Avoid "St Andrews by the Sea" tour in Saint John, Canada!

[Cruising Forever!]

We just got back from a wonderful cruise aboard the Adventure of the Seas today, and I will write a full review here shortly, but I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up to steer clear of the St Andrews by the Sea excursion offered by RC for the stop in Saint John, Canada! It was a nightmare.

 

It started out good with a jovial guide and driver, but then when we got to St. Andrews (a sleepy seaside tourist location) it all went downhill. For starters, most of the quaint little shops were closed (noon on a Tuesday)! Some apparently out of business. Plus you just barely had time to see the few places that were open. About an hour and 20 minutes there, with a one hour drive each way to St. Andrews.

 

Second, the driver and the guide both did a head count and they still left behind one person (evidently traveling alone) and this wasn't realized until about 30 minutes into a one hour ride back to the ship (which was timed to arrive back about a half hour before the ship departed)! Another passenger said she wondered where that lady was to the guide (it would have helped if she spoke sooner, but she wasn't sure if the woman sat somewhere else). So we had to drive all the way back and pick her up. (It would have been much smarter for the tour operator to arrange an Uber - at the operator's expense- to drive her to the port, but whatever) Poor woman looked scared to death when we arrived back at St. Andrews. (Another frustrating thing was the fact that no one could answer whether she was there or boarded some other tour bus!)

 

Finally, our tour guide was so frazzled by all of this (I guess he's anticipating a stern lecture on the merits of an accurate head-count) that he resumed his Canada stuff lecture but went off on a tangent about his various bouts with cancers and the importance of cancer screening and even talking about some inappropriate topics about his sex life after prostate cancer... it got so bad that one woman stood up (overly dramatically in my opinion) and begged him to stop talking about cancer. (Maybe she'd lost someone or had some bad experience herself) Then she began sobbing. Several other guests asked him to get back on Canada info.

 

The guide reluctantly stopped talking about all this non-Canada info and went on a fast delivery rant of mostly catastrophes throughout Canadian history (kind of a downer) and I eventually tuned him out.

 

Adventure was late getting out of port that day as our tour got back about 45 minutes late.

 

Again, I highly recommend NOT DOING THIS TOUR!

[cruisinfanatic]

We just got back from a wonderful cruise aboard the Adventure of the Seas today, and I will write a full review here shortly, but I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up to steer clear of the St Andrews by the Sea excursion offered by RC for the stop in Saint John, Canada! It was a nightmare.

 

It started out good with a jovial guide and driver, but then when we got to St. Andrews (a sleepy seaside tourist location) it all went downhill. For starters, most of the quaint little shops were closed (noon on a Tuesday)! Some apparently out of business. Plus you just barely had time to see the few places that were open. About an hour and 20 minutes there, with a one hour drive each way to St. Andrews.

 

Second, the driver and the guide both did a head count and they still left behind one person (evidently traveling alone) and this wasn't realized until about 30 minutes into a one hour ride back to the ship (which was timed to arrive back about a half hour before the ship departed)! Another passenger said she wondered where that lady was to the guide (it would have helped if she spoke sooner, but she wasn't sure if the woman sat somewhere else). So we had to drive all the way back and pick her up. (It would have been much smarter for the tour operator to arrange an Uber - at the operator's expense- to drive her to the port, but whatever) Poor woman looked scared to death when we arrived back at St. Andrews. (Another frustrating thing was the fact that no one could answer whether she was there or boarded some other tour bus!)

 

Finally, our tour guide was so frazzled by all of this (I guess he's anticipating a stern lecture on the merits of an accurate head-count) that he resumed his Canada stuff lecture but went off on a tangent about his various bouts with cancers and the importance of cancer screening and even talking about some inappropriate topics about his sex life after prostate cancer... it got so bad that one woman stood up (overly dramatically in my opinion) and begged him to stop talking about cancer. (Maybe she'd lost someone or had some bad experience herself) Then she began sobbing. Several other guests asked him to get back on Canada info.

 

The guide reluctantly stopped talking about all this non-Canada info and went on a fast delivery rant of mostly catastrophes throughout Canadian history (kind of a downer) and I eventually tuned him out.

 

Adventure was late getting out of port that day as our tour got back about 45 minutes late.

 

Again, I highly recommend NOT DOING THIS TOUR!

Sorry you had a problem with the excursion. Are you sure everyone will in the future?

Do you think that every time someone has a nightmare excursion they should tell everyone to not take it? There wouldn't be anything to take.

[BigHouseFootball]

Sorry you had a problem with the excursion. Are you sure everyone will in the future?

Do you think that every time someone has a nightmare excursion they should tell everyone to not take it? There wouldn't be anything to take.

 

You’re right. No one should ever tell a bad review. Or a good one for that matter. I mean what’s to say that just because their experience was good that it won’t be a nightmare for the next guy. In fact we should just shut down TripAdvisor while we are at it.

 

To the OP thank you for the post and information. I’m sure someone will find it helpful.

[cruisinfanatic]

You’re right. No one should ever tell a bad review. Or a good one for that matter. I mean what’s to say that just because their experience was good that it won’t be a nightmare for the next guy. In fact we should just shut down TripAdvisor while we are at it.

 

To the OP thank you for the post and information. I’m sure someone will find it helpful.

