Glory Tours

[Scubachick84]

It's really a shame that some tours don't seem to be working out for people. My group of three booked with Glory Tours in Feb/09 and we had a fantastic day! Sarah took us around herself and since it was just us she asked us if there was any particular sights we wanted to see over others that were 'scheduled'. We ended up at the Wildlife Sanctuary which was really nice.

 

Anyway, Sarah was very nice and I had no communication problems working with her before our trip. I would recommend her to anybody and I would tour with her again.

 

Laura

[Slade]

Jtrain,

 

You made the right decision. Last Thurs. we were in Barbados off the Serenade and had prepaid for Glory Tours. It was disaster from the beginning. I wont go into detail but I will be asking for a partial refund from our party of 5. Five additional people were on the tour as well and were angry as well.

 

What went wrong?

[Techie]

We had booked a private tour with Glory Tours for our recent cruise. Vincent, our driver was waiting for us when we arrived and made sure that our day was stressfree and enjoyable.

 

This was our 2nd tour with them and we'll definitely use them again the next time we are there. We've found them to be more than accomodating and have actually gone out of their way to meet any requests we have.

 

We had a fantastic day and our only regret was that we weren't there longer.

[swartz]

After Sending Sarah the link to this thread. She read it and seemed very upset that alot of people were disapointed with her tours. She credited me for my over charge. So I paid the right price $72 per person. Now I just hope when we get there they are waiting for us and send us on the right tour.

[luvmysox1]

So many mixed reviews, it's sort of hard to decide whether we should use Glory.

 

Ok, now I'm concerned!:eek: I booked with them for May 09. The tour looks great and that's why we booked them.

 

I did have problem with Glory tours already. They had a computer malfunction with my reservation, but they sure got their money. It took me 3 weeks to get my confirmation ticket for the tour. I email Sarah several times and said she would send it tomorrow. Tomorrow ended up to be 3 weeks, after email, after email. In the end she did say sorry for their mistake.

 

Letting everyone know that booking the tour will cost you more than stated. The bank also charges a fee.

 

I wish had read these before. I hope everything goes well. I'm thinking of cancelling the tour? But there are some good reviews.

[Carla1968]

We have been on many tours that have been booked directly with tour operators with great success. This one came highly recommended and we booked, despite some of the commentary on the Boards.

 

Here are some highlights of why we would not recommend it:

 

• pre-paying - no other tour operator requires this; and we were charged more as other's suggest in this thread given exchange and bank fees.
  
• it is the most expensive tour we have ever taken....most others are in the 40-65 dollar range so we had higher expectations which were not fulfilled.
  
• getting to the location outside the cruise terminal was confusing and congested.....it does not start the day right....we felt rushed from the beginning, who was going in what van, etc.
  
• Harrison's Caves were lovely.
  
• Lunch was good but it was a waste of an hour - I would suggest having the driver call ahead and take it with you...eat it on the way so you can enjoy more time in the water with the turtles/snorkelling.
  
• The 'swimming with the turtles' was rushed - in an out of the water in about 10 minutes - hardly enough time to even see anything. I got one glimpse. Think 'needle in a haystack'. It's a big ocean out there. Maybe another tour would spend the necessary time to enjoy this experience.
  
• The snorkelling was better....lots of fish around the wreck but again, very rushed....it felt a bit like a 'boot camp'.
  
• The guide was quiet throughout the trip - which is unusual in our experience. We seemed to be the ones asking the questions to generate some conversation.
  
• When we got back home, we were charged the full amount on our CC again. This was rectified after some back and forth e-mails, but not the entire amount, and I literally gave up. I got most of the overcharge back and chalked it up to 'lesson learned'.
  

We are not 'picky' travellers and generally go with the flow. Our philosophy is 'our vacation is what we make it'. Maybe we got them on a bad day or something. Our entire party agreed that, for the money and the fact this is one of the most expensive yours around, we expected a bit more - not necessarily more things to see becauuse the itinerary is very good but more from a service perspective.

 

From a camparion perspective, we had also done Thenford Grey in St. Kitts and Cosol in St. Lucia and they were, by far, better tours all the way around - service, value for the money, and the 'feel' of them.

