Cosol, Herod, Frank, Phillip, Fabian: Which?

[COYS2727]

My wife and I took a private tour with Cosol whereby we followed his basic tour, but we made a special stop at Ladera for lunch. They make several stops at local attractions as well as stopping for locally prepared foods that they have specially made for the tour group. Plenty of cold beverages as well!

 

The tour was fabulous; I would highly recommend his tour!!!

 

His website is: http://www.cosol-tours.com

[Crusin Karen]

I just e=mailed him also and he replied immediately and we are booked (for 2/09) He said to meet at 9:20, tour would start at 9:30. I e-mailed him back that I was "worried" because the ship docks at 9am and if we are delayed....but he said he has others on the same ship and "will wait" but be sure to be the first off. Sure looking forward to this! One other thing: the tour runs 51/2-6 hours. We leave at 5pm which seems like "plenty of time" to get back to the ship, but is there anything that I should be worried about there? Just makes me a bit nervous! :( :confused:

[ycartracy]

Your in great hands with Cosol. They will take care of you and then some!

 

Have fun!

[sueajp]

HI folks,

We went on Cosol's tour in July from AOS. It was a great tour. We enjoyed every stop. The only negative was some grouchy people on our tour. Cosol tried to placate them every way he could. He remained a gentle man as did our driver in spite of those ignorant people. We loved the bananas off the tree, the coconut cookies, the bread fruit and banana ketchup, the beautiful views and Jalousie Beach! Great day.. we were pooped when we got back. Its a full day! He gets my vote!

Sue:D

[Crusin Karen]

BANANA KETCHUP? :eek: :confused: :eek:

[ncdachsiemom]

Yep....banana ketchup mixed with hot sauce....YUM!!! Another great introduction from COSOL. He is awesome. My mother, my aunt and I (ages 60 to 82) booked a tour with him in May, and he was great. I am taking my family on a Christmas cruise, and plan to book him for all 12 of us, ages 11 to 82. I booked the cruise yesterday, and will book him tomorrow because I know all ages will love him. You don't have to worry about anything, just leave it up to him and you will have a wonderful day! Best island tour I have ever had on any of my cruises. I wouldn't use anyone else.

 

Linda

[urbanhawk]

I would give 2 thumbs up for one of Cosol's tours! I went on one last Dec., and I believe I booked sometime in the summer. He didn't want the trip paid for until after the tour ended. He is very aware of the different ship's schedules that are in port for the day-no worries about getting back on time. (All the tours I booked independently from Carnival's, and had no problem). Cosol has several vans/drivers/tour guides-I guess his business has really taken off-so, there is a caravan; All the guides are very knowledgable, and the drivers are safe drivers. You get to sample alot of various foods, and there's unlimited amounts of rum punch and local beer to drink:D

[jp20]

Hi, we are in the same boat, but we already committed to tour with Cosol but would like to see if we have time for a short visit after the tour. What a wonderful surprise, did you visit the brothers on any other islands?

We were going to go with Cosol's tour but changed to Herods for the reason that he kept us in a smaller group, we could pick what we wanted to do, he made suggestions to make it all work and it was the best tour we did on our cruise in St. Lucia. The van was new and very comfortable, Herod was very professional, very well kept and courteous, not to mention fix a flat tire in 5 minutes!!!

He takes a great interest in your emails, I asked if by chance he knew of any Jehovah's Witnesses in St. Lucia or a kingdom hall and he didn't but by the time we got there, he had found our brothers and sisters or I should say they found him, and pre arranged as a surprise for us to meet up with a group of them at their local Kingdom Hall. He really went out of his way.

Not only is he well educated but you can understand everything he says, some times we get tour guides that are so hard to understand.

I also have to mention his mom's rum punch that she prepares for his tours, WOW! it was great!! You don't need to worry about getting hungry along the way either, you get wonderful little snacks like fresh bread, tree ripened bananas etc. To top it all off, he took us snorkeling to the best snorkel site on the whole cruise. St Lucia was by far our best stop and the best value for our tour.

[blyle]

One good thing about Serenity. You don't have to carry any money. The owner has a US bank acct, and had a portable charge card machine. No exchange fees and its very simple. I believe he is the only tour company that does this. It made it much easier not to carry cash! The owner has a degree in accounting and is highly professional.

[fuzzywuzzy]

We just booked with Cosol for our January cruise on the Maasdam. I am going by all the positive comments I have read on this board as we have never taken this tour before or been on the island before. It was a tough decision as there are other tour guides which sound really good as well and less money. I hope I made the right decision.

[GO STATE]

Hi All: I have read and heard about all of these tours. Which is the best? Which should I stay away from? It is so confusing and it has been asked so many times and there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. Can anyone that is really familiar with more than one of these tours compare or recommend. Thanks very much.......Les

 

From all these reviews and personal experience it sounds like all of these

tours were very much like ours. We were in St. Lucia on Feb. 5th. We

had contacted Fabian Tour's several months in advance (not necessary)

and booked a full Island Tour with him. His tour was awesome. Our guide

and driver was Godfrey who by the end of the tour was one of our best

friends. During the tour we met Fabian who wanted to know if we were

having a "great" time, which we were. We saw everything on St. Lucia

that we had wanted to and Godfrey was an expert at explaining every-

thing. St. Lucia has become our favorite Island with it's extraordinary

beauty and great people like Fabian and Godfrey.

[mishdoob]

we just came back from the RCCL serenade and actually were lucky to have Cosol as our tour guide. He is wonderful and we highly recommend him. He is very accomodating, friendly and very interested in being sure that you do whatever you'd like. PLENTY to eat and drink. outstanding! we would definitely tour with him again!

