Native Way: An unpleasant experience

[pbk917]

After much research & reviewing these boards quite often my wife & I booked Native Way several months ago for an Island tour & visit to Stingray City while cruising on Celebritiy Cruises Century. The tour was to be held from 9:30Am - 1:30PM. We are a family of 3, Mom, Dad & 11 year old daughter, this was our fourth cruise. We were quite certain that Native way would provide us with a great opportunity to tour Grand Cayman & visit Stingray City while avoiding the large crowds often associated with tours booked directly through the ship. The following recap is by no means intended to discourage you from using the services of Native Way, but we felt it's necessary to tell our story for the information of future cruisers. This tour is listed on their web-site as "New" so perhaps there's a learning curve involved.

 

We were to meet a Native Way representative at the North Terminal at 8:45AM to check in. The tour was to depart at 9:30AM. The three of us searched for a company representative but were unable to find anyone. We asked people in the information booth as well as other tour operators & we were told that we were in the right place & that we should keep waiting. Finally at 9:30 (stressed & hot) another tour opertaor approached us & asked us why we were still waiting there, we told her that still no one from Native Way had come by so we were getting ready to find other means of touring. She knew someone who had Native Way's phone number, so this other person called Native Way on our behalf. We were told that they would be there to pick us up in 30 minutes. Very annoyed, but somewhat relieved we used this time to visit some of the shops in town. We came back at 10AM as told & still waited another 10 minutes. Finally a man showed up without so much as an apololgy for having us wait so long. He simply said to follow him as he quickly crossed the street & led us to a minivan/taxi. In the minivan were 2 wonderful, friendly ladies from our ship that the taxi driver had picked up from the street, they did not have a reservation with Native Way. The taxi driver was great and was very knowledgable of the islands history & people. He took us to the Turtle Farm & to Hell and even made a quick stop at 7 mile beach. He was aware that we also had to go to Stingray City as part of our tour. We were dropped off at the boat at around 12:30PM. I immediately told the Captain that we had to be back for our ship's last tender which was 3PM, he told me that there was no problem with that. After roughly 30 minutes we arrived at Stingray City shortly after 1PM. This is truly an experience that should not be missed. The crew was very good with all passengers (around 24 of us) and really worked hard to get everyone involved. At about 1:30Pm we all boarded the boat for what we thought was the ride back to the dock. Instead, we went to another spot to snorkle. I Immediately told the Captain that this was not part of our tour & that we were already late for some prior commitments made that morning in town. The Captain told me that this would be a very quick stop & we would make our tender. Most passengers snorkeled & came back on the boat at 1:50PM. Now the stress really kicked in, the boat did not start. I am well aware that "Things" happen so I'm not complaining that the boat didn't start, but we had a tender to catch & time was going by quickly. After a few minutes the crew still was unable to get the engines going. At this point the Captain called the Native Way office & told them that he had 5 passenegrs that had a 3PM tender to catch (there was one other couple cruising on the Century). At this point my daughter was crying, my wife was panicking & I was just really annoyed & we began thinking of how we would get to our next port of call. Finally after several minutes the motor started and we quickly began our return to the dock. Once we reached the canal that leads to the dock, the Captain decided to show us one of the celebrity houses & another stop to see an Iguana. We did not find this humorous being that the time was now 2:25PM and we still had to get a ride back on the bus into town. Finally at 2:30PM we boarded the bus with everyone else & began a slow ride back into town. All of a sudden a passenger asked if they could be dropped off at the beach, to which the driver agreed (by the way the bus driver was the guy who came very late in the morning to pick us up), I think the driver was one of the owners. I quickly reminded the driver that we had to get back right away, it was now about 2:40PM. After the stop at the beach we again headed back to town, this time we made no additional stops. We made it back to town at 2:50PM and caught the next to last tender back to the ship.