 

Anyway, for what it's worth.

[NCTribeFan]

See! I knew I shouldn't have come back and read any more! :(

 

I also have Thenford and Cosol booked in May (and Gordon in Antigua, Papa Bear in St Thomas, Levi in Dominica).

 

I still haven't pulled out my credit card receipt (it's at work) but know I was charged over $210 plus bank charges, for the 2 of us. That was supposedly with the online discount.

 

With the cost of all these excursions in all these ports, I'm just not sure I still want to do this.

 

Maybe I'll just find something that will take me to the caves and a beach after all (although the prices for everything in Barbados are fairly obscene). If we're going to have to rush through it all, I'd rather not spend the money on it.

[swartz]

Just got back from my Victory cruise.

 

After having some problems with sarah i could not be more happy. Our driver Jemel was amazing. He sang to us all day and stopped at a few places not on the tour at our request. I met sarah at lunch and she was nice. I was over charged and took 3 weeks to get my refund correct but it was well worth it. The lunch was kinda small but the tour made up for it. Jemel actualy took me aside and talked to me about his wife and kids and life because i was looking for an engagement ring for my gf. So after the tour he dropped me off in town to get a ring and picked me up later (at no charge). I bought a ring and gave it to my gf in St Kitts.

 

If you get Jemel you will not be dissapointed

[NCTribeFan]

Well, I just sent Sarah an email to cancel and requested a refund. I just haven't been comfortable about this from the very beginning.

 

We'll see how long it takes to get my refund and how much I'm shorted.

 

I ended up contacting another vendor who can give us the Caves, an island tour, and a beach stop, with refreshments, for $65 pp, paid after the tour.

 

While I won't get to swim with the sea turtles, I'm getting most of what I wanted for considerably less.

[vacation fool]

Well, I just sent Sarah an email to cancel and requested a refund. I just haven't been comfortable about this from the very beginning.

 

We'll see how long it takes to get my refund and how much I'm shorted.

 

I ended up contacting another vendor who can give us the Caves, an island tour, and a beach stop, with refreshments, for $65 pp, paid after the tour.

 

While I won't get to swim with the sea turtles, I'm getting most of what I wanted for considerably less.

 

What is the name of the person/company? Thanks. :)

[LynnTG]

We went on tour with Glory early in April and we had a great time. The day was filled with activities. We went to the caves, then a park on the Atlantic side and saw great waves, then lunch outside at a local place which I enjoyed. My son got a flying fish sandwich! We went to some wildlife park, then to the Caribbean side and the others snorkeled while we sat on the beach. I didn't mind pre-paying, it was less cash I had to bring. I didn't even have my confirmation paper with me but they had my name on a list so let us go anyway.

 

I have to say, the driver wasn't the most enthusiastic person, especially after going on Cosol tours where those drivers were a blast. It's hard to beat Cosol. But the tour was NOT expensive at all for what you did! I would definitely do it again.

[cruiserssandr]

Nice to hear such a good review Lynn. We have used Glory Tours twice. Once in 2004 and the again in 2007. No one could believe what we did in 2004 for the price we paid. In 2007 we ended up with a private tour for the same price as a group tour. Some one mentioned lunch being a waste of an hour. They mentioned taking the food and eatting on the way. Can't imagine how you could do that. I agree that paying up front made things a little easier. One less thing to have to bring money for. Both of our drivers wee great. Sarah was more than helpful in answering all my questions.

 

We tried to do a Cosol tour in St Lucia but they left without us and we were there 15 minutes before the start of the tour!

[NCTribeFan]

Despite Sarah's email saying she was sorry I decided to cancel and she would process the credit that day (4/16), nothing has appeared on my credit card.

 

I just wrote again and asked her to please send some sort of documentation.

 

This is why I cancelled. Not because I don't think she provides a good tour, but I'm tired of this. If she's THAT busy, she needs to share the wealth and hire someone to help her with the administrative end of things.

[NCTribeFan]

Of course they do.

 

But they do on the other islands, too.

 

My complaint is that I haven't had to do this elsewhere. The only place I prepaid was for an excursion in Belize, and I paid via PayPal.

