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Cosol Tours


lovetocruise79
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Don't know if anyone ever answered you, but we didn't see the snake on our tour in December and you never have to get out of the van at any stop so yes its avoidable.

 

I did get an answer that indicated that the snakes were avoidable. But we decided not to chance it and skipped the tour. My DW can't even watch a snake on the TV without freaking out so decided not to tempt fate.

 

Went on Lushan Country Life tour instead (2.5 hrs and $20 pp). Very good tour.

Edited by LuckyZ
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Our B2B isnt till March 3 2013, however, we tend to start planning earlier. I have a question about Cosol though - unfortunately we are only two - myself and DH - have been talking to others on our Roll Call but so far we would only be two people and would love to be able to take a tour thru either Cosol of James - but from I have read you need big groups to book - is that correct - Does anyone know of independents that will do smaller groups - we had a car for ourselves when we visited Roatan and it was great - dont mind going with others, but as of now dont have anyone else to go with - does Cosol have a website I can visit?

 

Just email him and he will get plenty of folks together for his tour. Join your rollcall and get some folks as well but he generally has more than one van so don't let that stop you from booking it.

 

Website is:

http://cosol-tours.com/

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This was my first cruise and I took the advise of Cruise critics about Cosol tours and let me say they did not disappoint. This was one of the best tours, very informative, food was good, kept you hydrated with drinks all day. I toured with Cosol Tours on April 5th 2012 , I sailed on the Carnival Victory. Our driver was Bumpy excellent driver, very informative & made sure we all were comfortable & got us back to the ship in plenty of time. Thanks Bumpy we had a BLAST!

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I wish we had been warned about the snake on the Cosol tour in January. My husband was sitting next to Baptiste the driver and yelled snake to warn me when he saw it up ahead and I was so scared that I jumped across the van and tore both sides of my knee.

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We just had a fabulous tour with Cosol. We passed the people with the snakes, but our group did not want to stop. We just kept going. We had Sylvia as our guide. She asked if we wanted to stop, and when we said no, it was not a problem.

 

Mindi:D

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A warning from the guide ahead of time would have prevented me from jumping up and having to have knee surgery for two meniscus tears. If I had known we wouldn't have taken the tour with my fear of snakes.

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A warning from the guide ahead of time would have prevented me from jumping up and having to have knee surgery for two meniscus tears. If I had known we wouldn't have taken the tour with my fear of snakes.

 

Did you think they were going to pass the snake around inside the van? We did not have the snake on our tour. It sounds like the snake owner wanted tips for those who wanted to hold the snake, at least that is how these things generally happen. I don't think any tour guide would pass a snake around in the van nor would the snake owner want that and it sounded like your husband did warn you snake ahead and you jumped up so it sounds like your husband should have asked the tour guide before he yelled back to you if that snake was coming into the van and then you wouldn't have had that reaction since you would have seen that the folks needed to get out of the van for anything like this.

 

Tours that we have taken on other islands have never told us in advance when we would pull off the road for a local to try to sell us their goods or get a picture with something like that.

 

Sorry this happened to you.

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We booked our trip of St. Lucia with Cosul Tours. As others have said previously, we both that it was the best tour we've every taken (and I have toured most of the caribbean islands, some more than once!). Our driver was Swabie. He was great. We loved St. Lucia and look forward to returning one day. We will definitely book another tour with Cosul.

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Thanks, I am looking forward to the tour. I thought that maybe I didn't want to be in the van that long but I think why I choose this tour was to see St Lucia and meet the lovely people there. No better way to do it than a road trip!!!

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Can a few of you give me ideas of how many are in a group? Some say van, some say bus. I've read that it could be as many as 40 people in a group on a bus. True? I'd really rather go in a smaller group if possible.

The website says this tour is 5 1/2-6 hours. Is that accurate b/c from what I read, I believe that it is not and it is more.

Only other concern I had was we really didnt want to spend an hour or more at a beach in St Lucia, we just wanted to see the highlights. How much time is actually spent on the beach? Thanks.

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Can a few of you give me ideas of how many are in a group? Some say van, some say bus. I've read that it could be as many as 40 people in a group on a bus. True? I'd really rather go in a smaller group if possible.

The website says this tour is 5 1/2-6 hours. Is that accurate b/c from what I read, I believe that it is not and it is more.

Only other concern I had was we really didnt want to spend an hour or more at a beach in St Lucia, we just wanted to see the highlights. How much time is actually spent on the beach? Thanks.

 

When we went in December he had a mixture of vans and buses. It really depends on how many are going on his tour that day. My understanding is he rents the buses and has additional help that he hires for those heavy days. The day we went was in a large van like a mini bus. If you are thinking a regular size bus I highly doubt that one with the many hills and curves on the road. I thought it was more comfortable in the type of mini bus aka large van we were in. If you have ever rented a car and took their shuttle that was about the size we were in.

