left the ship together, but all's well that ends well.

 

The tour was very enjoyable, and probably lasted around 4 hours or so start to finish. Godfrey dives safely, provides a good narration, and had the cooler full of soft drinks and water mounted on back of his trolley. He's a solid, trustworthy guy. We got lucky running into him.

 

[cmickeygirl72]

My hubby and I are going on Godfrey tours. I read all great reviews about the tours.

[supergran]

We booked Godfrey's tours for our St Thomas visit last week on Adventure of the seas. We had an email telling us to meet him at 9am. We were panicking as we had to go through US customs on board and were worried we would be delayed getting off ship. We were still waiting at 9.30 when a open sided taxi saying Sunny Liston tours arrived and the driver said he was there to collect us for our tour. It would seem that the two companies are run by the same people. Our driver, Elvis, took us and four others into town for the shopping part of the tour. We were given stickers to say we were on tour and had paid our money. We were told to be back at the pickup point by 11.30. When we got back to the meeting point the taxi/ bus was almost full. All passengers had stickers the same as ours. We got onto the bus and Elvis was still picking up more passengers. I should mention at this point that the taxi is licensed to carry 20 passengers in rows and 2 passengers in the front with the driver. This assumes people are of average weight and size. Some of our fellow passengers were a lot bigger than average so a bit of re arranging had to take place. We eventually left for our first stop at a lookout over the island. Every one got out and that's when the trouble started. Some people decided to change seats and others objected as Elvis had spent a lot of time making sure the smaller passengers didn't get squashed by the larger ones. We eventually all got in and off we went again. At the next stop it was musical chairs again and things got quite heated. It only takes one obnoxious large couple from Essex and it spoils the whole trip for everyone. Our next stop was the beach and fortunately this couple decided to stay there while the rest of us returned to town. The atmosphere was considerably lighter after that. Elvis did his best to keep the peace but between the late start and the insults being traded I did not enjoy this trip one bit. I will be writing to Godfrey and if I get a response I will post on here.

[Name Of The Game]

I've never read any reviews that would lead me to believe Godfrey and Sonny Liston Tours are affiliated. It sounds more like the driver (Elvis) for Sonny "stole" you from Godfrey. These tours are competitors.

[supergran]

You may be correct but in that case Godfrey didn't show up for our booked tour which he had confirmed by email. No good customer service. Think I will email him to ask what happened.

[drakes2]

I will be in St. Thomas on the Royal on January 8th and wanted to book a tour with Godfrey, I e mailed him a few days ago and have not yet received a response. Does anyone know if he is quick at responding to emails or should I book with another tour operator. :)

You may be correct but in that case Godfrey didn't show up for our booked tour which he had confirmed by email. No good customer service. Think I will email him to ask what happened.

[pgharea]

Does anyone know if he is quick at responding to emails or should I book with another tour operator. :)

 

I found that emailing him directly gets a same day response. Look at his website and copy paste the actual email. Then just send him an email with date, name of ship, which tour, and time. I got my response back in a couple hours.

 

 

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