Exotic Eco Adventures to Goff's Caye

http://exoticecoadventures.com/goffs-caye/

Anyone use them for snorkeling to Goff's Caye?

Only $45 per... seems too good to be true...

Great reviews on Trip Advisor but all within the last couple months.

No bites huh? I had email them for availability and they replied right away, also that they would extend the August special of $40 for me. I didn't reply yet pending more research.

I received a call today from this company (area code Arkasas) - 3 missed calls this afternoon and I finally answered this evening. Obvious the girl was just a phone girl. I asked how many people are on the boat and she didn't know. Said it depends on how many boats they do that day, which could be 3 or 4. But still no answer on people per boat.

Seems iffy, like they would just throw you on some other tour and I'm not good with that.

Just throwing this info out there since there seems to be limited info on some of these companies in Belize.

The oldest review for this company on Trip Advisor is posted by Golda, the girl that emailed me about availability. And it was only posted this April. She posted as if she was a tourist. Nice!

A lof of the reviews are from people with 1 or 2 reviews. Suspicious... I think I'll email some of the senior contributors about it.

Belize is completely frustrating me. I was thinking Island Mktg but they outsource Belize to Ecological and they have some bad reviews regarding chaos at port and such. Usually getting consistent good reviews, so knowing who to go with, isn't this difficult. Outsourcing seems to be a big issue in Belize. I really hate to take the Carnival excursion at $30 more, with 100 ppl on the boat. UH!

I'd be curious for feedback, as well. There is another thread in here and a member posted his review of this Goff Caye excursion (including pics). It seems pretty awesome. There are a bunch of us going in September and the group is considering Rendevous Caye (booked thru Royal Caribbean). The place looks beautiful but it sounds like they don't let you just snorkel on your own. Plus it cost $65 pp. I'd be happy just using a local provider but I don't get to vote. I just get to show up. :)

Received this email today:

Today at 9:02 AM

Hi Julia,

Greetings from Belize. Just wanted to touch base with you due to the fact that I saw your posts on a Cruise Critic. Sorry Belize is frustrating you, but it really shouldn't. We are very professional company with only the most professional and hospitable guides working for us. I understand your concern about the Trip Advisor review, however, in the beginning we had a major issue with them and our listing. They had our listing tagged to another company from another country. I thought if I posted a review with our company name, they would figure it out and fix it. That didn't work, however, after 7 months of persistence they got our listing right and posted that old test review.

All the international wholesales, including the tours sold on the ships are done by local companies. We are professional and we try to provide the best time to folks on vacation. We take that seriously. Hence the reason we monitor to see what people are saying. We have never gotten negative feedback, but whenwe do we will use that to improve our services.

All the reviews from TA, except for the one I posted are from very satisfied customers and they weren't prompted to review. We have taken thousands of guests on their excursions and the pics in our gallery and social media are all real pics, not of models like some of the other sites. Just real people having real fun.

Again sorry for your frustration, but I hope you get an excursion in Belize and that your vacation turns out spectacular.

Warm regards,

Golda

Exotic Eco Adventures

Booth #5, Terminal 4

Fort Street Tourism Village

Belize City, Belize

Tel/Fax: (501) 223-0956

I replied and asked about their boats and capacity \ max passengers. Reply:

Jul 15 at 9:50 PM

Hi Julia,

Hope you are enjoying your evening. I am actually a Belizean, living in Belize and an owner of the company. I handle the marketing and some reservations for the company. You were called by Courtney who is also part owner and handles customer service/reservations. She called you from Belize, not Arkansas. Belize's country code is 501, same as Arkansas. We have no offices in the US, we do all our operations, bookings from Belize.

With regards to the boats, we offer boutique style tours to cruise passengers. Unlike the excursions from the ship which takes 100+ people on the boars, our tours can have anywhere from 20 - 50 people, depending on the number of pre booked tours and sales from the dock. Our tours leave at different times, starting at 9:30am, then on 1/2 hr intervals.

Our tours are very intimate and our guides really look after our guests. We don't process people, we take them on their vacation and do our best to have them enjoy themselves. There is actually a cruise critic review, I saw it this morning. All those TA reviews are from real people who have experienced our hospitality.

I cannot guarantee the service and the experience from any other local company, but ours will be the highest level of service and attention to guest. I really hope that this lovely country doesn't frustrate you any longer. Just hop on a tour, but use operators from inside the port, and have a great time with it.

