Any experiences with Shore Excursioneer?

[runeu]

Hello,

it is our first time trying to organize shore excursions by ourselves. I still need to book excursions for grand cayman and puerto limon. We had chosen Dexter's fantasea tours for grand cayman, but unfortunately he is not available for our date because of a private tour. I don't want to do the stingray tour with a small boat packed with people, so we decided for booking a catamaran tour.

 

Does anyone know shore excursioneer? I'm considering this operator for I can also book tours for other destinations with them.

 

http://www.shoreexcursioneer.com

 

Would you recommend them? Any other suggestions for catamaran tours with stingray and snorkeling on grand cayman? :)

[girlscruise2011]

Hello,

it is our first time trying to organize shore excursions by ourselves. I still need to book excursions for grand cayman and puerto limon. We had chosen Dexter's fantasea tours for grand cayman, but unfortunately he is not available for our date because of a private tour. I don't want to do the stingray tour with a small boat packed with people, so we decided for booking a catamaran tour.

 

Does anyone know shore excursioneer? I'm considering this operator for I can also book tours for other destinations with them.

 

http://www.shoreexcursioneer.com

 

Would you recommend them? Any other suggestions for catamaran tours with stingray and snorkeling on grand cayman? :)

 

I have not used Shore Excursioneer but did have 2 excursions with them that I ended up cancelling. I had them booked for an ATV tour in Belize and found out on the boards that they no longer were associated with the tour guide. Another poster went on her excursion and ended up paying more $$ because Shore Excursioneer never paid her deposit to the tour company. I emailed them and he did admit to not using the tour guide but was looking into other guide. I felt that I should have been notified of this before hand. If it wasn't for these boards, I may have had the same problem when I went next week. I ended up cancelling both excursions with Shore Excusioneer because of this. I did get all my deposit back but not after a few tries with paypal since I was charged fees and had to reject the refund so he could resend it.

 

I am using Stingray Sailing dot com for my Grand Caymans excursion next week. He has a Catamaran and limits it to 25 people. One of the people on my roll call recommended them and will be with me for this excursion for his 3rd time, thats how much he liked them. He does the stingrays and a snorkel stop.

 

There are a few recommendations on Stingray Sailing (I just read one and commented on it before I typed this). I will be there next week so I can come back to let you know how it went if you like.

[runeu]

Thank you for your reply. I could not find many reviews about shore excursioneer, so your response was very helpful. Please let me know about your experiences with stingraysailing.com :)

 

We'll cruise in March, so there's a little bit of time left for more research :) ...

Edited November 14, 2012 by runeu

[naanum]

We did the catamaran stingray tour with shore excursioneer and had a blast. It is a smaller catamaran so you get personalized service and pretty much escape the crowded groups. They only charged a deposit (ticket was in my inbox the same day) and we had no problems to find out boat. The tour was excellent...VERY nice service, the guides took great care of us and we had lots of fun touching and feeding the rays.

Our next stop was Cozumel where we booked with the same company (as you get a discount) and visited Mr. Sanchos Beach (time to relax lol!). Mr. Sanchos gets 5 stars from us. They had our reservations in their book, we paid the balance and got the AI bracelets and enjoyed the swim up bar and beach. The waiter (I think his name was Pedro) was really nice and kept the food and drinks coming (try the seafood soup!!).

My sister in law did not feel well that day and stayed on the ship. We send Shore Excursioneer an email about this and they refunded their deposit within minutes. I was impressed by their customer service and the tours they offer.

[runeu]

Hi naanum,

 

thank you for sharing your experience. Is shore excursioneer an operator on its own with its own boats and staff? Or is it like a huge company who hires the small, private operators?

 

I also like the idea of booking more than one excursion with the same operator. On the other hand, if they are not reliable and fun...We'd have half of our shore trips ruined.

 

What exactly is Mr. Sancho? A beach club? We're considering to go to Chankanaab Park on Cozumel, but have not decided yet.

Edited November 15, 2012 by runeu

[mondello]

Hi naanum,

 

thank you for sharing your experience. Is shore excursioneer an operator on its own with its own boats and staff? Or is it like a huge company who hires the small, private operators?

 

I also like the idea of booking more than one excursion with the same operator. On the other hand, if they are not reliable and fun...We'd have half of our shore trips ruined.

 

What exactly is Mr. Sancho? A beach club? We're considering to go to Chankanaab Park on Cozumel, but have not decided yet.

Yes, Mr Sancho's is a beach club offering both AI or pay-as-you-go/al a carte. Very well known, popular choice in Coz along with Nachi Cocum.

[youngcouple199]

Below is the email I sent to Shore Excursioneer expressing my issues with my trip. They denied my request for a refund then changed the description of the excursion and tried to tell me that was how it was when I booked. Luckily I had a printout of the original description. This company is horrible, do not use them.

