AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Almost time! Tour information, please!

Rachel, I wouldnt get too set in your tour guide ideas. Most hotels book with certain tour companies BECAUSE they have offered professional reliable service to their prior guests. I'll never forget the guy who told me he was going out diving with "Jose". Told me how "Jose" was going to save him $10 a tank over what our guide was charging. Well, once he got out on the boat, "Jose" told him that he forgot to tell him he had to buy gas. $120 later, he gets to the dive site to find that his tank is only half full. It's just like the US...you get what you pay for. This guy ended up paying more for his "discount" dive than our dive shop charges. He did the rest of his diving with our shop.

Your hotel has a vested interest in seeing that you have a good time no matter what tour you go on because ultimately, they will reap the benefits (by word of mouth) of your having a great vacation. Conversely, if they send you on tours that dont show up or dont deliver on what they promise, it tends to sour your entire trip, including your hotel even though it may be a fine place.

I'm just suggesting that you give the hotel an opportunity to tell you what they offer before you make a final decision. Most tour companies that offer the same tours have the same or very near the same pricing.

Thanks, Shuffles. That's a great point! We'll check with our hotel, definitely, before booking anything.

hi, we are also coming in April staying at Banana Beach. Can anyone recommend any must do tours? We are staying 6 nights. I have never snorkelled but am willing to try get my feet wet!

Only partially true. Don't forget the commission paid to the hotel by the operator, which can be as much as 1/3 of the total you pay. So long as they don't get complaints about the service provided by the operator most hotels go with the money. You're far better off listening to past customers, either here, on Belize Forums, on Scubaboard, Trip Advisor, etc, then spending a few hours once here visiting your shortlist.

Take out Trip Advisor, it's a joke.

I agree about Trip Advisor and I hate it, but lots of people still use it thinking it's objective.

As far as the actual reviews go on TripAdvisor, I agree for the most part. However, when it comes to the Forums, it is generally easy to tell the wheat from the chaff.

And you and I and Jean and Hon at least try to do the right thing.

Tripadvisor is great...as long as you don't take everyone's word as law. Reading all the reviews for a hotel or tour and knowing that some are fictious and some are just written by angry people who are never happy, still provides some pretty good information.

Yeah, Kris, we're the wheat. hee hee

As for the reviews, I tend to discount any that are put up by someone that has no prior nor later forum posts. Once in a while, I see someone that has put up two hotel reviews from completely different places. I dunno why, but that always makes me a bit suspicious too, if they've never posted on the forums.

Regardless, even someone completely sincere, is still only telling it from their own perspective. For example, someone that hasn't ever been anywhere else, is going to have a different perspective than has someone that's done a bit of travelling.