Travel Planning

Category: Tours

  • Barbados – Caves & Monkeys & Beaches, Oh My!

    One of my past guests recently booked a Barbados third-party shore excursion along with three other third-party shore excursions with much trepidation.  She was led to believe there is great risk by not taking the shore excursions offered by the cruise line.  “What if we get left behind?” is a common question we hear at Daydream Excursions; we use providers who will guarantee to get  you to your next port if you get left behind.  And the chance of getting left behind is quite low but makes an excellent scare tactic!  Let me arrange your shore excursions for a more authentic experience and potentially put more money into the pockets of the hard working locals in your destination.

     

    Green Monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus or Chloroce...
    Green Monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus or Chlorocebus aethiops) grooming, at the Barbados Wildlife Reserve, Saint Peter Parish, Barbados. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Her is a review of one third party shore excursion in Barbados.  This review comes courtesy of Angela and James from Phoenix. See their trip to Costa Rica as well.

    This was one of our favorites-  the cave was really nice (almost so nice it looked fake!). The tourism board spent a lot of money on it making it really well lit, informative, had an attached education center with videos, etc.

    We had our only female guide of the trip and she was great.   Good sense of humor, polite, etc.

    The lunch was good and the wildlife reserve was really different than anywhere I’d ever been– it was almost like a zoo that you walk through, with the animals just crossing the path in front of you!  You literally had to watch out so you didn’t step on a turtle and the deer were so close you could almost touch them.   We were getting ready to leave with no monkey sightings (hugely disappointing for me because after seeing only 2 monkies in Costa Rica I was dying to see some). However, we heard they were “back” so we stayed a little longer here than I think we were supposed to but were able to see lots of monkeys including a mama with a baby on her belly!  So cute.

    We then went to a nice beach where we had lawn chairs and umbrellas waiting for us (ironically the beach was next door to what was supposedly Richard Branson‘s house- like if he was there, he would share the same beach as us!).   It was really overcast and eventually started raining so it wasn’t our “Best” beach day, but would have been quite nice had the weather cooperated.

    Overall, I think this one was the best value for the price:  2 distinct “activities”, plus beach, plus island tour, stops for pictures,  plus lunch and a drink at the wildlife reserve.   So after this, you can see why the St. Lucia tour wasn’t that exciting- this had a lot more to offer for what I think was similar prices.

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  • Custom Honeymoon in Costa Rica June/July 2010

    First note that US Dollars are widely accepted. Tour Operator was always there. The first night was spent at the Ramada Plaza Herrradura (San Jose). The hotel was good quality and in a good location. The next day was off to Arenal, the favorite place in Costa Rica. The hotel was Arenal Nayara Hotel and Gardens. This was a great hotel with a nice room. The Arenal Nayara offered free Web Access and VoIP phone service. There was a tour to the Tabacon Hot Springs which was a great experience. An ATV tour was also enjoyed. The next stop was Monteverde which area features the cloud forest. The Hotel was the Trapp Family Lodge; this was the most rustic area and the hotel had no AC. Monteverde had the most wildlife. Additionally there was horseback riding at the hotel. There was a cloud forest tour followed by Sky Tram and Sky Trek tour. The Zip Line part of the tour was shut down due to weather. The next city was Tamarindo on the Pacific Ocean in Guanacaste. The resort was the Barcelo All-Inclusive which had good food and a good pool bar. Tours included a fun Hanging Bridges rain forest (saw monkeys) and whitewater rafting, the latter being the favorite tour! Note that all tours from Guanacaste require first going to Liberia which served as a central staging location for this tour operator. Also walked in to Tamarindo while staying at the Barcelo resort. Finally, there was a long trip back to San Jose for one final night prior to returning home.

