3 or 4 hour tour with Fabian or Herod?

[perlgirlnj]

I've learned the hard way that my kids do better with shorter excursions, 4 hours tops. Also, we all really prefer very small groups or private tours.

 

Based on that, and based on things I read here and on websites, I sent e-mails to Fabian and to Herod, both of whom are available on the day I need.

 

So who would you use for a private or very small 3 or 4 hour tour, and what would you leave out from the usual 5 or 6 hour itinerary?

[benevempress]

I'm also interested in a shorter, morning only tour since our ship is only in port from 8 am to 2 pm.

[jkloni]

We used Herod a couple of weeks ago and I recommend him without exception. He was waiting for us outside the port area, took us to all the places he told us he would take us and made it back to port in plenty of time. We were only in port from 11a-6p. We had lots of drinks (soft drinks, water, beer, rum punch) and he paid for all of the food we tasted.

 

Soufriere is about 35-45 min from the port area which is part of the reason for the length of the tour. We left at 1130a and got back at 445pm. Maybe you could leave out some of the lookouts. We enjoyed the waterfall and the botanical gardens as well as Jalousie Beach (just awe-inspiring).

 

If you are doing it privately like we did, you can change anything around that you want to. Maybe go to things right around the port area. (though the big things are around Soufriere.) You can also dictate the refreshments. He was very nice, informative and we enjoyed our day with him very much. He is the father of 3 small children so I think that is a plus if you are bringing children. His van was very spacious, with excellent AC. I was very happy with our choice to use him.

 

Kathy

[jkloni]

I'm also interested in a shorter, morning only tour since our ship is only in port from 8 am to 2 pm.

 

You could get Herod's tour in with the time you are in port. We were there for 6 hours total and made it in plenty of time.

 

Kathy

[ejvb918]

We were so please that we used Fabian to coordinate our island tour and to transport us around the island. We enjoyed zip lining through the rain forest and visiting the Toraille Waterfalls/Botanical Gardens, the Sulphur Springs, Marigot Bay, Castries and the Rum Distillery. Lunch at Ladera Resort was an added treat!! He helped make our first trip to St. Lucia a memorable vacation! We will definitely be back and we look forward to using his services again!!

[baffles]

Just used Fabian for the fourth time, and as always we see different things on St Lucia using him. We like "local" attractions instead of the ho-hum regular tour type stuff..........GREAT tours with Fabian. baffles

[perlgirlnj]

It was great to get these two posts after not hearing anything for a long time, since in the meantime, we'd booked Fabian to guide us.

 

I know lots of people like one of the more full-day tours and though we'd have enough time to do it, I know my kids well enough to know that we're better off keeping it shorter. Fabian seemed totally willing to work to our wishes.

 

Thanks for the confirmation!

[LUCKYBLACKCAT]

Hi - Perlgirlnj - what day are you in St Lucia? We are planning to do Fabian's Island Tour on 3 February - it sounds great on his website.

[perlgirlnj]

We're going soon. We'll be there January 2nd, I think. I've been looking at these boards for a few months but it took me a long time to decide on our St. Lucia outing, for some reason.

[perlgirlnj]

In Barbados, we plan on doing Steven's "Thriller turtle/shipwreck/snorkel" outing. Do you recommend it?

 

Not going to St. Kitts. . . at least on this cruise!

[KroozFoolz]

In Barbados, we plan on doing Steven's "Thriller turtle/shipwreck/snorkel" outing. Do you recommend it?

 

You might check the Barbados board for reports on this tour; for example, this thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=632879&highlight=thriller

[woodofpine]

My kids (9-14) enjoyed our Land & Sea (6.5 hrs) with Herod. The island has some very good guides and Fabian gets positive reports too.

 

That said, with kids I don't know that Marigot Bay is that interesting - beautiful yes, and I'm not sure that the drive in volcano is worth the time insofar as kid interest goes.

 

The falls and Soufriere and Jalousie beach will be enjoyed by all (with swim suits), I'd pick the volcano over Marigot Bay if time made for an add on.

[growinassets]

This was our second trip to St. Lucia and Herod really gave us a tour of the island that was impressive. His knowledge of the island along with his connections with locals made for a tour that really couldn't compare to anything the cruise lines could have offered. Definitely bring your swimsuits and snorkel gear for the beach. Even with the mudslides and closed roads, Herod knew his way around the back roads and included parts of the tour that others had to cancel out on. We'd recommend his tour as a great value. There were six in our group and everyone had a great time. Thanks to CruiseCritic for us finding Herod before our trip.:)

[jennyjayfl]

We did a private full day tour with Fabian last March (2007) and he was excellent. He charged us $200 for the day and we had to pay the 5$ admission into the Botanical Gardens. He was very flexible in omitting those parts of the standard tour we didn't want to go to, and adding in other things. I contacted several other tour operators that have been mentioned on these boards, and many of them were not nearly as open to doing different things that we requested as was Fabian. We was promptly waiting for us at the designated place and time, and he has a nice clean air conditioned van along with a cooler full of assorted drinks. I would definitely recommend him, although I have not been a tour with anyone else, so thats not to say they are not good as well. Hope this helps. :o

[perlgirlnj]

After all that decision-making angst, I had booked Fabian and then the day before we were leaving, I got an e-mail from Herod, confirming our reservation. I hadn't heard back from him on my follow up request for info--we had definitely NOT finalized a reservation--and I had made a commitment to Fabian by that point and I told him so.

 

When we exited the terminal, there was a guy holding up a sign with our name (NOT Fabian, more on this later), and next to him, was Herod. How uncomfortable! Although I guess that means Herod was able to book a tour for the day.

 

I was very initially very unhappy because after all that, Fabian passed us off to someone else, a guy named Paul. (We bumped into Fabian during the day and he had a full van of people, a better gig than the 5 of us, I guess.)

 

It turned out to be a lovely day and Paul was a great guide. We're a low-key family and Paul gave a thorough, low-key tour, including all the treats and highlights that it seems like every guide does in St. Lucia. We ate and drank our way through our tour, and even the intermittant rain didn't bother us. We really enjoyed Paul's company & commentary, and the way he responded to our preferences.

 

I was glad that we did it privately so we were able to move at our own pace and keep away from the crowds (mostly). I was clearly out of my mind when I thought we could do a 3 hour tour. We had decided on 4 to 6 hours, trying hard to stick to the low end. It ended up being 5 hours, which was really all I could take on the winding roads.

 

BTW, the best line of the day goes to my 14 year old. We had decided to forgo the Diamond Falls and go to the Toraille Falls and garden instead, in the interest of keeping the hiking to a minimum to keep the tour shorter. We got to the (somewhat unimpressive) falls and she said "It is, in fact, falling water." She did like the botanical gardens, though, which is more than I can say for the two 16 year olds!

 

All in all, it was a nice day and I'd recommend Paul (who works for/with Fabian) to anyone. And I'd also recommend that if you are ABSOLUTELY COMMITTED to having a particular person guide you, you better say so when you book it or you could be in for a surprise like we were. As I said though, it turned out great.