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Private tour in Port limon

WorldofTnT

By WorldofTnT,
in Costa Rica

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ncmomof2

ncmomof2

Posted
Posted
What is his tour called? I have seen different prices that are quoted to different members. What is his rule for pricing? THanks

 

He doesn't have specific tours -- he takes you to do whatever you want. So probably different people are paying different amounts because they're doing different things. The price per person for the tour we booked was broken down into prices for each of 3 different activities plus the per person price for the van. The prices for our activities was different for adults and children, but that may depend on the activities chosen and the age of the children.

 

HTH!!

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roddee

roddee

Posted
Posted
He got back with me over the weekend. We're booked for February 18, 2009 off the Carnival Freedom.:cool:

 

Shorties:

PLEASE, give JJ our regards. We were booked with him on our cruise in January, but had to miss his tour when we were unable to dock in Port Limon. He was so very kind and understanding when we emailed him that we would have to miss the port. Enjoy your tour.

Dee

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shorties

shorties

Posted
Posted
Shorties:

PLEASE, give JJ our regards. We were booked with him on our cruise in January, but had to miss his tour when we were unable to dock in Port Limon. He was so very kind and understanding when we emailed him that we would have to miss the port. Enjoy your tour.

Dee

 

Sorry you missed your tour with JJ. I'll post a review once i get back to let others know what I think of his services.

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  • 4 weeks later...
grandmato4

grandmato4

Posted
Posted
We booked JJ for March Miracle Cruise, but no one else seems to know about him. Please post how the tour was when you have time.

 

Our cc rollcall group of 16 toured with J.J. Feb 9th in and around Limon. We had a great day. He prefers to visit the Tortuguero Canal early in the day before many of the tourist have arrived and disturbed the wildlife as he feels you have a better chance to see more early in the day. At our first stop where he originally intended us to board the small boat to visit the canal the workers were still cleaning the dock area and as he did not want us to have to wait another half hour we reboarded the bus and went to another dock where we were able to board a boat immediately to leave on our tour. We saw many species of birds, many slothes, the Jesus Lizzard, a crockodile, ect. on our boat ride through the canal although no monkeys. We really enjoyed our stop at the banana plantation as J.J. is very knowledgeable about growing and shipping of bananas. Along the way, we saw the coastline of Costa Rica, areas where the poor lived and the rich. We stopped at a fruitstand and sampled banana's and chocolate beans. Also stopped to view an armodillo a man had beside the road along with stopping another time when a small boy had a small monkey that we got to hold if we wished. Some in our group wished to go back to the ship so we made a trip back and then the rest of us continued on to a local beach and restaurant where we were able to enjoy lunch if we wanted and/or drinks and spend a bit of time on the beach and swim in the ocean if we wanted. When we were ready to leave we drove back into Limon and drove past more expensive home and he pointed our many flowers growing and explained what they were and even stopped to pick some so we could smell them and then we drove to the highest point in Limon for a great view of the port and our ship. Finally we stopped at a local grocery store where we were able to purchase coffee and vanilla. J.J. is very knowledgeable about his country and wishes to share that knowledge and give you the tour that you wish to have. We used a 20 passenger very comfortable air conditioned bus with a good driver which considering the road conditions and narrow streets in Costa Rica is important.

 

After meeting him at the port exactly where he said be and starting on our journey he did ask if his two sons young sons could join us. They did and they were extremely polite and well behaved young boys. Unfortuantely we couldn't communicate well with them as they spoke very little english and mostly spanish and it would have been fun to be able to talk to them more. J.J. had originally said our tour would last about 5 hours but if we wished more time the price would stay the same. We actually were with J.J. closer to 7 hours without any additional cost and still back to the ship with several extra hours to spare before sail away. J.J. may have an accent, but speaks very good understandable English.

 

Hope you enjoy your day with J.J. as much as we did. If you have any other questions just let me know.:)

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pklein9747

pklein9747

Posted
Posted

Grandmoto4...Thanks so much for your great review of your tour with J.J. We have the same tour scheduled on March 20 with him and we also have a CC group of 16, so it was great to hear that you were comfortable on his van. We have booked a 4 hour tour with him but will be seeing the same things you did. It's nice to know that he isn't rushing through the sites to get you back within the stated time limit.

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grandmato4

grandmato4

Posted
Posted
Grandmoto4...Thanks so much for your great review of your tour with J.J. We have the same tour scheduled on March 20 with him and we also have a CC group of 16, so it was great to hear that you were comfortable on his van. We have booked a 4 hour tour with him but will be seeing the same things you did. It's nice to know that he isn't rushing through the sites to get you back within the stated time limit.

 

If you group is doing pretty much the exact same tour with J.J. that our group did I can't imagine doing it all in 4 hours as that would just be way too rushed even though you don't really need all the time we took either but more than 4 hours. Its not required, but it is nice to have a few extra dollar bills with you to give to the children and /or adults that you may stop and see along the way that have animals for you to see up close. Also when we stopped at the fruit stand there were some children that had flowers and hand braided leaves that we gave a dollar to. Again, not required, but well worth a dollar tip to each for the wonderful experience they gave to us.

