Private Barbados Island Tour

A great tour starts with a great tour guide and to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t wait for the tour to finish. Our guide dpent 3/4 of his time fiddling with the microphone that kept going in and out. And the guide wasn’t very knowledgeable and inappropriate as he tried to pick up a bridesmaid during a wedding at Huntes Garden. Not very professional at all. I regret spending that much money on this private tour.

Three seniors (one unable to walk, in a power wheelchair) had a great 4-hour circuit tour of Barbados yesterday with Troy. We were 45 minutes late to show up and there was Troy, still waiting for us. He informed us then that the rate for extending the tour was $75/hr and that we were down to 3hrs and 15 minutes of our prebooked time. We said that was no problem and asked him to show us as much of the island as he could - and that we would have no problem if we had to extend an hour (or more) since it was our fault we were so late. We chose not to get out of the van at all, except for a lunch at a local restaurant across from the east coast surfing beach. He lifted the 60 pound power wheelchair in and our of the van (4 heavy lifts in 4 hours). We were impressed that he listened to our comments and often referred back to them, "As Nancy was saying earlier," and "Bob, I think you'd like this." He was well informed about the island and told us if he couldn't answer a question right away, he would look up the answer when we stopped. He was well versed on many topics: history, dates, flora and fauna, aviation, current events. He told us he had always been good at maths, and we were amazed that he could quickly calculate how many years ago each event occurred and how old each building was. We all (2 women, 1 man) appreciated his company at lunch and probably asked too many personal questions, but he was honest and gracious about answering them. Kudos, Troy (and Raquel & Rooster) for a great tour! Nancy, Bob and Georgiana

We requested a tour to include the St. Nicholas Abbey as our only "must see" venue. Troy picked us up at the cruise terminal and immediately informed us that going over our 4 hour purchased tour would be an additional $75/hour. We asked what would cause us to go over the time and he was very vague. We headed to St. Nicholas Abbey and made a stop at an Anglican church and another stop for rest rooms where Troy suggested we get coffee and meet back at the van in 20 minutes. We said 5 minutes was fine and proceeded on. Neither stops were requested by us. We stayed at St. Nicholas Abbey approximately 2 hours and understood that we would go over our 4 hour scheduled tour. St. Nicholas Abbey is a very interesting venue. When we returned to the van Troy suggested that we return via the east coast of Barbados, which was fine. We assumed he would get us back to the ship within 5 hours. He then suggested several stops, which we were not interested in nor did we request. At about 4 1/2 hours into the tour we told him that we didn't want to go more than 1 hour over our prepaid 4 hour tour. At that point he was headed south along the east coast of Barbados and had to turn around to get back to the port within 5 hours. It was evident that he intended to stretch out our time as much as possible, which we felt was trying to take advantage of us. So, if you book with Williams Tours be sure to make clear your time constraints. The primary reason for my three star rating is that after picking us up at the terminal most of what Troy said was not understandable, even after my husband tried to adjust the tone of the audio system. All we could pick up were snippets of what he said. In addition, not once did Troy get out of the van during the entire tour, not even when we returned to the port. Other tour guides we used on this trip were always getting out of the van at stops and taking pictures of us, explaining the significance of the stop, etc.