Lawrence never showed up

[steveaaaa]

I just wanted to pass this info on for information only.Last week 11/22 I picked up an island tour as I exited the ship for $20 per person plus $5 for park fee's.We were told to wait with another couple for a few minutes.This was a very nice couple from Texas who has read the cruise critic boards and told us they booked with Lawrence and even emailed him prior to the cruise to verify everything.They told us he never showed up.

So just take that info into consideration.

 

Now in Lawrence's defense, we were late arriving as we were delayed leaving San juan as a result of a medical emergency,but I think it is still bad business to stick them like that.

Steve

[Trece]

Can you tell me how late your ship actually was due to the medical emergency? We have Lawrence booked in two weeks and today (before reading your post) I had a disquieting e-mail from him sort of shuffling us around due to someone else cancelling blah blah blah. I didn't really understand it and wasn't sure what to make of it, but coupled with your post I'm even more uneasy. I guess the good thing is no money changes hands in advance. Was it easy to pick up a tour on the dock? We usually travel in Europe where our private excursions are set in advance & it's not common to scout around on the dock for guides, but I know things are different in the Caribbean. Has anyone else had a bad Lawrence experience? A friend of mine used him a few weeks ago & loved him.

[steveaaaa]

Can you tell me how late your ship actually was due to the medical emergency? We have Lawrence booked in two weeks and today (before reading your post) I had a disquieting e-mail from him sort of shuffling us around due to someone else cancelling blah blah blah. I didn't really understand it and wasn't sure what to make of it, but coupled with your post I'm even more uneasy. I guess the good thing is no money changes hands in advance. Was it easy to pick up a tour on the dock? We usually travel in Europe where our private excursions are set in advance & it's not common to scout around on the dock for guides, but I know things are different in the Caribbean. Has anyone else had a bad Lawrence experience? A friend of mine used him a few weeks ago & loved him.

 

We were 30 minutes late sort of.Even after docking it takes almost an hour before the ship is cleared so he knew about the delay.

When we got off,there were a dozen people offering the same trip for $20 plus $5 park fee. Everybody who offers a trip seems to follow everyone else so paying less is the way to go on this island.There is not much more to see or do on a trip here.

Steve

[Zeno]

We were 30 minutes late sort of.Even after docking it takes almost an hour before the ship is cleared so he knew about the delay.

When we got off,there were a dozen people offering the same trip for $20 plus $5 park fee. Everybody who offers a trip seems to follow everyone else so paying less is the way to go on this island.There is not much more to see or do on a trip here.

Steve

Sorry but I must disagree. If you like history, there is a lot to see on Antigua. We have been to Antigua 3 times by cruiseship and have taken tours twice (once with a taxi driver, we just found at the dock and once with Lawrence).

 

The first tour was just OK and did not take in all the important sites.

 

Lawrence's tour was excellent. He made sure we took advantage of everything offered at the various sites of the National Historic Park (We saw Nelson's Dockyard, Dows Hill, the Blockhouse and Shirley Heights - many other tours will skip one of those and we went to the Natural bridge.) At every site Lawrence made very sure that we saw the presentation (Dow's Hill) and got the tour (Dow's Hill and Nelson's Dockyard) and where there was no tour included, he took us around himself. He never rushed us and stopped for photos whenever we wanted to and at a couple of places where he knew we would get good photos.

 

Re: his not turning up - when we went with him, he did NOT do a pickup at the dock ( I don't know if this has changed since). You had to meet him at a restaurant a couple of blocks from the dock (something to do with taxi regulations). I am hoping the couple you spoke to were just confused about where they were to meet him. We were late the day we went on our tour with him and not only did he wait quite a while but he sent a friend to look for us. Believe me it is NOT like him to "not turn up". He is very responsible.

[Trece]

Zeno - Unless he's going to reveal some secret information in the next week before we depart, he has NOT instructed us to meet him anywhere other than on the dock, so if the people who were "stood up" were confused, I can see why, because we have not been given any other instructions ourselves. I've used private guides for years & know the ins & outs quite well. I'll be asking my friend who used him a month ago what her instructions were, but until now he's not told us anything to the contrary.

 

I do agree there's a lot to see on Antigua as I was there about 12 years ago, but my friend has not been and I want to be sure she gets the full treatment. Price isn't as important because compared to Europe these prices are stellar, but I do want a good & reliable guide. Hopefully all will work out well!

[spocruiser]

Trece;

 

We have a tour with Lawrence booked during the last week of December. When we booked, we received the following message:

 

Booking is confirmed. How ever I will be sending you full arrival information at least six weeks before arrival date, that will include time of tour, where we will be meeting etc. So you can look for that information by the second week in November the latest. Looking forward to serve you.