 

We actually had lunch at the Quimbama Bar Restaurante on the beach. 2 Pina Colotta's, one alcoholic and one virgin(VERY tasty:))and a large plate of caiamari, fries, and a large plate of fried plankton which were all very good cost us $20.00. We were the only cruise tourist there that day with a few other tourist and quite a few locals all very friendly. You may wish to forwarn your group that the countryside itself in Costa Rica is beautiful but the garbage beside the roads is, well, not the best of sights. To us it was just part of viewing another country and culture different than our own but some people can be put off by it. J.J. will teach you a lot about the country. We loved our day in Costa Rica. At the end of pier when returning to the ship there is a nice craft market in Limon. Hope you all enjoy your Panama Canal cruise as much as we did as we found it to be an absolutely wonderful cruise experience every single day. :)

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Pacificana

Pacificana

Posted
Posted

Grandmato4, thank you for the very useful information. I also booked a tour with JJ for March 18 (MCS Lirica cruise), and I am sure I did the right thing. Just one question. What is the beach where you went like? Is it sandy? Rocky? Any snorkeling opportunities there? Thanks

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grandmato4

grandmato4

Posted
Posted
Grandmato4, thank you for the very useful information. I also booked a tour with JJ for March 18 (MCS Lirica cruise), and I am sure I did the right thing. Just one question. What is the beach where you went like? Is it sandy? Rocky? Any snorkeling opportunities there? Thanks

 

There had been a lot of rain in Costa Rica before we arrived, although we had beautiful sunny dry weather the day we were there. The ocean had a lot of wave action and some young boys were actually surfing when we were at the beach. The water was warm but not clear at all. The sand at the beach was a dark sand color and fairly hard packed I'm sure from all the rain they had before us, not at all like the soft white sand beaches we'd enjoyed in Aruba. It was not rocky at all where I was swimming nor on the beach.

 

I enjoy swimming at different beach areas and also appreciate visiting different places not expecting them to all be the same, so I enjoyed the beach experience there, but as far as rating it with other beaches for soft sand and beautiful colored water it would have to fall at the bottom of that list. Hope this doesn't discourage you but rather gives you a realistic picture to help you enjoy your time there as we did.:)

 

As far as I know J.J. is not at the J.J. Haines Tour company but works independently.

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Pacificana

Pacificana

Posted
Posted
There had been a lot of rain in Costa Rica before we arrived, although we had beautiful sunny dry weather the day we were there. The ocean had a lot of wave action and some young boys were actually surfing when we were at the beach. The water was warm but not clear at all. The sand at the beach was a dark sand color and fairly hard packed I'm sure from all the rain they had before us, not at all like the soft white sand beaches we'd enjoyed in Aruba. It was not rocky at all where I was swimming nor on the beach.

 

I enjoy swimming at different beach areas and also appreciate visiting different places not expecting them to all be the same, so I enjoyed the beach experience there, but as far as rating it with other beaches for soft sand and beautiful colored water it would have to fall at the bottom of that list. Hope this doesn't discourage you but rather gives you a realistic picture to help you enjoy your time there as we did.:)

 

As far as I know J.J. is not at the J.J. Haines Tour company but works independently.

 

Thanks a lot. We are pretty open-minded and I am sure we will enjoy a new experience. Just wanted to know what to expect.

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  • 1 month later...
ncmomof2

ncmomof2

Posted
Posted

Took me a while to get back on here and post, but we spent the day on March 6 with JJ out of Puerto Limon. We were on HAL's Zuiderdam -- HAL changes ship time to match port time (I had verified this ahead of time), so we didn't have any scheduling snafus.

 

Background info, our party consisted of my family (DH and myself in our late 30s, DD almost 10, and DS almost 5) plus 4 adult friends, all in their 50s.

 

Below is an excerpt about our day with JJ from a longer journal of our whole cruise. If you're interested, you can read the whole thing, which includes a lot of pictures, but is really long..

 

Based on recommendation on the CC Costa Rica board, I’d arranged a tour with JJ – one of the best decisions I made planning this trip!! He was right at the end of the pier waiting for us when we disembarked (with an umbrella for us, since it was raining some). There were eight of us in our group (6 adults and 2 children, all friends and friends of friends of ours, nobody who’d scheduled with JJ separately from us) and we had JJ, his driver, and his air conditioned van to ourselves for the whole day. JJ was great about spending the time we were driving telling us about his country and answering any questions we had. His father was American and he spent some time in the US as a child, so his spoken English is excellent. He also has a bunch of kids of his own (five, I think) that span the ages of mine, so he was great with the kids and understanding of their needs.