Warm regards,

Golda

I went ahead and booked with them. She won me over with her concern and very nice responses to my questions. I am very much looking forward to our cruise and I will report back to everyone how it all went.

If anyone else takes this tour before me, please add some reviews on here!

I like the idea of an excursion company that takes the time to see what people are saying on CruiseCritic. It shows me that they're very interested in tailoring their service to our specific desires. Kudos to them for that.

Please be sure to post a review after your trip.

Greetings...

We took this very tour in June and it was the BEST part of our cruise! Very professional, very well staffed and very good Rum punch. The snorkeling was amazing! I would highly recommend them. Hopefully you get Kareem and Angel - so fun! We will likely go back on our cruise next month.

Received this email today:

 

 

Today at 9:02 AM

Hi Julia,

 

Greetings from Belize. Just wanted to touch base with you due to the fact that I saw your posts on a Cruise Critic. Sorry Belize is frustrating you, but it really shouldn't. We are very professional company with only the most professional and hospitable guides working for us. I understand your concern about the Trip Advisor review, however, in the beginning we had a major issue with them and our listing. They had our listing tagged to another company from another country. I thought if I posted a review with our company name, they would figure it out and fix it. That didn't work, however, after 7 months of persistence they got our listing right and posted that old test review.

 

All the international wholesales, including the tours sold on the ships are done by local companies. We are professional and we try to provide the best time to folks on vacation. We take that seriously. Hence the reason we monitor to see what people are saying. We have never gotten negative feedback, but whenwe do we will use that to improve our services.

 

All the reviews from TA, except for the one I posted are from very satisfied customers and they weren't prompted to review. We have taken thousands of guests on their excursions and the pics in our gallery and social media are all real pics, not of models like some of the other sites. Just real people having real fun.

 

Again sorry for your frustration, but I hope you get an excursion in Belize and that your vacation turns out spectacular.

 

Warm regards,

 

Golda

 

Exotic Eco Adventures

Booth #5, Terminal 4

Fort Street Tourism Village

Belize City, Belize

Tel/Fax: (501) 223-0956

 

 

Very impressed that they know about Cruise Critic.

Looking at their site now.

Very interested in their Snorkeling Island Beach Break.

I emailed the company earlier this week to see if they charged for a 3 yr old and got a response within a couple of hours that they do not. They do have life vests for a 3 yr old though. I'm thinking about booking with them. We will be in Belize on 10/7. When will y'all be - TampaJules?

I emailed the company earlier this week to see if they charged for a 3 yr old and got a response within a couple of hours that they do not. They do have life vests for a 3 yr old though. I'm thinking about booking with them. We will be in Belize on 10/7. When will y'all be - TampaJules?

We will be heading to Belize in Feb 2015, I am also looking into information on taking small children. If you could please post when you get back, I am stuck between two different tour groups. Have a great vacation. :)

We'll be there on 10/8. Funny. Nice there is no charge for small children.

Please post your review of this tour when you return. We sail on RCCL in November 2014 and we might be interested in this tour.

Can you let us know how long you got to stay in the water? If you got to snorkel anytime on your own or if you had to stay in a group (ugh!)?

We do not like the cruise ship tour, we heard they make you stay in groups and cannot go in on your own. We cruise to snorkel and have been all over the Caribbean, South Pacific and Hawaii. We would hate to miss Belize again, we did Goff'c Caye (I think) before and enjoyed it, last time we just went to the city and walked around the protected area.

Thanks.

Greetings...

We took this very tour in June and it was the BEST part of our cruise! Very professional, very well staffed and very good Rum punch. The snorkeling was amazing! I would highly recommend them. Hopefully you get Kareem and Angel - so fun! We will likely go back on our cruise next month.

I was wondering if you paid in full online or how you did the payment work?

We went to Goff's Caye last year on our October cruise on Carnival Magic.

I will be very honest with you. It is a very small island and the day we were there, there was a large wedding party. The wedding party had been led to believe they had the island to themselves. We also were not informed that due to the wedding, it would be very crowded. The food was mediocre and that was also a problem because the wedding party once again thought they should be fed first. There was not enough space for everyone

You have to rent chairs after you get there and there aren't many there. The area around the shore is very rocky with lots of coral. If you don't have water shoes on, don't even try going out. It's even hard with shoes on. I fell and scraped my legs up very badly.

We would not go back.

We went to Goff's Caye last year on our October cruise on Carnival Magic.

 

I will be very honest with you. It is a very small island and the day we were there, there was a large wedding party. ....