 

In conclusion, our biggest issue here was the total lack of concern they had for our schedule. Forget the fact that we had an agreement detailing hours to meet & duration of the tour. In addition to this we went from our breakfast at 7AM & had no lunch until we got back to the ship, this is not an easy thing to do with a child. From our personal experiences we can not refer Native Way to anyone. Next time we tender into port we will book directly through the ship. A vacation is supposed to be stress-free & relaxing, that day in Grand Cayman was a nightmare. The Island is beautiful & the people are quite friendly, unfortunately Native Way left a very bad experience in our minds. We could only imagine what would have happened if the boat did'nt start.

[cruisinqt]

Hmm...I wonder if Nativeway has hired some new people or underwent changes or something. I have heard nothing but good about them. Many people have said that they are very prompt and efficient and even answered their e-mails the very next day. Well I e-mailed them twice over the course of a week and never got a response from them. :( I started to e-mail them a third time and my husband stopped me. He said he had a bad feeling about it and wanted to use someone else. He said if they were that lax and inconsiderate in their e-mail responses then they would probably be the same way when handling our tour. So I e-mailed Soto's and got a response back in less than 24 hours. We're booked with them for our October cruise.:)

 

I have heard so much good about Nativeway that it makes me wonder if they are going through a growth spurt or something.:confused: Maybe they have hired new people that haven't figured things out yet. Or maybe they have installed a new computer system. When my husband's company installed a new computer, their existing data including e-mails, phone numbers, and customer purchases got all screwed up. That could be the reason they forgot you were coming and didn't e-mail me back. There must be a reason behind what has happened to us because Nativeway has a very good reputation and with good reason too. Lot's of people have had very good experiences with them. Anyway, I hope they get things straigtened out for all of those nice cruisers that have booked with them. I am sure they will. :D

[Lemk85]

:mad: My family and I are now having second thoughts about our confirmed, (I think), snorkeling/island tour with NativeWay. It took them three days and several emails to respond to my reservation request. After confirming, they asked for my telephone number, (which was in each of the emails I previously sent), to get my credit card info to guarantee the reservation. That was four days ago and I have yet to hear from them.

 

Sharon - are you reading these boards?????

[jstducky]

i'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with nativeway. i just got back for the stingray city and island drive tour with nativeway 2 weeks ago and had the experience of my life. there were 5 all together in our party and we all agreed at the end of our cruise that the highlight of the cruise was the experience we had with nativeway.

 

i arrived at the dock for my 9:30 tour at 8:20 to find someone already waiting at the dock for us. we got to the GC yacht club around 10 am and we did the stingray city portion of the tour first. in the tour we signed up for it was only supposed to be a stop at stingray city, but before we got on the boat the told us that we would also stop to snorkel at 2 additional places, coral gardens and the reef wall at no extra charge for us. we got back to the GC yacht club after 12 pm and the 5 of us along with another party of 5 boarded their bus for the island drive. the first thing that the driver asked us was what time our last tenders were. for us it was 5:00 pm so we had no worries. for the other party it was 3:30 pm so the driver said that would be no problem. he then took us to the turtle farm and to hell always mindful of the time and even though a storm was blowing through town he had us back at the dock by 3:00 pm so that the other group could make their tender.

 

this was the first time i had booked a non ship excursion as i had heard from other cc members that nativeway was the way to go. and i couldn't have agreed more. i was apprehensive to begin with but now i know that i made the right decision for me and my family.

 

lemk85 - i hope that when you go you have a great experience. don't worry about the credit card thing. isn't it better that they haven't contacted you and asked for your credit card? this way she can't charge you at all if she doesnt ahve your card number.

 

i really had a great experience and i hope that your family does as well

[jls27]

Jstducky:

 

Thanks for the information yesterday on the tour with Nativeway. I will be on the Zuiderdam in September.

 

Can you tell me when is the last tender back to the ship when it was in Grand Cayman?

 

Joyce

[jstducky]

joyce:

 

the last tender back to the ship is 4:30, i beleive. don't quote me on this. not postive about this one... i know we left grand cayman about 5:30 pm. the last people got back on board around 5:00 pm...

 

i do remember that we were the last boat to leave grand cayman. the caribbean princess, navigator of the seas and carnival triumph all left before the zuiderdam.

