St. Lucia Spencer Ambrose Land and Sea Adventure

[1stcruiser1]

I was on Brilliance of the Seas and we were the only ship in port that day. You have to make a decision that you feel comfortable with, as for us we thought the snorkeling was very good and we would do the tour again.

[CHERRYBRANCH]

Originally Posted by sippican

According to cruisett.com and cruise timetables.com the Valor is the only ship in port that day.
Are you thinking that the quality of his tours may be better when he is not dealing with more cruisers than he can personally handle? (it seems that this may be so.)
I was tempted to go ahead and book, but the inconsistent reports on the quality of snorkeling was the final deal breaker. Will just hope we get a glimpse of the pitons from the ship.

I am SO undecided and I hate that! This is only our second cruise and when on the Dream last May we went to Maya Chan in Coasta Maya which was NOT ship sponsored. I remember my husband asking the owner what time we needed to leave to get back to our ship and his response was something along the line - have no worries it's my job to get you back in plenty of time as it is his guests who make his business or something like that. Hands down, it was the best excusion we went on that 7 days and never had a worry of whether we would make it back to the ship in time. I really wonder if things would be different as we are the only ship in port that day. Does anyone know the name of the resort next to the beach that we get dropped off at? Do they do day passes?

[sippican]

Originally Posted by CHERRYBRANCH

I am SO undecided and I hate that! This is only our second cruise and when on the Dream last May we went to Maya Chan in Coasta Maya which was NOT ship sponsored. I remember my husband asking the owner what time we needed to leave to get back to our ship and his response was something along the line - have no worries it's my job to get you back in plenty of time as it is his guests who make his business or something like that. Hands down, it was the best excusion we went on that 7 days and never had a worry of whether we would make it back to the ship in time. I really wonder if things would be different as we are the only ship in port that day. Does anyone know the name of the resort next to the beach that we get dropped off at? Do they do day passes?

The resort info:
http://www.viceroyhotelsandresorts.com/sugarbeach

Not sure if they offer day passes, but they reportedly rent the loungers ($20 pp I believe). The resort itself is quite pricey but looks lovely. Transportation to the resort would be a concern, it's quite a distance from port.

[alamedatravels]

Haven't written my review yet about Spencer Ambrose, BUT we did the Jalousie Beach Break 3 weeks ago and IT WAS WONDERFUL. We only had one other couple with us (3rd couple never showed up after waiting for almost 30 minutes!). The four of us had a great day with David and Raymond. The other couple had reserved the Land & Beach tour. We all headed out together by boat; they were dropped off at a small fishing village where they were picked up by car with David for their land tour; we were taken to Jalousie Beach by Raymond. After a couple of hours he left to pick them up and bring them the beach, where a great lunch was delivered, with plenty of time left for swimming and snorkeling. I think they enjoyed their land excursion, and we loved the day at the beach. We had a great ride back to the port later that afternoon (David and Raymond were very responsible about getting us back to the ship on time.) We saw other boats drop off people at Jalousie where they had less than 30 minutes before being herded back into over-packed boats...we loved this excursion and would book again with Spencer Ambrose in a heart-beat!!!!

[MrSchwump]

I have to give recognition to Spencer Ambrose. After reading my comments in this forum, he reached out to me and made it clear how disappointed that we had a less than excellent experience on one of his tours.

He let me know that he's taking steps to correct and eliminate some of the problems we had. It's very evident the degree to which this man cares, not only about his customers, but about his home, St. Lucia, and putting it in the best possible light.

St. Lucia is in great shape is all it's business people care as much as Spencer does.

[Carol999]

I also was on that fateful trip of March 14th 2013 with Spencer Ambrose. I have a review pending on tripadvisor for some fun reading. Also, my kids being kids, have the whole thing video taped and pics.LOL.So, I have shots of the girl barfing over the edge of the boat, and video of the staggering drunk.
I had gotten food poisoning in Virgin Islands from the best western two days prior, so when he handed us that lunch in a Styrofoam container, I just thought...no way am I going to risk getting sick all over again! Our boat seemed to be put together with blue duct tape across the bow. when trip advisor posts my other review,I'll copy and paste it here.

[Carol999]

We did the land and sea tour with spencer's tours, and it really is a beautiful destination. When we arrived at the beach between the Pitons, the lounge chairs were already full. It was strange , but all the tour people were literally condensed on one part of the beach. Though we could roam across the entire beach area and swim where ever we wanted, everyone chose to hunt out the shade. Due to everyone needing shade from the umbrellas, we could see the people doing what the walrus's do; there is a sweet spot and everyone wanted to be in it.We were literally on top of each other ,all wanting to stay in one compacted spot. We invaded a family with lounge chairs that were underneath the shaded area, and I was ready for a fight if they asked us to get out of their space,as I wasn't about to stand in the sun any longer.(luckily I think they could see our dilemma).
When it was time to leave at the 2:00 time slot,we stood out on the dock in the hot sun till about 2:45. Everyone was panicking that they were going to have to wait for a later boat to take us back to the ship. Everyone appeared as fed up as we were and some people were shoving elbows into others and being hostile about getting on the boat. When the second boat pulled up, I could see we were all going to make it on the 2:30 departure, but not everyone saw it and they were yelling at others that they weren't on their original boat and were outwardly hostile to some. It wasn't very organized. Part of the problem was people did not approach spencer with their payments on the beach , and so he wouldn't let them back on the boat till they paid. It was so annoying ,it appeared some were hoping not to pay,as he repetitively was shouting the names, and some were actually standing in the group of us. He had a list of our names though, and if you didn't have a check beside your name showing you had paid weren't getting on. To top it off one of his boats broke down enroute back to the ship. Going there and back was informative and interesting. We were just thankful it wasn't our boat that broke down as we already felt we were cutting this way too close on time

[nicolerene81]

Just finished the Jalousie Beach Break with Spencer.
He was very efficient and we were the first people on the beach so we had our choice of chairs. I think the land and sea tour came later.
The snorkeling was good with lots of fish and coral. There are a ton of fish That are right at the beach so young kids can literally wade in and just put their face in the water to see fish.
Someone referred to the food as "slop" which is ridiculously ignorant. It was delicious, home cooked, traditional Caribbean food that was sooooo good. It included BBQ chicken, green banana salad which tasted like artichoke hearts, rice and beans, and salad.
The boats were never crowded and the ride was a little bumpy but expected.
Our guide Terry was outstanding and was constantly checking with us to see if we needed anything (drinks, food, snorkel equipment, etc). He was wonderfully attentive and informative.
I can't wait to go back and use Spencer Ambrose tours again.