"James Touring Service? Anyone been on a tour?"

[eclipsethecat]

Im not going to argue semantics with you ( I also have a house payment, student loans and on and on,) but I shouldnt have had to tell him that I thought it was crappy that he was charging us. If he was a honest person in a customer service related business he would have said, hey screw the whole thing, you dont owe me anything.

 

You can honestly tell me you would be comfortable telling someone who has control of your destiny (because at one point we were 30 minutes from the port on the top of a deserted cliff,) that you weren't having a good time and expected a refund?

 

And after the three harassing phone calls and creepy emails Ive been receiving from Jame's phone numbers and Jame's website telling me that "Evil people will burn in hell and be poked in the stomach by the devil, " and "you should repent your evil ways because God hates people who hate others," I am sure glad I didnt put up a fight- I would be scared to see what would have happened to us if we did.

[martyap]

I've eaten in restaurants and left disappointed; I've been to movies and walked out in the middle because they were so terrible; I've been on vacations and the weather was not what I wanted..........never got a "refund." Part of life!

 

I'm sorry your time in St. Lucia was so displeasing. We found James to be honest, charming and eager to please his clients. We've used him twice and have recommended him to friends and family. The tour guide business in all of these islands is very competitive and the reviews on this board are extremely important. Your points are well taken.......you felt cheated. We all get it. BUT.....one person writing the same negative comments multiple times on this forum is not fair and certainly doesn't help other CC members in their decision to use a tour operator.

[eclipsethecat]

You know whats not fair Marty? THIS:

 

martyap

 

New York

Contributor

14 reviews

 

23 helpful votes

 

 

 

“James is Still Tops!!!!!!”

Reviewed December 7, 2011

1

person found this review helpful

 

Thirty Five great reviews (now 36) and one terrible. I wonder if the "terrible" poster works for one of the other tour guides who is jealous that James continues to satisfy his clients. We have used him twice and have recommended him to our closest friends. Everyone has rave reviews. Is it possible for James to have an off day because of very heavy rains or other natural causes......absolutely. Would we use James Touring on our next visit to St. Lucia.......we cannot wait!!!!!

 

 

• Visited October 2011
  

 

 

Ask martyap about James Touring Service

 

 

 

You FOLLOWING me over to tripadvisor to post that I am fraud and a vendor that is jealous of James. Your continual posting on EVERY SINGLE JAMES TOURING THREAD that YOU LOVE James is along the same lines as someone posting that they had a bad experience. Deal with it. You should tell James the next time you talk to him that maybe if he treated his clients properly he wouldnt have to answer to bad reviews. And that if he didnt feel the need to harass them afterwards maybe they wouldnt feel the need to continue to post about their bad experiences.

[martyap]

You know whats not fair Marty? THIS:

 

martyap

 

New York

Contributor

14 reviews

 

23 helpful votes

 

 

 

“James is Still Tops!!!!!!”

Reviewed December 7, 2011

1

person found this review helpful

 

Thirty Five great reviews (now 36) and one terrible. I wonder if the "terrible" poster works for one of the other tour guides who is jealous that James continues to satisfy his clients. We have used him twice and have recommended him to our closest friends. Everyone has rave reviews. Is it possible for James to have an off day because of very heavy rains or other natural causes......absolutely. Would we use James Touring on our next visit to St. Lucia.......we cannot wait!!!!!

 

 

• Visited October 2011
  

 

 

Ask martyap about James Touring .

 

Have a wonderful holiday and as a suggestion you might want to consider cruise line tours in the future.

[CruiseDaydreamer]

I've eaten in restaurants and left disappointed; I've been to movies and walked out in the middle because they were so terrible; I've been on vacations and the weather was not what I wanted..........never got a "refund." Part of life!

 

I'm sorry your time in St. Lucia was so displeasing. We found James to be honest, charming and eager to please his clients. We've used him twice and have recommended him to friends and family. The tour guide business in all of these islands is very competitive and the reviews on this board are extremely important. Your points are well taken.......you felt cheated. We all get it. BUT.....one person writing the same negative comments multiple times on this forum is not fair and certainly doesn't help other CC members in their decision to use a tour operator.

 

Apparently Martytap spends alot of time on these boards defending James, but he or she cannot count. Just look through the posts on this thread; there are many people who had bad tours with James. I am one of them. Our tour was very disappointing, and I too felt cheated.

 

I was also a victim of James' harassing e-mails after he thought I posted a negative review (it was actually someone else on our tour)

 

One interesting thing is that James assured me (last month) that he fired his driver, Sugar Daddy, because of his dispicable behavior on our tour. Some of the above posts led me to look at Trip Advisor to see what they were talking about, and I read a review from this week that mentions the driver, Sugar Daddy. It seems JAmes will say anything after the fact to get people to back off of their negative reviews.

 

So, Martytap, you may love James but there are several of us who had bad experiences. Get over it.

[martyap]

Apparently Martytap spends alot of time on these boards defending James, but he or she cannot count.

 

So, Martytap, you may love James but there are several of us who had bad experiences. Get over it.

 

I hope what you say about James is not true. I only defended him because we had two very enjoyable tours with him. This will be my last posting on this board and on this topic. I did go back to Trip Advisor a few minutes ago. There were 39 posts about James Touring.... by 38 different people.... and 38 of the reviews were excellent. I hope whoever you may choose in St. Lucia provides a great tour.

Enjoy your holidays.

[jbuch02]

I find this dialog between eclipsethecat and Marytap interesting.