[pbk917]

jstducky:

 

We are envious of you. You had the tour that we had hoped to have after reading these boards for so many months. This was not the first private booked tour we had ever done. The day before our Native Way experience, we had the most amazing tour of Ocho Rios, given by Peat Taylor & his son. We have taken several private tours & will certainly not let this one bad experience discourage us from doing them in the future. However, if we ever get back to Grand Cayman, we will certainly not use Native Way. Grand Cayman is a beautiful island & Stingray City is an amazing experience, to all of you future cruisers we wish you a great time...............

[Florida Beach]

:mad: My family and I are now having second thoughts about our confirmed, (I think), snorkeling/island tour with NativeWay. It took them three days and several emails to respond to my reservation request. After confirming, they asked for my telephone number, (which was in each of the emails I previously sent), to get my credit card info to guarantee the reservation. That was four days ago and I have yet to hear from them.

Most excursions we booked independently required no upfront payment. On our last cruise, we booked all tours with the cruiseline (guaranteed by credit card) to make sure we would not miss the ship. It's a little more expensive, but alot less stress.

[Donna42]

I called Native ways last week and Sharon returned my call. I asked her to book us for the Snorkeling/Stingray tour for Rapsody of the Seas arriving Sept. 9th. I asked her if she could send me a confirmation email and she agreed. That was 5 days ago and I have received no email. I emailed her Friday and still no email. I called her twice this weekend. Still nothing. I agree with you guys. I think its time to book with someone more deserving of my money. I am looking for a snorkeling/stingray tour and then maybe an island tour before we plop down on 7 mile beach. Any suggestions? I'm concerned about how the timing for these excursion will work out? We are first time cruisers and need help from you experienced travelers!

Thanks in advance, Donna:confused:

[montgomeryfamily]

Donna, Captain Marvins offers two stingray snorkeling excursions and several island tour options. Go to his website for more information: http://www.captainmarvins.com.

 

You can correspond by email and they also have a toll free telephone number. Talk to Ruth in their office and she can tell you what options they offer within the time constraints you have.

 

Captain Marvins provides excellent service and friendly crew. Although the reservation is held with a credit card, it isn't charged until the day of your excursion and if your ship has to bypass Grand Cayman (which unfortunately happens), you aren't charged.

[cruisinqt]

Donna, you might also check with Soto's tours. It is the same price as Nativeway ($24 per person ) and has 3 stops instead of 2 stops. :) Their website is at www.sotoscruises.com and there are lots of raving reviews of Soto's tours here at Cruise Critic. Captain Marvin's and Captain Bryan's are on larger catamaran's but with the larger boats comes larger crowds. And they are a little higher in price at $34 per person. That is why we decided to book with Soto's tours. I hear that they have just a handful of people on their tours and you get lots of individual attention. And I am happy to report that they responded to my e-mail in less than 24 hours. :D I have e-mailed them again since then with a few more questions. And again, they responded back to me in less than 24 hours. I am very pleased with their prompt replies and feel very good about our upcoming excursion.:D

[MizzouMary]

I sent Sharon with Native Way a e-mail yesterday (7/31) and she replied back to me the same day. I explained that I am a member of the Cruise Critic and CruiseMates boards and she stated "I really appreciate Cruise Critic and CruiseMates people, you folks have really been great!". So, this really surprises me. I have heard really good things about Native Way and am disappointed that this happened to you PBK917.

 

We are planning to take the Island Tour with them in November. Their price is really great at $20 pp. We are still planning to take this tour with them. I will let everyone know how it goes!

[Donna42]

Hello everyone, if you read all the previous entries, you will see a posting from me that I was disappointed with Native Ways. Well, things have changed since then. I got an email from Sharon and a couple phone calls. She explained that the reason she wasn't able to get back with me in a timely manner was due to being short on staff and computer problems. She sincerely apologized and made "good with me". We had a great conversation. She went out of her way to gain my confidence back. We booked with Nativeways and I'm sure the 2 excursions we booked will be great! For those of you who have had a hard time with "communications" with Native Ways......give them another chance. Problems do occur with their business just like problems in our lives that are beyond our control.

