St Kitt's - Ilva Wallace - Dec 17, 2004

[queen_kathy1]

My husband and I will be arriving in St. Kitts via Sun Princess on the 17th. We want to book with Ilva, however she has no others booked yet for that date. She charges $30 pp if she has at least 4 in the group. Otherwise her price is $125 for a private tour if it was just my husband and I.

 

I have read many great things about Ilva on this message board and would like to tour with her, but $125 for two is more than we wanted to spend. If anyone else is scheduled to be in St Kitts on the 17th, and is interested in touring with her - she can be reached at: ilvawallace_4@hotmail.

 

Thanks!

[bokranch]

We just returned from two 10 day back-to-back cruises on the Sun Princess. My husband and I did a private all day tour with Ilva and she charged us $30.00 per person for just the 2 of us. When we contacted her a few months ago to set up the tour, she told us her prices were $25.00 per person for 4 or more and $30.00 per person for just 2. When we told her we would hire her for just the 2 of us, she replied that she was glad because it's easier to do it if everyone knows each other rather than trying to please people who may want to see/do different things.

 

Are you sure you got the info about prices correct? It's hard to imagine that her prices have gone up that much. And frankly, while it was a very nice tour, $125 would be too much money for a tour of the island. You may want to contact her again.

[queen_kathy1]

Thanks for your reply bokranch.

 

It seems her prices have gone up quite a bit. Here is one of the e-mails I received from Ilva:

 

Hi Kathy

I have room for 10 people and I have co-workers who do the same tour

$30.00 per person

One to four Private $125.00

Please say the ship and time ship dock that I could arrange your tour

thank you

 

Yours truly

Ilva

 

I also posted my request for others to sign up for Ilva's tour on the Princess boards and got some interest over there. We should be good now for the $30 tour... but I will send Ilva an e-mail and ask her why her prices have gone up so much and I'll post her response. Thanks for your info.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=107243

[bokranch]

Thanks for the reply. When we took her tour, she used a small van - really only held 2-3 people but she did mention that she has a larger van that she uses for larger groups. I wonder if her smaller van is out of service - it did look a little "well-used". Will watch for your posting of her reply.

[1319AGF]

How do I get in touch with Ilva? We will be in St. Kitts on 24 Dec and are looking for an affordable way to see the Island. Do you know anything about the Senic Train?

 

Thanks..

[queen_kathy1]

Hi bokranch, Here is Ilva's reply:

 

Hello Kathy

Thank you for that little info

St.Kitts is 27 miles on the main Island. 12miles going to south East were the beaches are I wait on you take you back to ship. We do not rush or hussle

My price last year was $25.00 per person gas went up twice in he last year

Yours

Ilva

 

Ilva did not address her price increase for parties of 2. Now that we have more people going on the tour than just my husband and I, I'm just going to stick with her price of $30pp.

 

Amtravel - Ilva's e-mail address is listed in the first post of this thread. I'm sorry, but I can't help you re: the scenic train. Type it in the search engine - I have seen it mentioned in these boards.

[queen_kathy1]

We toured St. Kitt's with Ilva and we had a very nice time. Ilva ended up having to have a second taxi to take along all of the cruise critic people who ended up joining us that day.

 

Ilva took us all around St. Kitt's, and it is quite a pretty island. The fortress provides great views and is definitely worth the admission $.

 

The only part of the tour that my husband and I did not like is that Ilva took us to Turtle Beach to swim, which was not very nice in our opinion. It was very rocky to walk into the water (bring water shoes!), then the water was full of seaweed. We had to navigate around both rocks and seaweed to find a patch of sand to sit and enjoy the warm water. The views from this beach are amazing, so if you just want to sit in the sun, this beach is nice for that.

 

Ilva did charge us $30 pp. In Ilva's van, there were 9 of us who joined her tour. She did just take delivery of a new van the day before we arrived - but she kept the air conditioning off and we cooled down via opened windows. It was a very hot day so sometimes it became quite stuffy.

 

I overheard others at the pier arranging taxi tours for $64 for a group of 4. Therefore the tour can be done for less, however Ilva does provide a nice tour for the money she charges. She is certainly a more cost effective option than arranging a tour via the ship.

[2552phxcrzr]

Just returned from a cruise where we toured with Ilva. Despite repeated requests for pricing she did not address it with me prior to the cruise, but I knew to expect around $125 from what I had read on other posts. We negotiated to $100, but were so pleased with the tour that we ended up giving her the asking price anyway. (She even went out of her way to try and help DH find an international newspaper.)

 

We did not go to the beach since we were not interested. Rather we spent our time at Caribelle Batik, Brimstone Fortress and Black Rocks. We looped the entire island, stopping also at an overlook at Frigate Bay. Each stop was great and certainly lived up to all the accollades from previous visitors. Our ship docked a little earlier than anticipated; we disembarked as soon as we could to meet up with her and Ilva managed to get us to every stop well before the crowds descended. We set the pace for our afternoon and enjoyed it tremendously.

 

P.S. She used the A/C most of the time with no prompting from us.

 

P.P.S. As to the train, we did not see it running, but we came across the tracks throughout the drive and from what I noted there were a lot of places where the spectacular scenery from the road, fortress, etc. would not have been visible. Other than that, I cannot comment since we did not do the train.