We could have gone to a banana plantation first, but voted not to since we didn’t think the kids would be that interested and we wanted to get to the ziplining place as early as possible. The kids then decided that they wanted to see the banana plantation – doesn’t it just figure – so we planned to try and fit it in later. So, our first stop was Brisas de la Jungla for ziplining. Everybody in our party ziplined except for one of the adults– yes, even DS! Both kids had watched YouTube videos of zipling at Brisas de la Jungla before the trip and really wanted to try it. I’d told them that DS would definitely and DD might have to go in tandem with one of the guides, and they were OK with that. It turned out that DD was able to go independently, which thrilled her. DS loved the guide that he went with. It was pouring rain most of the time we were out, but we still a blast (DD and DS both really loved it – both have said it was their favorite part of the whole cruise!). We just kept reminding ourselves that it’s called the rainforest for a reason! Since we were completely soaked, we did get pretty cold, but a couple members of our party had actually thought to bring beach towels, so after a little drying off while we ate the fresh fruit at the end of the course, we were fine. We didn’t want the AC on in the van, though!

From Brisas de la Jungla, we headed to the Tortuguero canals. JJ checked out the boats available and made arrangements for one to take us out. We had a nice ride down the river/canal (the weather cooperated by not raining while we were out) and were able to see sloths, howler monkys, and a Jesus Christ lizard. We also stopped at a house along the bank where a boy was keeping a baby alligator that we were able to hold.

Once we back in the van, JJ gave us the choice of going to lunch or to the animal sanctuary. We were all pretty hungry, so we decided to eat lunch first. He took us to a little place on the beach with an awesome view of the impressive surf. DD got a fresh green coconut to drink – still in the coconut! She also got a grasshopper that a boy wove out of a palm frond. All eight of us got more food than we could eat, as well as a couple beers, for less than $50. While there were some other tourists there, it wasn’t crowded and had the feel of a local place.

After lunch, we went to the animal sanctuary where we held and fed a macaw, fed and pet a sloth (she loved eating banana peel – go figure!). There were also lots of other parrots and other assorted birds to see. The lady who operates the sanctuary sometimes has baby sloths or monkeys that can sometimes be held, but not the day we were there. This stop was for the kids (DD had seen pictures of it and really wanted to go, so I surprised her by arranging this stop), but the adults had fun, too.

We then made a quick stop at a grocery store for coffee and vanilla and another at a little hole in the wall market for homemade banana vinegar (JJ was telling us that he liked to cook with it and we were so interested he offered to stop at a place that sold it -- $1 for about a quart). I stayed in the van at the grocery store because DS was asleep in my lap, but DH and DD ran in and got some coconut cookies as well as coffee and vanilla.

 

Then we went back to the pier – there was probably time for us to go to the banana plantation before we sailed, but one of our friends was scheduled to give a talk right at sail away and he understandably wanted time to shower and rest a bit beforehand, so we called it a day. My family did stop at the booths right across the parking lot from the pier (inside port security) to pick up some cheesy souvenirs (postcards, key chains, magnets).

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  • 1 year later...
ringettechamp

ringettechamp

Posted
Posted

We're sailing on the Jewel of the Seas on March 18, 2011 and have booked a tour with JJ that includes the Jaguar Rescue Center, banana plantation, cocoa bean farm, Cahuita National Park and various other points of interest. We may also do some zip lining if we have any energy left at the end of the day. If anyone else is interested in joining us, please let me know. The more the merrier! I'm looking forward to a great tour.:)

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  • 3 weeks later...
Gala

Gala

Posted
Posted

Lorraine, if I may ask, what was the price for your Costa Rica tour with JJ? I wish we could join you, but unfortunately, we are on a different ship.. However I am thinking about arranging the same kind of tour while in Costa Rica, hence my question.

Thanks very much!

Gala

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Gala

Gala

Posted
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Hi Charlotte and Sam,

 

Sounds like we are going to be on the same ship! (Celebrity Equinox). I actually wrote to JJ the other day, but so far I only received the instructions as to how exactly to meet him/his crew once we are docked, and there was no actual confirmation of what would be included in the tour and how much it would cost.

 

I could try again and ask on behalf of 5 of us (we are a family of 3, including our 13 y.o.)? It would be great to join our forces:)

Please let me know - thanks!

 

Look forward to meeting you :-)

Gala and family in Florida

 

 

 

 

My husband and I are the Equinox of the Seas arriving in Limon on Sat. Mar

 

 

.26th and would love to join others for a JJ tour...he sounds amazing.

 

Charlotte and Sam form ontario;)

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  • 11 months later...
TrailriderBC

TrailriderBC

Posted
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We are on Equinox 11 nights leaving FLL on Feb 13. Booked with JJ on Sat Feb 18 for his tour #1 (wildlife boat tour, banana plantation, cocoa bean farm , beach" 4 hours. Apparently $45.

 

The reviews I see are all from 2008 - 2010, but little or nothing since. That makes me a bit concerned.

 

Also I only have an email back saying he'll meet us at the pier, but the email didn't confirm the tour we'd requested. I'm wondering if that means he just waits to see how many peoppe show up and then decides what the majority of the group want to do.

 

Has anyone toured with JJ rcently? What was your experience? Is he reliable and do you recommend him?

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