No Rush Tour operator Beau Robinson dies of a massive heart attack

I am sorry to let everyone know that I have heard the news that Beau Robinson died of a sudden massive heart attack at the age of 48 on the way to meet some clients. He died behind the wheel and caused a minor accident by his loss of ability to steer the van.

I am so sorry about this news. We had him as our tour director in St. Martin in September and really enjoyed his tour. God rest his soul.

E-Beth

That is so sad....Deepest sympathy to his family

My heart goes out to his wife and the family. This is such sad news. I have been looking forward to meeting him for months as I have heard so many wonderful things about him. I certainly don't want to sound self-centered right now but does anyone know what will happen to his current bookings? I would not worry about it but I'm over a group of 14 who would have been on one of his tours.I know he has others helping him now and was not sure if they would be taking over. I really don't want to bother his family right now over something that would appear to be some minor at such a traumatic time in their lives ..... so if anyone knows anything please share.

A gentleman named Bodo is doing all the admin work now and he seems very nice and professional in his correspondence. Send them an email and confirm your reservation with them. I am sure there are many people doing this now and the people at No Rush will surely be happy to give you confirmation and answer any questions you might have.

Beau was not the only driver working for No Rush so you may have gotten someone else anyhow. All of the drivers have to adhere to the policy that you can have the tour any way you want. I have seen reviews for Lynette and Bodo and they both have been excellent.

I am looking forward to my tour with No Rush and I am more than happy to support their company during this time of change.

angelkisses...

TwinCruiserMom is exactly right...email Bodo Muth at NoRushTours to "reconfirm" your tour day.

We had Beau Robinson booked as well...we "reconfirmed our tour" and now have Lynette Douglas as our tour guide for Jan 20/08.

Pat :)

I emailed my condolences and and gave our tour date. Bodo quickly responded with a confirmation of our tour for March of 2008, with Lynette.

Judy

We also reconfirmed our tour for1/25/08 and now will have Lynette as our tour guide.

I followed everyone's advice and contacted No Rush Tours. At the time I had originally booked (early in the year) Beau informed me that he was the only driver at that time. Bodo quickly responded after my email and confirmed our booking. When I asked who our tour guide would be he was unable to tell me. Bodo stated he could not tell the name of the tour guide because their dispatcher Bertrand is making the decision that morning. We originally had the van that held 12 people reserved. I'm assuming that must be the van Beau was driving during the tragedy as they have now moved our group up to the 28 seater toyota.

My heart still aches over this tragic news and I feel guilty about worry about our own personal situation.

Just got an e-mail from Bodo. Very sad news. We had enjoyed corresponding with Beau and we looking forward to spending the day with him.

They have cancelled the December 13 tour we had with Beau. Not sure what we will do now.

Hi marti2282...

We had Beau booked for our day and now have the day booked with Lynette. All the other tour guides must be booked for Dec 13 and they had no one else to take you...so had to cancel.

Our friends did a tour of the island with Joyce Prince last year and really enjoyed their day with her...so here's the link to her website and contact info. She was already booked for our day...maybe you'll have better luck.

http://www.princepersonal.com/

If she is unavailable she might know someone else to show you the island. Joyce also customizes your tour... to do what you want... just like the No Rush Tours policy.:D

Hope you can organize a tour for your day.

Pat :)

I'm grateful for the information, too, Pat. We had a reservation with Beau for January, but we got an email from Bodo saying they'd have to cancel 'cause they didn't have enough drivers on that day.

The reason we booked with Beau was because he would personalize each tour based on the needs/desires of his customers. We're looking for a brief (2 - 2 1/2 hour) narrated sight seeing tour with no stops at beaches or for shopping. Not as easy to find as I'd hoped. I'll email Joyce Prince and see if she can accomodate us.

Have been looking for the same type of tour in St. Thomas but with little luck. Of the 5 tour operators I've contacted by email or voice mail message, the only one to get back to us was our first choice, Air Force 1, who let us know they were totally booked for the day. Been at this for a couple of months but can't get anyone else to reply. AARGH!!!!

