Any recommendations for an excursion in St Lucia?

It is hard to decide what to do at a port when you only have a few hours. Does anyone have any remommendations on what is a good thing to do or see.

Thanks for the info summersun. Did you see the Pitons? I have heard that they are worth seeing.

I would recommend Cosol tours while you are in St. Lucia. The tour fee is $45 per person. Its 5 to 6 hours. You get to visit the waterfall, volcano, botanical garden, marigot bay, fishing villages, banana plantation, shopping, beach and snorkling at the Hillton Jalousie hotel which is between the Pitons and many more things on the way. They pay all the entrance fees. Lots to sample of their local taste on the way, and they have a cooler with drinks like water, rum punch, local beers and soda. They leave around 8:30am

WMG/LMG how did you book with Cosol tours. Did you book through the cruise ship or privately? Our ship comes in at 8 am is that enough time to make this tour. Do they pick you up at the docks. Is it with a group of people?

Here is their website. Email them and tell them the date and the name of your ship you will be arriving on.

http://www.cosol-tours.com/tours.html

Another recommendation here for Cosol. A great tour.

He picks you up at the pier. He tries to limit how many people he has in each van (he has relatives driving the other vans, but the vans all stay together). The day we went we had 4 of us in our van (originally supposed to be 6 but some friends backed out last minute). In the other van he had about 10 people (all the same group).

He will also alter the tour slightly if you want to do different things. Just email him and he will get back to you.

Forgot to mention that their is no upfront money. You pay at the end of the tour. If you have any questions, you can email me at hawkeyesfan53@yahoo.com.

Here is their website. Email them and tell them the date and the name of your ship you will be arriving on.

 

http://www.cosol-tours.com/tours.html

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED-I HAVE E-MAILED COLSOL TOURS TWICE & HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE. WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE A TOLL-FREE PHONE NUMBER? THANKS.

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED-I HAVE E-MAILED COLSOL TOURS TWICE & HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE. WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE A TOLL-FREE PHONE NUMBER? THANKS.

His phone numbers are on his website, but they do not appear to be toll-free.

We have had three wonderful private whalewatch tours with Hackshaw Boats, and have another one book for this coming March. Do a google search for them and check out their whalewatching photos...most of the "most viewed" are mine.

Email Chris Hackshaw for info and tell him that "marc from Canada" sent you and he will take good care of you

If you are visiting St. Lucia and would like the services of a Tour Guide, I recommend a guide called Monrose, who is located in Castries in the north of the island. He is thoroughly knowledgable about his island and is very friendly and has a great sense of humour!!! Plenty of laughs are guaranteed.

He has a very comfortable air-conditioned van that holds up to 16 people although he does cater for smaller groups. Price is around US$40 a head, for a good 5-6 hour tour, and you can also negotiate.

His tours include:

Morne Fortune (fantastic view of Castries Harbour)

Marigot Bay (where they filmed the original Dr Doolittle)

Anse La Raye (Quaint Fishing village)

Canaries (Another Quaint Fishing village, lovely views of the West Coast of the island

Soufriere (Home of the Fabulous Pitons, great photo opportunities)

Swimming at Jalousie (Right between the pitons)

Touraille Waterfall and the Sulphur Springs and Mineral Baths (Great for the skin)

He can also arrange to take you to the Anse La Raye or Gros Islet Jump-ups on a Friday night!

He also brings along local rum punch, the local beer Piton, Water, Local juice and you can get to sample local fruits and cassava bread.

As well as being a Tour Guide, he can also pick you up and bring you back to Hewanorra Airport in Vieux Fort and Vigie Airport in Castries for those of you who were flying in.

You can view his website at www.monrosetaxi.com or call him on 001 758 384 8987 or 001 758 714 5942

It is an experience of a lifetime!!! :)

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED-I HAVE E-MAILED COLSOL TOURS TWICE & HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE. WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE A TOLL-FREE PHONE NUMBER? THANKS.

Their website does not seem to exist anymore. At least I can't get to it.

Perhaps they have gone out of business.

I don't understand why his website does not come up, we were just on the tour last week, and he asked us if we liked it to say so on CC. It is the best tour we have ever taken. We even met some people on board and took them with us and had plenty of room fo extra people.

It must have been a temporary thing this afternoon, as the site is available this evening.

We really enjoyed our tour with Peter the Great because it's by boat vs. many hours in a van on winding roads. We cruised by the Pitons, went to the waterfall and volcano (by van) and swam at Anse Chastanet.