 

 

We subsequently received this message:

 

Your cruise ship arrive just after 8:00. To meet me you just keep walking straight from the time you leave the cruise ship gate. You will have to pass a lot of taxi drivers before you see me ahead. I will be having your name on display, plus from a distance you cannot miss the multi colour vest I will be wearing. Time 9:30 sharp. Please send me an e-mail to confirm receiving arrival information. Looking forward to serve you.

 

 

And later, one more email:

 

Please take note there is another Lawrence very close to the cruise ship gate, he will be wearing a name tag with the name Lawrence on display, also he has some gray hair on his head. Please be awear of him. I will be wearing a multi colour vest and I will be having your name on display. Looking forward to serve you.

 

Obviously, I have no idea as to whether his arrangements for your tour are the same, but perhaps this information will be helpful to you. I hope your experience is good. I have read very good reviews of his tours.

 

Good luck and have a good trip.

 

P.S. Please post a review upon your return of your time with Lawrence and any other excursions you engage in in your ports.

[Zeno]

Trece;

 

We have a tour with Lawrence booked during the last week of December. When we booked, we received the following message:

 

Booking is confirmed. How ever I will be sending you full arrival information at least six weeks before arrival date, that will include time of tour, where we will be meeting etc. So you can look for that information by the second week in November the latest. Looking forward to serve you.

 

 

We subsequently received this message:

 

Your cruise ship arrive just after 8:00. To meet me you just keep walking straight from the time you leave the cruise ship gate. You will have to pass a lot of taxi drivers before you see me ahead. I will be having your name on display, plus from a distance you cannot miss the multi colour vest I will be wearing. Time 9:30 sharp. Please send me an e-mail to confirm receiving arrival information. Looking forward to serve you.

 

 

And later, one more email:

 

Please take note there is another Lawrence very close to the cruise ship gate, he will be wearing a name tag with the name Lawrence on display, also he has some gray hair on his head. Please be awear of him. I will be wearing a multi colour vest and I will be having your name on display. Looking forward to serve you.

 

Obviously, I have no idea as to whether his arrangements for your tour are the same, but perhaps this information will be helpful to you. I hope your experience is good. I have read very good reviews of his tours.

 

Good luck and have a good trip.

 

P.S. Please post a review upon your return of your time with Lawrence and any other excursions you engage in in your ports.

 

Thanks for posting this - our experience was similar except he gave us instructions for meeting him at the restaurant. He sent us a confirming enail with instructions.

[texancruzer]

There is not much more to see or do on a trip here.

Steve

 

Wow - with all the cruises you have under your belt - it would seem you would be travel savvy......and I have to disagree with you also on the above observation.

 

We visited Antigua last year and months before decided we wanted to see alot of this island. So we rented a car and drove all around ourselves. There is ALOT MORE TO THIS ISLAND THAN FIRST APPEARANCES. It was perhaps my favorite on the Southern route. So much so that I would love to go back for a land based stay - maybe a week or so.

[ute_fan]

We used Lawrence's services about 3 weeks ago. My word of caution would just be to confirm that your party will all be kept together. If there's only 2 of you traveling, it shouldn't be an issue, but we had 4 of us who made reservations together, and he split us up into 2 different vehicles. The other couple we were traveling with, and the remainder of our roll-call group who had decided to join us, all were able to travel in Lawrence's new bus. My DH and I were sent off to ride in an uncomfortable taxi van. I also had a complaint from the group that was in the bus regarding the number of passengers he put on the bus. One of their party, who is quite large, had to sit on an uncomfortable jump seat that shouldn't have been used for a paying customer.

 

The tour itself ended up being good, but I was fairly upset that we had booked Lawrence based upon the recommendations of the board, and then we weren't able to listen to his narration since we weren't in his vehicle. Our taxi driver was fine, and probably gave about the same information, but the whole situation wasn't handled in a very professional manner.

[DavidO]

My wife and I are the couple from Texas that Steve is referring to.

 

I booked back in Sept. and received a confirmation e-mail similar to the above posters to meet him past the taxis. We got off the ship quickly after we docked so even with the late arrival we were not too late. We walked all up and down that street for awhile before finally giving up.

 

A week before the cruise (so about 1 1/2 weeks before the actual tour) I e-mailed him to confirm we were still set for the tour. I never received a reply. I thought it was a little odd but figured he maybe had computer problems (I never did receive a reply though).

 

It ended up working out well as we shared this tour with Steve and his family and saved $15 per person. The tour was good for the price and we did make several stops. I wish our driver had been better at giving us information though, he mainly spoke when we asked him questions.