Can't find where I wrote that

[djyellowsub]

We went on the Saint John Foodies Walking Tour by Aquila Tours on our August 24th cruise. It was excellent and I would recommend it!

[Langley Cruisers]

Hmm. I would assume he is a prostate cancer survivor and felt he needed to have a platform to say some important things. Cancer messes you up, in more ways than one. Of course there is no way to know for sure, but it's my guess that's it.

 

However, leaving someone behind is inexcusable. I would think his job would be in jeopardy because of that.

.

[Rocky123]

I was on the AOS August 24th and took this tour for the second time. I loved the first time and also the second time. It's a nice relaxing tour for the hour ride and has a lovely pier to walk near the bus. I think all 39 people loved it.

The lesson you learned was try to take a ship excursion sponsored tour.

I remember about 25 years ago I was on the Cunard QE2 and took a sponsored tour. We got lost and bus broke down. We were around 4 hours late to the ship. Ship took a short cut and we went aground. What a pain to get home. Rescue boat, bus, train, taxi, etc....

That was my first cruise and since then had around 60 more.

I always read reviews and both Carnival and Holland America this excursion ranks with 4.5 stars out of 5.

[grest]

We have never been to St. Andrews on a shore excursion, but have been there several times driving through that part of Canada. We quite enjoy wandering through the village, but I imagine things get slow after Labor Day. It was pretty active when we were there in late June.

[Cruising Forever!]

Note- it wasn’t only the guide who ruined this tour. As I stated at the top, the destination was disappointing in that half of the stores were closed. Doesn’t matter whether it’s post-Labor Day or whatever... Royal Caribbean sells this expensive tour as being one thing and it’s not.

 

Avoid this trip. I wish we had hung out in Saint John instead. It looked FAR more interesting.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Megachill]

Since several people are giving you a hard time, i just want to thank you for sharing your review. A tour guide who loses people and fails to actually give a guided tour as promised, all while the promised stores are closed or going out of business, is all highly relevant information to people choosing excursions. I'm really glad you posted!

 

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[dswallow]

I'm sure are good tour guides and bad tour guides and good tour guides who have bad days and bad tour guides who have good ones. But you don't know any of that without someone sharing, or experiencing it yourself. Personally I stopped doing guided tours decades ago, but find myself joining friends here and there when they want to take one. And I have to say I've pretty much always had my decision to stop taking them validated on those few I have been on. Between excessive tip begging (in the US of all places) every step of the process -- the bus driver, to and from, the tour guide on the bus, the tour guide at the destination, the airboat captain, and on and on. I felt I was expected to finance a small nation sometimes.

 

I also used to essentially see my destinations through a lens. So stopped lugging around cameras (back in the day cameras were the size to lug around, with lenses, too).

 

But I digress... :)

 

The tour guide may perhaps be different for others, but what they were heading to won't be much different, nor will the overhead vs value (2 hours riding to spend an hour and 20 minutes there is a pretty poor time value in my opinion. And I've seen some tours with a much worse ratio. Though some actually have a destination that might be considered worthwhile anyway.

 

Anyway, more information is always better. Thanks!

[Countrygurl]

We just got back from a wonderful cruise aboard the Adventure of the Seas today, and I will write a full review here shortly, but I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up to steer clear of the St Andrews by the Sea excursion offered by RC for the stop in Saint John, Canada! It was a nightmare.

 

It started out good with a jovial guide and driver, but then when we got to St. Andrews (a sleepy seaside tourist location) it all went downhill. For starters, most of the quaint little shops were closed (noon on a Tuesday)! Some apparently out of business. Plus you just barely had time to see the few places that were open. About an hour and 20 minutes there, with a one hour drive each way to St. Andrews.

 

Second, the driver and the guide both did a head count and they still left behind one person (evidently traveling alone) and this wasn't realized until about 30 minutes into a one hour ride back to the ship (which was timed to arrive back about a half hour before the ship departed)! Another passenger said she wondered where that lady was to the guide (it would have helped if she spoke sooner, but she wasn't sure if the woman sat somewhere else). So we had to drive all the way back and pick her up. (It would have been much smarter for the tour operator to arrange an Uber - at the operator's expense- to drive her to the port, but whatever) Poor woman looked scared to death when we arrived back at St. Andrews. (Another frustrating thing was the fact that no one could answer whether she was there or boarded some other tour bus!)

 

Finally, our tour guide was so frazzled by all of this (I guess he's anticipating a stern lecture on the merits of an accurate head-count) that he resumed his Canada stuff lecture but went off on a tangent about his various bouts with cancers and the importance of cancer screening and even talking about some inappropriate topics about his sex life after prostate cancer... it got so bad that one woman stood up (overly dramatically in my opinion) and begged him to stop talking about cancer. (Maybe she'd lost someone or had some bad experience herself) Then she began sobbing. Several other guests asked him to get back on Canada info.

 

The guide reluctantly stopped talking about all this non-Canada info and went on a fast delivery rant of mostly catastrophes throughout Canadian history (kind of a downer) and I eventually tuned him out.

 

Adventure was late getting out of port that day as our tour got back about 45 minutes late.

 

Again, I highly recommend NOT DOING THIS TOUR!

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your review. I, too, just returned home from this cruise. I wanted to post about my disappointment in general about St. John, but good grief these boards host a tough crowd. I will just say I had a great cruise, but I think a different port may be in order.