 

 

 

To Whom it may concern:

 

I recently booked with you and took a shore excursion in Ensenada Mexico for the ATV/Zip line tour. I was extremely disappointed with the excursion. First off all, your website photos and description of the tour lead customers to believe that there is a nice scenic trail ride through trails, rivers, and sand on the beach. This is far from what the trip actually is. Once we got there, we were informed there is no trail or beach riding and they actually do not allow the ATV on the beach. In fact, the trip consisted of a 45-50 minute one way ride on city streets and highways to the zip line destination! This trip was extremely dangerous riding a non-street legal ATV in high pace traffic with big rigs and fast moving cars. If I would have known that the trip was going to be like this I would have never booked the ATV ride and would have taken the $3 round trip bus ride to the zip line tour.

 

I feel I was cheated out of my money and did not have the fun experience that I signed up for.

I believe I am entitled to a refund for this misinformation and bait and switch your website led me to believe how this trip was going to be.

I took many pictures and video of our dangerous ride on the streets if you need me to send them to you for proof for my refund.

You need to change the description and pictures on your website so that other customers are not led to believe this will be a fun excursion.

[Tommy.Lee_1]

they are just a large corporation trying to squeeze in on local people.

tones of complaints…

impersonal treatement

sent to subcontractors who are paid a fraction of your fee…

[Ryan&Ronnie]

Hello,

it is our first time trying to organize shore excursions by ourselves. I still need to book excursions for grand cayman and puerto limon. We had chosen Dexter's fantasea tours for grand cayman, but unfortunately he is not available for our date because of a private tour. I don't want to do the stingray tour with a small boat packed with people, so we decided for booking a catamaran tour.

 

Does anyone know shore excursioneer? I'm considering this operator for I can also book tours for other destinations with them.

 

http://www.shoreexcursioneer.com

 

Would you recommend them? Any other suggestions for catamaran tours with stingray and snorkeling on grand cayman? :)

We booked two excursions with Shore Excursioneer - one in Limon, Costa Rica and one in Belize and cancelled them both. The one in Limon we booked (a Veragua Rainforest Tour) was cancelled by Shore Excursioneer because they told us the private tour operators were not allowed to take cruise ship passengers to the Rainforest. In Belize, we booked the Sharks/Rays/Reef Snorkeling, but we missed the tour because Celebrity's tendering process took too long. The tour operator and I both called Shore Excursioneer and I was told to send them an email when back on shore to get my deposit back. So far, three emails and no joy on getting back the refund.

 

Here's the latest email from them:

"Thank you for your note. I sent you a reply on April 3. We confirmed with the Belize port authorities and our other local operators that the Celebrity Equinox arrived into port just after 7:00am local Belize time and the first tender ashore was at 7:30am local Belize time. We double checked with the dozens of other guests we had booked on excursions from your ship but no one else had issues about arriving at their meeting point on time. We also had other guests from your ship that did the same excursion but again, made it to shore on time to do the excursion.

 

Although the balance amount due will not be charged to you, the refund amount is not eligible to be refunded. Should you have any other questions, please let us know."

 

I replied back with a copy of the schedule and then called them yesterday for follow up. Guess what they advised me to do? Send ANOTHER email.

 

My recommendation is to book directly with the tour operator.

[1tonysmom]

they are just a large corporation trying to squeeze in on local people.

tones of complaints…

impersonal treatement

sent to subcontractors who are paid a fraction of your fee…

 

I concur with Tommy.Lee_1. We used Shore Excursioneer to book two tours a couple of years ago and had an awful experience. Our Grand Cayman stingrays tour took off 15 minutes early, leaving us with no tour. We ended up booking a tour on the pier and Shore Excursioneer refused to refund our money.

 

Then in Cozumel, we were supposed to do a glass bottom boat snorkeling tour of 3 reefs. We took a cab to the beach where it was located early, asked for "Rodolfo" as instructed. We were told they had no information on us and that a tour had just left but there would be another tour in 1.5 hours. So we wait around and board the boat when it returns. Some woman comes to collect our money and wants the full price, not taking into account our deposit. I show them the email confirmation and pay them what we owe. Then we are told the boat has a "mechanical problem" so they give us our money back. Found another couple of guys on the beach running a snorkel tour, but have to pay them full price for only 2 reefs.

 

I emailed Shore Excursioneer when we got back and they basically accused me of lying saying, you went on a snorkel tour with Rodolfo's outfit, so we're not refunding your deposit. I told them that no, we had to go down the beach to find a replacement tour and assured them I would tell my story of how they treat their customers all over social media. Two weeks later they finally partially refunded our deposit (the Cozumel excursion only).

 

I would NOT recommend using them if you want to assure you will have a tour and a smooth, enjoyable vacation. They are crooks. Lesson learned, book directly with the vendor.

[Kalynda]

Anyone had experience with them recently?

 

Thinking of booking through them for some Cozumel tours... ?

[Stuart_C]

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COST. They very easily will take your money but there is no guarantee that your excursion will be waiting for your when you arrive. Don't make the same mistake and trust this horrible company. My experience says to RUN!!!

[lifes-a-beach]

So Stuart_C, in addition to stealing your pictures off your Facebook, they stranded you and stole your money?  Because in your only other post on CC (as of this minute) you didn’t say a word about having booked them and them taking your money and not showing up when you arrived.  And, like this post, your reply there was to a 2016 thread. Please elaborate on this particular experience in which they were not waiting when you arrived.