We just returned from Caribbean Princess trip which included scheduled tour with Beau in St. Martin. The email with info to get refund or take tour with a different guide arrived after we had left home for the cruise, so we didn't know any details until after the cruise. We were met at the pier by Junior with a NoRushTours sign. He did not tell us of Beau's death, just that there was a "scheduling problem." Junior took us in a very comfortable van and had our original email with what we had requested to do in St. Martin. He gave us an excellent tour, very conversational and informative about the two parts of the island. Not sure exactly what the relationship was between Beau and Junior and his Dad who worked together. Our prayers will be with Beau and family

Hi marti2282...

 

We had Beau booked for our day and now have the day booked with Lynette. All the other tour guides must be booked for Dec 13 and they had no one else to take you...so had to cancel.

 

Our friends did a tour of the island with Joyce Prince last year and really enjoyed their day with her...so here's the link to her website and contact info. She was already booked for our day...maybe you'll have better luck.

 

http://www.princepersonal.com/

 

If she is unavailable she might know someone else to show you the island. Joyce also customizes your tour... to do what you want... just like the No Rush Tours policy.:D

 

Hope you can organize a tour for your day.

 

Pat :)

Thanks, Pat.

I e-mailed Joyce and Bernard. Neither can accommodate us. Anyone else have any ideas? I don't like the idea of snagging someone in the parking lot when we get there.

We recently took a No Rush Tour with Bodo as our tour guide and we were very pleased with the entire day. He was very personable, knowledgeable and friendly and took us to wonderful locations all over the island. We will remember our tour with Bodo always. it was the best! If anyone has any questions you do not want to post, you can e-mail me at suja514@aol.com and I will be happy to answer your questions. I think for the price and the product, you get more than you paid for.

We took the No Rush Tour in Sint Maarten/ St. Martin yesterday and our driver was "Bertrand" (who also called himself "Tomas" on his cell phone sometimes). He was very knowledgeable and pleasant, and we had a good day touring in a very comfortable large bus, although there was just two of us.

We mentioned our regrets on the death of Beau Robinson, and his reply was something like that it was an office joke or something. He referred to the idiom that "Beau was in a better place now" meaning that he was now in a desk job. But some have emailed that Beau had died! Bertrand said that there would be some reference to this false rumor(?) on their website at www.norushtours.com sometime soon.

At the end of a very long and rambling explanation we remained unsure if Beau has departed this world or not. Other than that, we think we understood everything that our driver had said.

We think Beau is alive because Bertrand's reaction to out condolences was anything but that it was so sad, what a shock!, etc. etc. etc.

But we don't know for sure.

Anyway, we would recommend this tour, and the very homey restaurant (where they base their lunchtimes and received their tour payment) served very good home-cooked fare, and had maybe the best view on the island.

Only fault that we could find is that the driver suggested an area to snorkel that really had nothing to see unless you had scuba gear. That part was a waste of time.

Now this is just weird. We also had a tour booked in January with Beau--we emailed Bodo with our condolences and he rebooked us with Lynette. Anyone have any more information about this situation???

The e-mail I got from Boho said, "Our tour guide Mr. Robinson is no longer with us. He suddenly passed away at November 7TH."

hummm. would like to know the facts.

We took the No Rush Tour in Sint Maarten/ St. Martin yesterday and our driver was "Bertrand" (who also called himself "Tomas" on his cell phone sometimes). He was very knowledgeable and pleasant, and we had a good day touring in a very comfortable large bus, although there was just two of us.

We are not going to do any snorkeling so that won't matter. We are going with Bertrand. Tell me honestly what you thought of him and his tour. Where do you go? What did you do?

Tour guide Bertrand was friendly and did a lot of narration while he drove us around the island of St. Martin. We told him that we wanted to shop in Marigot because we had never been to the French side, and that we wanted to snorkel in the afternoon.

He rearranged his usual order of things to do this for us, so our tour worked fine. For others, I feel like that if you came to him with no idea of what to see, he would hit all of the highlights of the island and you'd have a nice time.

We found him to be very humorous (or at least he would laugh at our jokes).

It was a little hard to hook up with him at the pier for two reasons: 1) He was not holding a sign as promised, and 2) Ship's time was one hour behind local time. We walked off the pier, turned right and walked about 150 yards, as his email advised, but then it was not easy to locate him among all the vehicles in this fairly large outdoors bus/cab pick-up circle and car rental stand. Several that we asked had not heard of him, and this was a little strange since it's a pretty small town there.

