St. Kitts - Ilva Wallace

[obladi1]

Anyone recently do a tour with Ilva on St. Kitts - we are going with her next week and were curious of other peoples experiences.

[itsjb1]

See my post from last year about our experience in dealing with her.

[obladi1]

What do you have against Ilva??

[itsjb1]

What do you have against Ilva??

 

 

 

Here is a repost of my post from earlier this year. See for yourself:

 

Just back from a 7 day cruise on the Golden Princess. All was great except our experience with Ilva Wallace in St Kitts.

 

We have done many shore excursions in Europe and in the Caribbean based upon the reccommendations of CC members(including Mandoo in Grenada who was wonderful) and this the 1st time that we have any complaints and feel ripped off.

 

We were a party of 6, 2 grandparents, my wife, myself and our 2 children, ages 13 and 9. I booked Ilva Wallace in July 2004 for March 2005. She quoted me a fee for the 6 of us. I reconfirmed with her by email in January 2005.

 

When we arrived in St Kitts she was waiting for us. Unfortunately, she seemed to have booked other people for the same day, so she passed us on to someone else who she advised would take us on the tour. The driver told me at the end of the tour that Ilva had come up to him that morning and asked if he could cover for her. I was not pleased, as I expected her to do the tour.Once all but 2 of us were in the van, Ilva advised that the fee was going to be more than she quoted. In fact it was 87.5% MORE. .There was no mention of any increase in January or any time after I made the booking. Not very good business practice , in my view.

 

The driver that we had( Trevor) was very good and I have no complaints in that regard.I would not hesitate to use him again. It is not a question of the cost but rather the "bait and switch" manner in which Ilva conducted herself. I have Trevor's phone number and cell phone number if anyone wants it.

 

 

Ilva's excuse for the fee increase was that the tour had been booked so long ago(July 04) and that the price of gas had gone up. Don't most people book well in advance? Do you not expect to pay the price that you are quoted?

 

To me, what occurred is just plain poor business practice. If you are booked with her please reconfirm that she will do the tour and reconfirm the price. If you are thinking of booking with her, be forwarned .

 

 

If anyone thinks that I may have misunderstood her fee quote or anything else,I will gladly post the email correspondence and you can judge for yourself.