 

If people would take cash at the time of the tour, there wouldn't be any issue with invalid or stolen cards and, frankly, I find the idea that I would book an excursion and pay with a bogus card number pretty insulting.

 

I imagine there are people who would do such a thing, but other operators all over the Caribbean seem to manage to survive without requiring full prepayment at the time of booking.

 

I totally can understand getting a deposit, but not paying $200+ months in advance. I'll do it for the cruise and the air, but not for the excursions. Sorry.

 

Still no refund to my credit card and I leave on Saturday.

[CarolinaGypsy]

Well despite all the annoyances I felt in dealing with Sarah and the concerns about prepayment I have to say all went well. I took the Best of Barbados tour last Wednesday and it was absolutely perfect. I had two of her drivers at different stages of the tour - Jamal and Quami. Both were awesome and the excursion itself was incredible.

We met the driver a little walk from the cruise port and were taken immediately to Harrison Cave. Very cool experience. After that we went up to Highlands overlook before meeting the rest of our tour group. They were all folks staying on the island - we were the only cruise passengers out of our group of 8.

We then stopped for a minute at the beach and then it was lunch time. The flying fish sandwich was great! Then we went to the Wildlife Reserve. Another awesome experience.

The final leg of the tour was snorkeling. First with sea turtles (plus a small shark and sting ray - lots of great pictures and I touched a turtle!!) then over a shipwreck where there were so many fish it was like swimming in an aquarium.

We were back at our port with an hour to spare and the whole day was simply perfect. I am glad that I didn't cancel as I was so tempted to do. Sarah may have some issues to sort out but the quality of her tour is not one of them. I recommend highly!!

[anneke lief]

BE AWARE.

 

Do not believe what see says. She will not refund the money you have paid.

My parents prepaid for their private tour with her by visacard but she did not show up. (it is a long story).

 

We wrote here at least 15 times to get our money back . First she answerd our mails and promised to refund (she did not) but at the end no more reaction. One year later still no refund!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

DO NOT BOOK with her. I do not think we are the only ones with that problem.

 

Ann from Belgium-Europe

[Admin]

The tour operator has contacted me and I'm posting this response to the previous post.

 

The tour operator said that she went herself for anneke lief's parents. The tour was accidentally booked for Easter Sunday. Everything is closed on Easter. Instead the tour owner took them on a short tour for 4 hours then returned them to the port. She refunded them part of the tour fee.

 

The people that actually experienced the day in port are welcome to respond with first hand information that members can evaluate for themselves.

[crusinglady]

my family and I took a private tour with Sarah.We were charged the right amount and had a ball.I wish we could do it again.

 

I just want to say half the people posting I believe are jumping on the bandwagon-not realizing how much they are hurting a business.Please think before you post.It is really not fair to say such terrible things when you never toured with her.You know who I am speaking to.Stop it.

[crusinglady]

you told me you were going to ruin her and now you try to do it and I am ashamed of you.

BE AWARE.

 

Do not believe what see says. She will not refund the money you have paid.

My parents prepaid for their private tour with her by visacard but she did not show up. (it is a long story).

 

We wrote here at least 15 times to get our money back . First she answerd our mails and promised to refund (she did not) but at the end no more reaction. One year later still no refund!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

DO NOT BOOK with her. I do not think we are the only ones with that problem.

 

Ann from Belgium-Europe

[gbcruise]

Our first hand experience: In March we toured with Glory. It was a highly anticipated tour & we expected a awesome day, especially since it was near $100 per person. Another couple & their son from the ship as well as a couple staying on the isalnd joined the tour. It was unorganized from the start. The hilights of what happened was the drivers phone rang off the hook causing many times a stop in conversation & the islands history, many of these calls came from Sarah expecting our guide to help her fix other issues going on. Not all our group had paid for the same types of tours so all of the group wasted precious time dropping others off & picking back up, we were left at one place for 20 minutes after we were told to be ready for pickup. At lunch we were served first, then our guide. While I understand he needed to have lunch we waited for over 15 minutes for him to finish eating. On to turtles, boat was so over packed my 16 year old had to sit on my lap, we then took 15 people to their resort to drop them off inbetween our two drop spots. The ladder was so short, we saw many many people have issues. When the boat dropped us off at the beach our guide wasnt to be found, we split up in 3 groups to locate him & found him 30 minutes later where he was found cat napping. He was asked if our kids would have time to jet ski, he said no, traffic was too busy & we were to head back. After being dropped off we conversed with the other passengers & all of us agreed that we had been dropped off 1 hour too early according to our reservations.