  • Brendan Tour of Australia

    I loved Australia for many reasons-the gorgeous scenery, the culture, and the friendly people. I would definitely recommend Australia and Brendan tours to everyone. We met people on the tour who we are still in touch with. The Outback and Ayers Rock is full of history (not to be missed). Cairns and the Great Barrier reef had the best snorkeling of anywhere we have been. Melbourne was a modern, fun city and the Great Ocean Road had the most breathtaking scenery and coastlines we have ever seen. Sydney was a clean, beautiful city and Sydney harbor and the Opera house are incredible (have to take a boat tour of the harbor and take a tour of the Opera house). Bondi Beach was beautiful and looked like beaches in Europe. Of course holding a koala and feeding kangaroos is a once-in-a lifetime experience; like all of Australia!    -Karen, NJ

  • Contiki So. Ireland

    June 08 tour:

    Hello, My name is Lauren and I live in Southern New Jersey.  My friend Jessica and I decided to book a tour of Ireland with a company called Contiki, which Dave, our awesome travel coordinator, gave us as an option.  Contiki offers tours of various destinations for people ages 18 to 35 years old.  Booking the trip was pain-free and at our own pace.  We were able to book in advance and had to have the trip paid for around 6 weeks prior to departure.  Dave helped us book our air separate from the air included with the Contiki which saved us a substantial amount of money.  We departed from JFK in NYC around 9pm and arrived in Dublin at around 9:30am. From the airport we took a bus (around 4 Euros) to our first hotel where we were to meet the rest of our tour companions.  That night we met our tour manager and bus driver, as well as the other 48 people from the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia that we would be traveling with for the next week. From Dublin we traveled to Galway, my absolute FAVORITE of all Irish towns visited.  They have pedestrianized streets, which means the roads are simply for walking, no vehicles are allowed.  It is a quaint fishing district with subtle hints of modernization scattered here and there.  We roamed through the town, drank at a few pubs, did some shopping.  The Quays, pronounced “keys,” was our favorite spot, be careful for the stairs though, I managed to miss 13 out of the 15 steps and landed on the ground without my pint, with a sprained foot, and was offered fre(e) drinks for the rest of the night from the bartender.  We traveled to Killarney, traveled through the park on a horse and carriage ride, went to pubs, clubs, and even had a few run-ins with Dr. Cox from Scrubs, who was staying in our hotel.  Kilkenny was interesting as well.  We took a walking tour of the city and took in a bit of history about the city, including the Black Abbey Church which was 200 years old when Columbus visited before sailing to The New World in 1492.  We traveled to Blarney and kissed the famous Blarney Stone.  I must caution you, to make this attempt, WEAR SNEAKERS.  I wore flip-flops and one managed to break, causing me to climb the very narrow and steep stairs of the castle with one shoe.  The actual stone is on top of the castle and a little old man dangles you by your ankles 3 stories up in the air to kiss a small, silver portion of a boulder….  Kissing the stone supposively gives you the “gift of gab,” or, being able to talk yourself out of any situation.  We visited Cobh, the last port-of-call of the ill-fated Titanic.  It’s basically a museum documenting the famine and the emigration to America made by the Irish.  We stayed the night in Cork and didn’t really venture out by recommendation of the tour manager.  Cork is Ireland’s version of NYC, LA, Miami, etc, but it is really no bigger and industrialized than any small town in the US.  Our tour ended back in Dublin, where we said goodbye to our new friends and exchanged emails and numbers before we left for the airport.

    I would definitely recommend Contiki as a tour because they were very organized and made the trip really fun.  On long bus rides they played music, we played games, and the time really passed.  A few recommendations, if you don’t drink beer, don’t order mixed drinks,…bring sneakers.  I didn’t and I paid dearly.  Bring extra money for the tour manager and bus driver.  They ask for it as a tip, not required though.  It’s usually 10 Euros per person, so save a spare E20 for them, it’s their spending money, and I’m sure you’ll feel they deserve it.Don’t venture too far from the hotel in Cork, it’s not that exciting, trust me, stay at the hotel bar, much more fun. Make sure you have the proper appliance converter for plugging things in.  We managed to blow up the entire wall in every hotel we stayed in. Note: all plugs, tv’s, hair dryers are all on one wall in Ireland.  You blow one socket, the rest are done. Have enough space on your camera for pics.  Ireland is as beautiful as you’ve heard, take as many pics as you can, and lastly, have a blast!  Ireland is full of excitement, quietness, beauty, and chock-full of history.  Take it all in and cherish your experience.  I’m never going to forget it.

  • Unique Alaskan Cruisetour

    Come see an Alaskan cruise-tour with a start in Fairbanks going down through Denali followed by a 7Night Princess Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise on Island Princess.  This trip featured Princess’ unique service which includes air from Seattle up to Fairbanks and coach service from Vancouver, BC back to Seattle for total ease of flight arrangements.