 

Shopping tip - Just a note on Antigua prices, t-shirts are outrageously priced in Antigua. They were about $8-10, even at the street vendors so we passed. In St. Thomas t-shirts were readily available for 4 for $10.

 

David

[Zeno]

DavidO:

What a shame the Lawrence tour did not work out for you! I am truly surprised that he did not wait for you.

OoPs - I just thought of something - I wonder if your ship (maybe because it arrived late) was at a different part of the dock than he expected. (There are a couple of streets that lead down to the dock and if you walked up the "wrong" one, you would never see him). I say this because when we did our tour with him, his friend who went looking for us could not find us because he expected us to be coming from a different part of the dock. We found lawrence before his friend found us. However I do think he should have checked both streets for you anyway.

[Host Star]

Can you tell me how late your ship actually was due to the medical emergency? We have Lawrence booked in two weeks and today (before reading your post) I had a disquieting e-mail from him sort of shuffling us around due to someone else cancelling blah blah blah. I didn't really understand it and wasn't sure what to make of it, but coupled with your post I'm even more uneasy. I guess the good thing is no money changes hands in advance. Was it easy to pick up a tour on the dock? We usually travel in Europe where our private excursions are set in advance & it's not common to scout around on the dock for guides, but I know things are different in the Caribbean. Has anyone else had a bad Lawrence experience? A friend of mine used him a few weeks ago & loved him.

 

trece

looks like we are double booked with Lawrence.. we have him booked for a private tour for 9 of us.. and I think we are on the same Dec. 9 radiance cruise..I saw your name on the roll call... he assured me it was a private tour, just the 9 of us.. email me.. my email address is in my signature..

[steveaaaa]

My wife and I are the couple from Texas that Steve is referring to.

 

I booked back in Sept. and received a confirmation e-mail similar to the above posters to meet him past the taxis. We got off the ship quickly after we docked so even with the late arrival we were not too late. We walked all up and down that street for awhile before finally giving up.

 

A week before the cruise (so about 1 1/2 weeks before the actual tour) I e-mailed him to confirm we were still set for the tour. I never received a reply. I thought it was a little odd but figured he maybe had computer problems (I never did receive a reply though).

 

It ended up working out well as we shared this tour with Steve and his family and saved $15 per person. The tour was good for the price and we did make several stops. I wish our driver had been better at giving us information though, he mainly spoke when we asked him questions.

 

Shopping tip - Just a note on Antigua prices, t-shirts are outrageously priced in Antigua. They were about $8-10, even at the street vendors so we passed. In St. Thomas t-shirts were readily available for 4 for $10.

 

David

 

Hi David!!!

Nice to hear from you again.I hope all is well.

 

Texancruzer..Compared to all the other islands in the carib I have been to, the shear beauty of its landscape are it high points.The small history of the island is just that,small.I originally booked a zip line tour which was cancelled and I prefer more adventurous excursions and as a rule I book them on my own or I drive them.It was the cancellation of my original tour which did not allow me to arrange for something else.

 

Zeno...Our ship docked in berth 2 right in the heart of downtown.

 

Steve

[Zeno]

Zeno...Our ship docked in berth 2 right in the heart of downtown.

 

Steve

We docked right downtown too - there is a street directly in front of the dock we were at (don't know if it was berth one or two) and then to the left of the dock there is another street. We had started up the first street while Lawrence was parked at a restaurant on the 2nd street. Apparently we were supposed to be docked closer to the 2nd street but then the ship got moved at the last minute. Luckily for us local people directed us to walk one street over and we found Lawrence. I wish he could come right onto the dock to meet people - I think that would make things a lot less confusing.

[Trece]

Given some of the comments about vehicle size & overloading, can anyone give us some idea of the maximum number of adults that comfortably fit in Lawrence's largest vehicle? I've seen references to a "new bus," how many does that hold and is it an actual bus or a large van or ?? :confused: Thanks for all your help so far!

[ute_fan]

How about a picture of the new "bus"? Here's the link to Lawrence'swebsite, which has a photo of him in front of the bus. Like I said, we didn't get to ride in it, but my recollection as we were talking about it on the roll-call was that it was supposed to hold 18 or 20 people.http://lawrenceofantigua.com/Leston_and_Bus_3.jpg

[Trece]

A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say! Thanks so much for posting that!

[Life in Antigua]

Its unfortunate to hear all these "not so good" remarks about Lawrences tour because Ive heard nothing but praise for his tour. He does an excellent tour and he is usually timely maybe it was just a bad day. If persons are still apprehensive about doing that tour. I know a guy on the island that has one jeep and only takes six persons he does personalized tours which can be historical or safari or a combination of both.