Here is a full review and photos of the tour.

http://familytravelfun.com/stluciatours.html

http://familytravelfun.com/stluciapictures.html

I just got back from a cruise on the Adventure of the Seas and while in St Lucia I booked a tour through Nash. I cant say enough good things about him. The tour was great because it was just me and my friend the tour was a private one and well worth it at $75 per person (Nash paid for all refreshments during the tour) for approx 5 hours. We visited all the highlights in the island. Of course if you are a bigger group the cost would be less per person. You may visit his website at *******.com or email him at nashville77@hotmail.com. You wont regret it. If you book tell him Juan and Jose from Miami say Hi!!

http://www.**********.com

We did his land and sea tour 11/21. It was great. Lots of EVERYTHING. He's a really nice guy - well established. We saw villages, the volcano, falls (swam), beached between the pitons, geat lunch on the Soufriere beach facing them. Excellent value.

google herods tours st. lucia

I just posted a new thread before I read this, I have been on Junior's excursion with Synergy Charters twice and its incredible!

We will be in St. Lucia on April 1, 2008. A party of 12. When do you think we should book the Cosol tour? I'm not sure all 12 will want to do this. Any info on this excursion would be appreciated.

There is tons of information on Cosol's tour on this board - just use the search feature for his name. His tour is awesome! We booked about two months ahead of time, but you could book anytime now.

We took the Cosol tour on Thanksgiving day 2007. This tour may not be right for everyone. If you don't mind crowded vans, spending 80% of your dan inside a small van (6 hours), visiting overcrowded stops due to Cosol having too many vans in one place at EVERY STOP, having no beverages available except for 2 planned stops in 7 hours and having potentially lousy fellow passengers in your van then this tour is for you. You also need to be OK with going up steep, dangerous mountain roads all day long. If you can fill your van with fun people then you have a decent chance at a good day. The island itself is beautiful, but you have to be willing to suffer a bit to see it if you are as unlucky as we were on this tour. Make sure your ship is leaving later than 4PM on the day of the tour. Our driver got us back only 15 minutes before sailing.

Wow! Sounds like your Cosol tour was sure crowded on Thanksgiving Day. Me, I sat at my villa on St. Lucia overlooking the ocean on THanksgiving Day and did absolutely nothing...well, except drink! haha. You are right...there were 4 cruise ships in port that day. We were in St. Lucia the whole week and decided to stay home that day due to the influx of crowds we knew would be certain.

KasualKathy, I have a recommendation to make if you want a good tour that is pretty much all inclusive, not crowded at all, and where you are made to feel special. We did Serenity's absolutely private land/sea on Monday Nov 19. We chose that day because there were no cruise ships in town and it was my Mom's Birthday. We had 10 in our group. Serenity had 2 vans for us so that we could spread out in leisure (although one could have seated all of us). We had literally every stop to ourselves. We swam in the Toraille Waterfalls and had it all to ourselves. John & Sherma were our guides. Sherma's Dad Vincent was one of our drivers, and Paulie was the other.

We laughed and had fun all day. John's wife, Carolyn, made fish cakes and dat bread (sp?) which were very good...and she made the best rum punch ever!!! She literally soaks her spices in the rum 3 months before making the punch!!! To top it off, we had lunch at the Hummingbird. My Mom is a hummingbird fanatic. She has stained glass, wind chimes, figurines, you name it. The Hummingbird restaurant was one of our choices right in front of the Piton Mountains at the beach. The food was superb!!! Then, Serenity had the staff come out with a birthday cake singing happy birthday to my Mom! Then, as if that weren't enough, John gave my Mom a present. He had purchased a Hummingbird painting from a local artist to make her day special. My Mom was literally in tears. I don't think she had ever had such a wonderful time with her whole family. Serenity made that happen for her.

We also did the sea part. I think the sea part wasn't as awesome, but that was ok. We kind of took a long time at all the stops that we didn't get to snorkel much. But, we did snorkel at Anse Cochon and the Golden Reef. We saw the bat caves & went through the tunnel of love twice. Hold hands as you go through and the theory is your love will last forever. This trip was also to celebrate my Mom & Dad's 40th wedding anniversary, so we got some good pics of them kissing through the tunnel. ha ha.:rolleyes:

We also wanted to see our villa from the water, so they motorboated us around Vigie Peninsula so we could see it. It was a full day. Oh, and we had also mentioned how our cooks had marinated steaks for us to cook that night for dinner, but we had forgotten to purchase charcoal for the grill. Well, when we got to the pier, Vincent had purchased us some! Isn't that awesome? They really did try to make this an awesome excursion for our family. My sister said she felt like royalty. Drinks were a flowing all day. I highly recommend Serenity. See their banner above.

I also recommend Hackshaw's...the guys went out with him on Wed & my DH went again on Friday while 5 of us went with Serenity again for the zipline. Oh, and ziplining was awesome! You've got to do that at least once! We had a screamer in my group, but that was ok! haha

And, I also recommend Hugo at www.hugotoursslu.com. Hugo was our taxi man of the week. He took us everywhere, helped us pick out red snapper, kept us safe at the gros islet street party. Hugo was awesome. He does tours too, just email him for his prices..he's negotiable on everything. We loved Hugo!

Anyone travel with them? Any info?