 

I've been in contact with James by email over eclipisethecat's Tripadvisor post as well as the many times this post has been pasted in various forums/threads here. The allegations by posters here of threatening emails directed to them if they make a negative comment about James Tours is very troubling. James reports to me he is very concerned about this in that these allegations are not true. He is also concerned that he may be getting sabotaged by a competitor. This is a very open Internet Site and I like it that way. But with openness comes risks. We have no way to know if that is happening here or in this particular case but it appears that it may be happening more and more frequently on cruise review boards in general. I simply ask you to consider this danger.

 

I'm not here to offer opinions on the quality of James Tours. What I would like to add to the dialog though is that derogatory comments about a tour company can cost that company thousands of dollars, make it very difficult for these people to overcome the derogatory comments and could put them out of business.

 

I'm not arguing that negative comments should not be made. That's what these boards are for ..... to share experiences and help others make choices. But the impact of them should be carefully considered before they are posted. As well, readers should look at an entire company's body of work and consider that a negative comment could have been written by a competitor ..... and I am not saying this happened here. I don't know but it does happen.

 

I don't doubt eclipse had a bad day. Fair enough. But when you are making derogatory comments ask if your experience was bad enough to create a negative business environment for these people who rely on us to put food on the table for their families? Maybe they are, and if the service was so retched that it needs a bad review, the tour company providing those services should go out of business. I don't think that is the case with James though. Just my opinion.

 

I think that at one time or another in our lives, all of us been told by someone we respect, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. Maybe a little too strong considering the purpose of these boards but please be careful to consider what the potential impact is on hard working people who work to serve us on our trips to paradise. They may not always be able to meet the lofty expectations of those of us who live in a different comfort zone of daily living than most native Caribbean Islanders.

[cjnky]

Well said jbuch!!

[fl_couple]

We recently booked a tour for three of us, and from our very first email with James we requested a PRIVATE tour. He quoted us a price of $60 each. After reading on our trip roll call that numerous others had booked with him, I emailed James again and he confirmed it was "private". Upon our arrival we (and about 40 others) were herded off and the first thing my husband said was "I thought you said this was a private tour". I found James, expressed my concern, and he said our tour was Private. Well his definition of private amounted to the vehicle we were in following the multitude of vans in front of us and stopping at the same locations at the same time!

 

After about the third stop, I found James again, and expressed my dissatisfaction of being herded with not only a van, but many many vehicles. At each stop we were surrounded and had people reaching in the car trying to sell wares. It was truly stressful. When I heard that the next stop was at the volcano, I told our driver that James had specifically said the tour would be tailored to our wants and needs and he needed to call him. He did, and we finally left the group and went to Ladera instead. At the advice of our driver, we stopped only for drinks there, and proceeded to another restaurant (the drivers choice for lunch).

 

Could this get worse...oh yes it could. While we could have had a beautiful lunch overlooking the Pitons, we were now on dirt roads in a restaurant that was so hot, and the driver first spoke to the waitress in a language we could not understand. The food was taking so long that the driver finally told them to cancel it, and we were all melting in the heat. The owner said "well you ordered food to go and it was taking longer". We had not ordered food to go (the driver had). Did I mention the waitress dropped the Coke, broke it and now I was wearing soda? They brought out my grandson's burger and the to go box for the driver, my husband paid the bill of over $40 (yes for a burger, 2 cokes, 1 tea and a water) and it included the drivers meal also. At this point we just wanted to get this over with, and the driver wasn't bringing out any money either!

 

To make matters worse, now the driver said he was concerned that we may get held up in traffic. As we were dying in traffic from the heat, I asked if we could now have the air conditioning on (he has said we would enjoy the open windows) and we found out the air didn't work either.

 

Back at the cruise ship terminal we gave the driver the $180 James had quoted us, and the driver said he doesn't get paid out of that money, my husband gave him another $20 and told him to enjoy his fish dinner.

 

This was far from our first island tour, but it was our first on St. Lucia, and it was by far our worst tour experience anywhere. If I were to have a "do over", I would either book through the ship or just walk up and interview a cab driver on our own. The driver we did have offered no information other than where we'd have lunch. Every question we asked was answered, but he did not offer information. In conclusion, ours just was not a pleasant or positive experience.

[martyap]

My intention was not to post further on this board but James emailed me tonight with something I thought I should share. It appears he has followed some of the recent comments on CC with great concern and embarrassment.

Here is what he wrote:

Over the last several weeks, I have received comments from some of those that have toured with me and my guides in St. Lucia that service was not up to the excellent standards that I have become known for on the Island. I take full responsibility for this and make no excuses.

 

Going forward and starting today, when you book a tour with my company, I guarantee 100% satisfaction. No exceptions. If you are not 100% satisfied that my company has delivered what was promised in our agreement, your trip will be free. No charge. You pay nothing. I am your advocate on the Island while you are here and I will do my best to insure both your safety and enjoyment of your time spent here.

 

I want to assure you that my love as a tour guide is meeting new friends and treating them to a personalized and special visit to St. Lucia. That some have been disappointed in my services, I want to correct that with this guarantee. I am the only Tour Service on the Island offering such a guarantee and I promise that I will deliver what you are expecting with excellence above and beyond. You have my guarantee.

 

Thank your for your consideration, James Tours

[Starfire_rules]

We used James last week. Had a Great time. He met us as we got off the ship. Not only did we see the beautiful island we also learned a lot. James was the highlight of our trip.

 

 

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