[fuzzywuzzy]

We just came back from a two week cruise and one of the islands we toured was St. Lucia. I have learned that if you book in advance, you pay more. Granted you have the convenience of knowing in advance that you have someone there waiting for you but from our experience you pay a lot more when you book online in advance of your trip.

 

We found a wonderful guide named Kevin right there on the spot in the terminal. We negotiated with him and paid only $10.00 each (four of us) for a wonderful tour which took us to a lookout above Marigot Bay, driving past banana plantations and through sleepy fishing villages. Our guide was insightful and informative. He was willing to take us wherever we wanted to go within our timeframe.

 

Just another option. If you read below, I had said that I booked with Cosol. That was online in advance but we cancelled and ended up taking the tour above.

[lba2006]

Just went to St. Lucia last week and we took the Cosol tour. We had a group of 6 and none of us had been to St. Lucia before. We all loved the tour. For $65 pp we all felt like we got a bargain. We got to stop by the banana plantation and sample bananas from off the tree, we had a private "buffet" of all local foods that were made just for our group, plenty of drinks, we saw the waterfall, volcano, Pitons, got to snorkel b/w the Pitons...and all this in a small private van. Our driver Samuel was very informative..he didn't have quite the energy that Cosol did but he was still a great tour guide. After the tour everyone felt like they had truly experienced what St. Lucia had to offer.

[fuzzywuzzy]

Just went to St. Lucia last week and we took the Cosol tour. We had a group of 6 and none of us had been to St. Lucia before. We all loved the tour. For $65 pp we all felt like we got a bargain. We got to stop by the banana plantation and sample bananas from off the tree, we had a private "buffet" of all local foods that were made just for our group, plenty of drinks, we saw the waterfall, volcano, Pitons, got to snorkel b/w the Pitons...and all this in a small private van. Our driver Samuel was very informative..he didn't have quite the energy that Cosol did but he was still a great tour guide. After the tour everyone felt like they had truly experienced what St. Lucia had to offer.

 

$65 pp and that was a bargain? How long did the tour last? We were in a private car and sampled bananas, etc. but we never went as far as the Pitons. We didn't have a lot of time as our ship was sailing at 2:30 p.m. to travel to Soufriere where we picked up passengers that had taken a catamaran tour from Castries. There are better prices to be had if a person negotiates with the driver. But to each his own.

[lba2006]

YES! We left at 8:30 and got back to the ship at 3:30..that's 7 hrs...which averages to $9.28 an hr! Got all the stuff I listed above plus unlimited rum punch, beer, soda, water, etc. and had the *experience* of meeting the gregarious Cosol.:o How can that NOT be considered a bargain???

 

You said you paid $10 for your tour...how long did that last and what exactly did you get for it? I can't imagine that you got anywhere close to what we got on the tour.

.

[fuzzywuzzy]

YES! We left at 8:30 and got back to the ship at 3:30..that's 7 hrs...which averages to $9.28 an hr! Got all the stuff I listed above plus unlimited rum punch, beer, soda, water, etc. and had the *experience* of meeting the gregarious Cosol.:o How can that NOT be considered a bargain???

 

You said you paid $10 for your tour...how long did that last and what exactly did you get for it? I can't imagine that you got anywhere close to what we got on the tour.

.

 

Yes, you definitely received more as our trip was about 3 hours long with no drinks. We did drive through some of the hills up to Governor's house, through fishing villages, through a banana plantation and over to Marigot Bay. Still a good bargain - there were four of us. At first it was just my DH and I for $15.00 each and then another couple came along who were our table mates and we asked them to join us which they did so the price dropped to $10.00 each.

[B Mann]

I strongly suggest taking Herod's tour! My whole family has gone on his tour at different times and we were all blown away by our experiences. You will probably see more people recomending Cosol's tour on these boards simply because he has a bigger operation that has had more visitors than others such as Herod. All the people on our ship (SOTS November 08) that went on cosol's tour said they liked it, but none of them were extremely impressed. I can tell you that there was not a single person that went on Herod's tour that didn't say that it was the best excursion they had ever been on!!

One huge plus about Herod's tour is that you have the option of returning to Castries by boat. For those that haven't gone, the road from Castries to Soufriere is the most hilly and windy road I have ever seen. By the time you get to Soufriere the last thing you want to do is turn around and go back the same way you came! The boat ride back gives you an oportunity to get back to the ship in a faster, more comfortable manner. Go with Herod!!

[lba2006]

I strongly suggest taking Herod's tour! My whole family has gone on his tour at different times and we were all blown away by our experiences. You will probably see more people recomending Cosol's tour on these boards simply because he has a bigger operation that has had more visitors than others such as Herod. All the people on our ship (SOTS November 08) that went on cosol's tour said they liked it, but none of them were extremely impressed. I can tell you that there was not a single person that went on Herod's tour that didn't say that it was the best excursion they had ever been on!!

One huge plus about Herod's tour is that you have the option of returning to Castries by boat. For those that haven't gone, the road from Castries to Soufriere is the most hilly and windy road I have ever seen. By the time you get to Soufriere the last thing you want to do is turn around and go back the same way you came! The boat ride back gives you an oportunity to get back to the ship in a faster, more comfortable manner. Go with Herod!!

 

There were stops all along the way...I didn't have a problem at all with the roads.

[Flipflopking]

I looked it up and found Cosol tours at http://www.cosol-tours.com/ for St. Lucia. Did you get any contact info for the brothers on the island?

I've been looking for contacts in Limon Costa Rica. Some have recommended I look at www.costarica-jw.com for JW tours. Anyone know if they are real friends?

It's great to meet Jehovah's Winesses wherever you go. Really brings together the worldwide brotherhood for a while.