If anyone is interested send me an email @ hya_9@hotmail.com

 

 

Hope thsi helps

[coton]

I live in Canada and can guarantee you that Glen who runs Creole Cruises would never leave behind his customers.

He is truly a genuine man running a great cruise in Antigua

[LYN393]

I just thought I would put in my thoughts on our tour. We were a party of seven and booked with Premier because Gordon responded quickly to my sisters email by calling her in Wisconsin to talk to her about her heart condition and if she needed anything special. We decided that anyone who takes the time to phone someone back in the states had our vote. We were on NCL Jewel and were in Antiqua on 11/29/06 and Carl was our tour guide which we met on the pier. He did mention that the big bus was in the shop that it had broke down, but we had a comfortable van and he wore a microphone that had a speaker on the back of his seat. The weather started out nice , but we had an hour of hard rain so we all decided to not do Nelson's boatyard. He showed us some great sights and we wanted a different kind of tour so we went to a little store to check out what they had on their shelves and bought some drinks and got some Antiqua money. Then my husband wanted a conch shell and he drove right up to a house and he ordered a sugar apple (local fruit that you suck the pulp out of) for us to try, then we bought some and DH got his conch shell for $5.00. We then headed to a pineapple plantation that was run by the government. He had to get out of the car and open the gate and then drive thru and then close the gate. The reason that it was gated was because the goats and donkeys get in and cause damage to the plants. Then he drove up this road that we all thought for sure we would get stuck. The gentleman who overseas the farm came down and talked to us all about pineapples while Carl cut one fresh for us to taste. They grow black pineapples on Antiqua and had seven different kinds on this plantation. Then he took us to Turner beach and dropped us off and came back at the time we agreed upon. Turner beach was great, some of the family snorkeled and some of us just swam. The local beer is good and we tried fried conch, which was pretty good. Afterward he dropped us off in town and some of us want back to ship and some did some shopping. This tour was one of our highlight of vacation. Thank you Carl and your precious daughter. The Yankees from Wisconsin

[Grumpy8]

How about a picture of the new "bus"? Here's the link to Lawrence'swebsite, which has a photo of him in front of the bus. Like I said, we didn't get to ride in it, but my recollection as we were talking about it on the roll-call was that it was supposed to hold 18 or 20 people.http://lawrenceofantigua.com/Leston_and_Bus_3.jpg

 

Glad you like the picture I took.

This Thread just amazes me how a mistake is made and we trash the poor guy. I guess none of us make mistakes.:(

[ute_fan]

I don't really think I trashed him, but neither was I very pleased with what transpired. Our friends that we were traveling with, who made our reservations along with theirs (so we should have been booked as a party of 4) and I were talking about it on the roll-call thread for our cruise. Several more of them decided to join us, and we were all talking about how fun it would be since we were basically going to fill his bus.

 

Imagine our dismay when we go to board the bus. All of our friends are sent onto the bus -- where some members not from our group were already seated -- and the two of us were sent off to a different van. At the very least, the 4 of us who booked together should have been kept in one group. If he is going to accept reservations for more passengers than his van holds, then the passengers who book after his van capacity has been reached need to be notified that, unless there are no-shows, they will be seated in a different vehicle.

[steveaaaa]

Glad you like the picture I took.

This Thread just amazes me how a mistake is made and we trash the poor guy. I guess none of us make mistakes.:(

 

ute fan has just reported what transpired,as well as I.

Does the information that I reported,not deserve to be reported? Does the fact that the actual people affected post into this thread to confirm it wrong? I don't think so.

How can you consider it trashing?

It is odd that I reported he did it several months ago and the day I am on his island,it happens again and I end up sharing a tour with those affected.

 

Yes people make mistakes,but lets not make a habit of it.

Steve

[travelwide]

I guess nothing changes. He did the exact same thing 3 years ago to our group of six! Yes he is a nice man trying to make a living but he has done this type of overbooking so many times it's getting old.

[212cruiser]

We used Lawrence last week on our cruise due to the comments about him on this board. His bus is clean and well air conditioned. He was a safe driver, friendly and offered to take pictures of his guests at the various stops we made. He is informative with the standard information about the island. However, I would not get stressed-out if you can't reach him or you can't book with him. The island tour is quite simple without too many sights to see and I'm sure there were several other operators able to give a comparable "tour." In fact, many were at the dock with modern air conditioned buses waiting. While we enjoyed his tour there was nothing unique or special about it at all.