I emailed Sarah when I got back, no reply. I then replyed to a already started thread that I had a bad experience & I didnt recommend them although I did not provide the above details since I had not heard from Sarah yet. Within 1 hour of posting on CC I received a call directly from Sarah, she had read on CC my post. She was screaming so loud that I handed the phone to my DH. She didnt believe our day could of been as stated, she was told her to contact the other two parties if she didnt believe us. Later thru email she finally agreed to refund a portion, her profit basically. That took weeks to occur but eventually she made the refund.

As a business owner I understand things happen but the only thing that happened efficiently & quickly was when she charged for the excursion. I have heard personally, as well as many other reasons posted from Sarah on why she has problems. I believe they have the potential to run a much demanded tour, they have shown in the past it could run efficiently. I'm not sure what has occured but I hope it changes soon, just know if you book their is a potential for problems.

[gbcruise]

my family and I took a private tour with Sarah.We were charged the right amount and had a ball.I wish we could do it again.

 

I just want to say half the people posting I believe are jumping on the bandwagon-not realizing how much they are hurting a business.Please think before you post.It is really not fair to say such terrible things when you never toured with her.You know who I am speaking to.Stop it.

 

Hardly anyone has posted that hasnt had personal experience, this is a open forum & good or bad everyone should post how their experience with any tour company is.

[JanThom]

Unlike most or all of you on this board we were holidaying in Barbados not visiting on a cruise. We stayed at Crystal Cove Hotel and took a Excursion with Glory Tours.

 

Our day with Sarah was the highlight of our time in Barbados. I emailed her when I got back home to thank her and at that time I also offered to recommend her to anyone I had the opportunity to.

 

I was so happy to get an email from Sarah today. She explained what was happening and asked if I could write about our experience and that she would greatly appreciate it.

 

As I said we (my husband and I) were staying at the Crystal Cove Hotel and I had picked up a few brochures in the hotel lobby. On reviewing several of them I was especially interested in Glory Tours because of the information mentioned about Sarah's family background. Her Great grandfather was one of the first photographers who had connections to the royal family I think. Her Great Great Grandfather wrote rum recipes which are still made in Barbados today.

 

We had taken a catamaran cruise already so had no need to swim with the turtles again. Which by the way was lovely.

 

We Chose to sign up for the Just BIM tour. Our pick up time was 9:15am

Sarah was there at 8:55am We were already in the lobby when she came so it worked out great. She mentioned she hates to be late for people which my husband loved especially when she said that she thinks being late for someone is disrespectful.

 

On our way to the caves Sarah gave us a large amount of information on Barbados...... LOL I especially like the part about the barbeque Arawak's and the french cuisine .. LOL

 

She also stopped by a large tree and rattled off so much information on this one tree .... To be honest I only remember something about people being buried in it.... Sorry Sarah you will have to re educate me next time :)

 

Once at the cave Sarah purchased our tickets and we waited a few minutes until out tour was called. The caves were lovely. I had been nervous about this part of the excursion fearing a up and close encounter with bats but thankfully those fears where not realised. I am very happy I sucked it up because it was an experience I am happy to have had.

 

Next stop was Bathsheba were Sarah nicely stopped at all the best stops for us to take pictures. She also showed us where her family has beach houses, told us all about her surfing days and the old train line.

 

Our next stop was lunch ohhhh I miss Macaroni and Cheese. Sarah Recommended grilled fish and Macaroni and Cheese Pie and it was honestly one of the best meals I had on the Island. certainly better than those we had at the hotel. The Potato salad that it came with was also delish

 

After Lunch we visited St Nicholas Abbey. This I think was my favourite stop. Everything about this place is full of old world charm. Beautiful Gardens fascinating history, lovely staff. The tour of the Plantation consist of a lot a house tour, historical film (not boring) and a rum sampling. We also got to see them grinding cane as they did many years ago. We were fortunate to meet the owner Mr Warren who seemed like a nice gentleman. he informed us they were just getting ready to set up a still to produce their own rum.