Because of the lack of identification signs we started out a little unsure if this man was who we had paid the $20 downpayment to via Internet. But he produced copies of our emails so it proved to be the correct tour company.

The driver will want cash payment at about midday on the far side of the island (the lunch stop). He told us this pretty early on. This was agreeable to us, but I don't know what would happen if someone were to refuse payment until the tour was finished.

The only real hitch was that he seemed set on taking us to a particular beach resort for swimming (and it was a fine beach with free lounge chairs), but it was not at all good for snorkeling.

I would suggest that customers research where the good snorkeling is in St. Martin if you want that, and inquire if No Rush Tours would take you to that particular place. They were very prompt to respond to emails.

We haven't had a lot of private tours-- maybe 3 or 4-- but we would go with Bertrand again. Really the tour was very enjoyable, and my wife felt pretty safe with this driver.

Tour guide Bertrand was friendly and did a lot of narration while he drove us around the island of St. Martin. We told him that we wanted to shop in Marigot because we had never been to the French side, and that we wanted to snorkel in the afternoon.

 

He rearranged his usual order of things to do this for us, so our tour worked fine. For others, I feel like that if you came to him with no idea of what to see, he would hit all of the highlights of the island and you'd have a nice time.

 

We found him to be very humorous (or at least he would laugh at our jokes).

 

It was a little hard to hook up with him at the pier for two reasons: 1) He was not holding a sign as promised, and 2) Ship's time was one hour behind local time. We walked off the pier, turned right and walked about 150 yards, as his email advised, but then it was not easy to locate him among all the vehicles in this fairly large outdoors bus/cab pick-up circle and car rental stand. Several that we asked had not heard of him, and this was a little strange since it's a pretty small town there.

 

Because of the lack of identification signs we started out a little unsure if this man was who we had paid the $20 downpayment to via Internet. But he produced copies of our emails so it proved to be the correct tour company.

 

The driver will want cash payment at about midday on the far side of the island (the lunch stop). He told us this pretty early on. This was agreeable to us, but I don't know what would happen if someone were to refuse payment until the tour was finished.

 

The only real hitch was that he seemed set on taking us to a particular beach resort for swimming (and it was a fine beach with free lounge chairs), but it was not at all good for snorkeling.

 

I would suggest that customers research where the good snorkeling is in St. Martin if you want that, and inquire if No Rush Tours would take you to that particular place. They were very prompt to respond to emails.

 

We haven't had a lot of private tours-- maybe 3 or 4-- but we would go with Bertrand again. Really the tour was very enjoyable, and my wife felt pretty safe with this driver.

Did you end up finding somewhere to snorkel? We have our own gear and plan on renting a jeep there and would go snorkeling if there was a good place.

Did you end up finding somewhere to snorkel?... .

Sorry, we didn't have time to look.

I was told from people I trust to be reliable, that Mr. Beau Robinson had died. I also got a very strange email today about the possibility that he might still be alive. Strange indeed. If I gave false information, I am terribly sorry. At this point I have no idea if he is alive or not. Our tour with him that day was very pleasant and informative. He told us of the intense, very hostile rivalry between the two different sides (french vs. dutch) and that it was very, very hostile. I hope this news is not something being put out by one of his rival tour operators. I really don't know. What I do know - is that we had a great tour the day we were in St. Martin with Beau and I would try his company again.

E-Beth

I am concerned about what I am reading about this company and we have decided to cancel our tour and book a ship's tour. Unsure of what the truth is about Beau or Bodo or what is happening with this tour company.

Thanks, st.maartener! After having our tour with No Rush cancelled (not enough drivers available) and getting no response from another tour operator, we'd decided to check in with the taxi association desk at the port and see about arranging for a sightseeing tour when we visit in January. Sounds like we'll be able to connect with a professional driver/tour guide that way. It may end up being the best option, in light of the situation.

I had booked a private tour with Beau from No Rush Tours last April and made a deposit through Pay Pal. Upon hearing about his possible death I sent my condolences and inquired about making other arrangements for our February 2008 visit. After not getting any response for a week and a half I sent another inquiry, again with no response from the company. This afternoon I thought that I may have better luck if I inquired through the website and got the message that the site was no longer operational.

I assume that's the answer to my question about making other arrangements! :(