 

Happy Cruising! Donna

[Buckeye Geo]

I just booked a Stingray and Island Tour with Nativeway. I was a little worried after reading some of the negative comments, but after reading the last post about giving Nativeway another try because of some computer problems. I feel better about my choice. I e-mailed my reservation to Sharon today at noon and received a confirmation by return e-mail within an hour. I will be in the Cayman's in November aboard the Galaxy. The ships Stingray and Island tour views the stingrays from a glass bottom boat, and doesn't included going off on the sandbar to swim with the stingrays. I think I will be happy:) with my choice.

[hkolln]

I too am very surprised about Nativeways!

 

We took their tour in March. We booked it online and Sharon emailed me back promptly (like within 24 hrs everytime!) and confirmed it too thru email.

When we arrived at the port we were there about 45 mins early and we immediately found the guy holding their sign up. He told us he would be back at 9am to get us and to go ahead and shop or whatever and come back. We did and he promptly picked us up at 9am.

 

All thru the entire tour they were so nice and explained everything and took a video of the entire trip. We went to the stingray sandbar and they let us all hold a stingray and feed one too. They explained to us all about stingrays, etc... We then were taken out to a reef and allowed to snorkel for about 30-45mins and then from there we were taken back to the pier.

 

Overall it was a great tour! I'd book it again too. We also purchased the DVD version of the entire tour and it was nice and they had it delivered to our ships pursers desk within 1-2 hrs and before we sailed out!

 

I wonder if they have just grown so much they can't keep up with the reservations or either they have new people that can't figure it out. But I can honestly say our tour was great!!! I am perplexed by the negative stuff I'm hearing about them.

 

As for the credit card guarantee...they asked me for one but didn't charge it. It just guaranteed our reservation and then we paid them directly at the pier.

[rfische1]

I had such a wonderful time with them last year, I booked them for our visit this year. Yes, Sharon was a bit lax responding to my first e-mail, but called me in response to my second attempt. Unfortunately I was driving in traffic and I don't like to talk on my cell while navigating around tourists. She explained the computer problems and the fact that she had been sick. She reassured me that all will be well for our October visit and that we still had plenty of time. I am looking forward to touring with them again.

[richtersl]

Interesting....I just received two email responses from her this week answering some questions I had about their tours.

 

Most reviews I've read about them have been favorable. From the posts I've read in this thread so far, it DOES sound like they've had some computer and personnel issues.

[pbk917]

I'm sincerely pleased that the majority of you have had good experiences with Native Way. That's exactly the reason we booked with them in the first place, we did not read one negative comment. Reading all of your positive experiences makes me even more annoyed/frustrated that our's was so different from everyone else's experience. I guess we caught them on a bad day. As I stated in my initial posting of this topic, the guides we had were very good & were quite informative and were given very generous gratuities. My dissatisfaction lied in the fact that we had an agreement upon time of pick-up & drop-off and was very disappointed in how this whole "Timing" issue was handled. Their lack of communication when we arrived in Grand Cayman was the big problem. I have not contacted Native Way to "Complain" about this because if Sharon really reads these boards as she claims she does, she has seen this posting.

 

I have used these boards for several years now & find them to be the best place to exchange information on what we all find to be the wonderful experience of Cruising.

[richtersl]

Your overall trip sounded GREAT. But the beginning and end were a bit flaky. Folks do tend to be more laid back in that part of the world than they do in the northeast US (it's OK, I live just across the river from you ;) ).

 

When we were in Dominica, I found myself thinking the same thing that you did -- will we ever make it back to the ship before it leaves the port? Actually, our experience was similar to yours: they were late in picking us up. The excursion itself was fantastic! We did dilly-dally a bit in places where we didn't need to and I kept reminding the driver we had a ship to catch. Our guide would up driving like a bat out of hell to return us to our ship. We made it with 5 minutes to spare. It was too close for comfort for me. But had they picked us up at the agreed upon time, it would have been fine. Oh well, things did work out in the end. :)