 

Our Last Stop for the day was the Mount Gay factory. Our guide there was Maria and she was one of the friendliest people we met on the Island.... next to Sarah ;) The tour was very informative and hubby especially loved the sampling at the end of the tour.

 

As you can see we had a fantastic experience the tour of itself was also of great value $$. I am sure in the reality of life everyone might not have the same wonderful experience but we would not trade ours for the world.

 

Thanks again Sarah!!!!! We will be back

[ming]

The problem, as I see it, is consistency and professionalism.

 

It is apparent that Glory is able to provide a quality tour, but only if the planets are in exact alignment.

 

It seems that there have been problems with charges, refunds, pickup times and communication.

 

That being said, I have taken a Glory tour two years ago and found it quite nice, exactly as advertised. Our friends, who took it the next year on our recommendation, didn’t have quite the same experience.

 

Sometimes it’s better for a company to stay small and professional than to expand and disappoint.

 

I wish them well in finding the balance.

[NCTribeFan]

Wanted to update that when I checked my credit card balance upon returning home, the full amount had been credited. Yes, it took an extra email, and it was nearly a month after I'd written to her to cancel, but it was all there.

 

Still, we had a great tour with the "other" vendor I decided to use. We didn't get to snorkel with the sea turtles, but, to be honest, the day was full with 'only' Harrison's Cave, an island tour, and a beach stop at Rockley. Snorkeling would've made it too exhausting on an already-full, tiring itinerary.

 

As I've already stated, I'm sure Sarah is a wonderful person and (mostly) provides great tours. It simply sounds like she needs to hire someone to help her with the administrative end of things.

 

Accidently booked for Easter Sunday? Does she not have a calendar and KNOW when the holidays fall to be able to alert customers that many sites will be closed?

 

See, it's that sort of nonsense that makes me crazy! She's supposed to be a professional. She needs to run her business like one, rather than someone who does this on the side.

[mrspjotter]

I feel that after reading some of the posts on here I had to write about our experience with Glory Tours on our first cruise and first trip to Barbados in Feb this year.

 

As it was our first cruise and visit to the caribbean and we were travelling with 3 children I wanted to book everything in advance as the last thing I wanted was for us to arrive at a port and not have anything planned for us to do.

 

I e-mailed Sarah and told her we wanted to do swimming with turtles and take the kids to see the monkeys at the wildlife reserve - she came back with a great quote for us to have a private tour for an allocated time to include both those options.

 

We arrived in Barbados a couple of hours before our tour was due to start - it was a Sunday so nothing was open but we walked into Bridgetown and took some photos and then made our way back to the cruise terminal and the hoards of tour operators. I asked if anyone from Glory tours was there and we were 45 minutes early so I wasn't expecting miracles but kindly one of Sarah's off duty drivers offered to phone her for us and our guide arrived earlier than originally scheduled.

 

We headed to Holetown via a guided tour of the Sandy Lane area and got on a boat with another family who were already on the as they had been snorkelling already and headed out to sea. Because there weren't many turtles about we were taken to another area where the guide handed out a loaf of bread to share between the kids to feed the fish - this was the highlight of my girls holiday they thought it was fantastic. The whole time we were encouraged to help ourselves to rum punch and fruit drinks for the kids.

 

We were met back on shore by our guide and taken next to the wildlife reserve where he waited for us while we took the kids round to see the animals, we had a complimentary drink and then got back in the van.

 

As we still had some time left before we had to head back to the ship he offered to take us over to Bathsheba, we stopped and brought some jewellery at a lookout point and he also stopped and brought sugar cane and showed the kids how to suck the sugar out and then spit the pulp out of the window - which they thought was great fun. He even stopped at a local shop and picked up a free guidebook to the island for us.

 

We had a great time - it was better than we ever expected and nothing was too much trouble - I e-mailed Sarah on our return to thank her and our guide for such a great trip.

 

It's a shame that people have experienced negativity but our experience was a great one and I wouldn't hesitate booking with Sarah again or recommending her to any friends.