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We have just come back from from the Constellation Exotic Caribbean Cruise and we took the tour with Cosol, We were lucky enough to have Cosol himself and the tour was great. There were 11 people on our mini bus & 12 on the other bus. Plenty of food & drink and also lot of restroom stops, believe me you will need them with all that rum punch and beer.

This tour was much much better then any of the ships excursions.

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We booked our trip of St. Lucia with Cosul Tours. As others have said previously, we both that it was the best tour we've every taken (and I have toured most of the caribbean islands, some more than once!). Our driver was Swabie. He was great. We loved St. Lucia and look forward to returning one day. We will definitely book another tour with Cosul.

 

 

Well said Yulesong!

 

As far as the Snake, the one we saw was a guy standing side the road on a corner holding it, I do not know how you can avoid not passing it. Our driver did ask ahead of time if any of the 11 of us in our van wanted to stop and none did, so we drove by.

 

One thing we really enjoyed but didnt hear mention of before was the butterfly & garden tour. Our driver stopped there prior to the beach break, and Im glad he did, absolutely beautiful.

 

Some of the best island snacks/food......Mmmmmm!:)

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I have a different take on Cosol tours. I, too had read the many reviews that raved about Cosol here on CC. So we booked with him and expected to be wowed. Didn't happen.............

 

We havent taken an island tour in a long time and figured that we should do one. Maybe we are not the island tour type of people...........the idea of spending a good third of your time driving around in a van.......not my idea of an interesting day..............sure, we got all the stops.....Banana plantation, snake man, island foods for breakfast, rum punch, volcano, etc.......................something was lacking......it seemed to us that what we were doing was so scripted......every stop had a 'merchant' there trying to sell you their wares................. the Banana plantation stop was hardly a plantation...........just a road side booth probalbly built by Cosol and other guides as a communal project so they all could use it.............yes they had Bananas but they weren't just picked from those trees........more like store bought.

 

The trip to the Beach was a joke. We pulled up the beach area where the designated chairs for our use were and every darn one was occupied and then to add insult to injury, A CCL snorkling excursion pulls up and drops off 25 more people to snorkle and use the same beach area. Yes we did walk down the beach to the less crowded area.

 

Need less to say this was not a tour we enjoyed. We will go back to exploring on our own as these island tour types are not for us.

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:DWe just got back from Victory. We did the Cosol tour and it was wonderful!! Our guide was Yellow Bird and he was very friendly and informative. Saw beautiful hummingbird in the gardens (bright green & blue

must been a male;)) Loved the beach, the bananas, the rum punch!

Even the drive through valcano was good(but stinky)Truly believe that

St Lucia was our favorite!

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Just have a few questions:

1. Did you pay for your tour before or day of tour?

2. What time did you meet for the tour and what time did you get back to the ship?

3. Were you nervous at all about booking outside of the cruise ship?

4. Did you have fun??? and also would you recommend this tour?

 

Thanks :D

 

We have toured with Cosol 4 times with groups and custom private tours. He provides the best tour value in the Caribbean. St. Lucia is tough for touring because of roads, mountainous terrain, and distance between points of interest. Cosol has his tours planned precisely to keep you interested and comfortable. You will not be disappointed.

 

Also consider Thenford Grey on St. Kitts. A fine man and provides a great tour value. http://**********************/The_Tour.html

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We took Cosol's tour in March and LOVED it! There were about 5 or 6 vans of people touring that day but each van only held about 8 or 10 people so each van was its own intimate group with a independent guide. While another reviewer said it seemed 'scripted' I would call it a well oiled machine that Cosol has, whereby he shows daytrippers the very best of his island in the limited time available. The fact that there are vendors at the spots we stop at is merely because they are beautiful spots that tourists are likely to stop at....not because he has placed them there. You will have the opportunity to try so many different foods on his tour and will NOT go hungry...or thirsty! Water, beer, rum punch....all available!

 

As a tip, I was wearing a large scarf that I ended up using as a beach blanket - chairs can be very scarce at the beach break.

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We've pretty much narrowed it down to Cosol Tours when we visit St Lucia this coming September but I have a question.......

 

As far as paying for the tour - do you pay when you reserve? I had seen a single post where it said that payment in cash is made at the end of the tour and didn't know if it was a typo (or I needed new reading glasses, lol!)

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We've pretty much narrowed it down to Cosol Tours when we visit St Lucia this coming September but I have a question.......

 

As far as paying for the tour - do you pay when you reserve? I had seen a single post where it said that payment in cash is made at the end of the tour and didn't know if it was a typo (or I needed new reading glasses, lol!)

 

Yes, payment is indeed in cash at the end of the tour. Enjoy!:)

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