Interesting place for a wedding, and I'm sure the were more disappointed than you. I guess that just the luck of the draw if that happens when you are there. Do you remember what tour took you there?

I knew about the rockiness, and that is common for areas that are good for snorkeling. I will let everyone know how our trip goes when we get back!

We booked on-line and still have not received any kind of confirmation letting us know when to meet the tour! :eek:

Golda did respond to an email asking about a confirmation saying that I should receive something, but nothing yet and it has been several weeks.

I emailed again....we will see! The charge has gone through on our CC. ;)

I, too, am wondering whether to book with Exotic Eco Adventures. I am leaning towards using them mostly because of their price. I am also considering using ShoreTrips.com. They offer the same Goff's Cay Snorkeling Excursion, except the cost is $60 per person. I am looking forward to any other reviews so that I can make a decision real soon for our October 25th cruise.

We booked on-line and still have not received any kind of confirmation letting us know when to meet the tour! :eek:

 

Golda did respond to an email asking about a confirmation saying that I should receive something, but nothing yet and it has been several weeks.

 

I emailed again....we will see! The charge has gone through on our CC. ;)

We leave home tomorrow, still no response to my email from 09/30/2014. (This was my 2nd email requesting a confirmation, receipt or some additional information on what time the tour started.) I attempted to call the number listed on their website today and I am getting an automatic message that the number has been disconnected.

I do not want to waste our day in Belize, I am disputing the charges with VISA and we will just book a tour through the ship. LAME! :mad:

I am really looking forward to seeing how things work out for TampaJules. I am very disappointed, but I don't want to spend a day in Belize shopping around town.

TampaJules, did you go? How was it?

Received this email today:

 

 

Today at 9:02 AM

Hi Julia,

 

Greetings from Belize. Just wanted to touch base with you due to the fact that I saw your posts on a Cruise Critic. Sorry Belize is frustrating you, but it really shouldn't. We are very professional company with only the most professional and hospitable guides working for us. I understand your concern about the Trip Advisor review, however, in the beginning we had a major issue with them and our listing. They had our listing tagged to another company from another country. I thought if I posted a review with our company name, they would figure it out and fix it. That didn't work, however, after 7 months of persistence they got our listing right and posted that old test review.

 

All the international wholesales, including the tours sold on the ships are done by local companies. We are professional and we try to provide the best time to folks on vacation. We take that seriously. Hence the reason we monitor to see what people are saying. We have never gotten negative feedback, but whenwe do we will use that to improve our services.

 

All the reviews from TA, except for the one I posted are from very satisfied customers and they weren't prompted to review. We have taken thousands of guests on their excursions and the pics in our gallery and social media are all real pics, not of models like some of the other sites. Just real people having real fun.

 

Again sorry for your frustration, but I hope you get an excursion in Belize and that your vacation turns out spectacular.

 

Warm regards,

 

Golda

 

Exotic Eco Adventures

Booth #5, Terminal 4

Fort Street Tourism Village

Belize City, Belize

Tel/Fax: (501) 223-0956

 

 

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Not weighing in on the trip advisor postings but wanted to share my positive experience with them in November.

We made a reservation a few weeks in advance and all communications with them were professional and quick. When we got to the port one of their employees had a sign with our name on it. They took us to their off at the port for a quick check in. We had an hour to kill until our tour left but their employee gave us a magazine about Belize and even took me to a couple of shops trying to help me find a specific doll I wanted.

We boarded their boat and then had a 30 to 40 minute ride to the caye. We even saw dolphins on the way and the captain stopped so we could take pictures. We stopped at the caye to let everyone off and those snorkeling got their equipment and got back on the boat. Our snorkeling guide was really fun and gave instructions before we got in the water. The water was beautiful and warm but there weren't a ton of fish. Our snorkeling guide would swim down and bring up a cool fish or crab to show us. We swam back to the cay and then hung around eating until it was time to go.

The entire trip our guides were joking and laughing and very attentive. They gave us plenty of water before and then rum punch after.

A couple of points:

The caye is tiny. There is nothing there but a few picnic tables and the shack where they make food and sell a few souvenirs. I felt like I was on a deserted island and I loved that but if you are looking for lounge chairs and umbrellas you will be disappointed.

You need to be in fairly good physical shape to get on and off the boat. You basically climb down into it. There were a few older and overweight people that required 3 crew members to get them in and even then it was tricky.

TampaJules how was the tour with Exotic Eco Adventures ?

i just confirmed Goff´s Caye with them , they also seem to be very professional.

I will appreciate your answer