myfriendmario

Is he still in business?

His website is under construction for some time now and the email address shown was used and a week later no response.

Found another email address for him on the boards and it came back as no good.

I know Carnival has pretty much stopped going to Colon and not much about mario here so making me wonder if he has moved on.

We will be stopping here next year on Pride relocation cruise and would certainly want to do it with him if possible.

Still nothing for me as well...I found another email address and will let you know!

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Have not heard much of him of late.... have no idea if that means anything or not. Have you tried this email... viajesalmiza@hotmail.com ? That is the last addy I knew of, the addy through the website did not seem to get any response.

Yes, I tried that email and it came back undeliverable.

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by eMail: mario@myfriendmario.com

by phone (507) 6615-2271

For Embera Village tours you can try emberavillagetours.com

Regards, Richard

I too have tried contacting him for the past six weeks, and no replies, from any of the email addresses. We've now made other arrangements. :confused:

We used them in December 2013 and our tour was FANTASTIC!

I hope MFM is not out of business, we were very satisfied with our tour and would use MFM again.

Even on our rainy day, we had Mario #3 and he made the most of our time, despite the rain.

Hope to hear some positive updates :(

Hi all,

I was able to get in touch with him through his Facebook page...finally. He responded, I messaged him back...and haven't heard from him in two days. I'll let you know when/if I get something booked!

Just got back.

Our cruise didn't go through the Panama Canal, but we did stop at Colon. There's nothing at the port itself, so you really need to get out and explore. One thing we really wanted to do was to see the Panama Canal, though we didn't feel a need to have to ride through it at great expense. We prearranged the "Rainforest (Watching Birds and Monkeys) + San Lorenzo Fort + Gatun Locks" private tour through Almiza Tours (aka My Friend Mario) for US$60 per adult. The tour ran from 8:40am to 3:30pm (ship time). The tour included: Transfer from and to the Colon dock, touring in air conditioned minibus, an English/Spanish speaking guide, beverages (bottled Cokes, water, and local beer), a stop for fruit, and entrance fees to both Gatun locks (a set of locks on the Panama Canal) and San Lorenzo National park (which includes another fort to explore).

Our bus had seats for about 30 people, but only fits about 16 comfortably as each pair of seats really only fit 1.5 people. We had 26 passengers plus a driver, our guide, and a spotter (who was genuinely proficient at spotting wildlife). Let's just say we got to know each other really well.

The Gutan Locks are located 30 minutes from the pier. We got there in time to watch a huge cargo ship, with barely a few inches on either side of it, enter and exit the Gutan locks guided by mules (powerful little electric-powered train-like locomotive). Each lock is 1050 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 42 feet deep. As ships go through the 3 locks, they are raised or lowered a total of 85-feet. Each of the 3 chambers requires almost 27 Million gallons of water to lift a ship to the required hight before moving into the next lock. Interestingly, the Panama Canal was celebrating it's Centenial in 2014.

We then drove through the rain forest and took a short narrated walk. We saw Howler Monkeys, 2 or 3 sloths, and lots of flora and fauna. Panama has some 2300 spieces of trees.

Following the hike we stopped at Fort San Lorenzo, a late 1500's fort located near Ft. Sherman, an old US military base. Buccaneer Henry Morgan attacked the fort in 1670, leaving it in ruins, and then sacked the city of Panama a year later. It's a cool fort, in need of repair, with lots of cannons and good picture opportunities. We stopped for cold local pineapple and watermellon on the way back to the ship.

http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/panama-canal.jpg

More "Secrets of the Caribbean": http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/caribbean-secrets.html

First-hand information on excursions we've taken in 24 Caribbean ports. With photos!

I am having the same issues contacting Mario. No reply to emails. Used him before and had an excellent tour to the Indian Village. Want to use him this time for a tour of Panama City.