26 Dec 2021
Zero stars!! Avoid this activity like the plague! !
This was one of the worst experiences of my life.
This was a nightmare from beginning to end. We had initially reserved this tour on December 25th Christmas Day. A day prior to our tour, on Christmas Eve December 24th, we were told there were no tours on Christmas Day (as it was a holiday). We were told that our tour had been rescheduled for the next day being December 26th. In hindsight, I don’t know why there was an option to make a reservation on Christmas Day if it isn’t feasible.
On December 26th, we were picked up from our hotel in the morning after 7am after a lot of back and forth with drivers etc. Anyway, we end up driving to other hotels to pick up other passengers. Mind you, there is no tour guide or anyone giving us any directions about what is happening and we are just piecing this together as we go. We are taken to a gas station and told to wait for about 30-40minutes before we head out. This ends up being a 2 hour wait, and the scenes are extremely chaotic. There are multiple buses going to different locations, and there are no tour guides. It is very disorganized, as you can’t even determine if you’re in the right place. Eventually, we are placed on a random bus and drive for about 1 hour and finally come to a stop. The bus just stops and we were left to figure out that we are on the docks. After more chaotic waiting, we are taken down a dock by some guy who has identified himself as our tour guide. He says we need to stay together and follow him. He ends up giving us purple strings to place on our wrists which is the way of identifying who is in his group. We are left standing at the docks forever and every so often, the tour guide would come and take some people from our group and take them into a speed boat. We thought everyone would make it on to the speedboat eventually, as our group numbers keep dwindling. Said tour guide eventually gets on one of the speed boats and tells our group that his other colleague will look after us. We are left standing on the dock for about 40 more minutes when I decide to ask the other tour guide, what is going on and what is happening. At this point, I am told, there are no more boats and we will not be going to Saona island. There are about 30 people who have just been abandoned! ! We woke up at 6am in the morning and had spent all day traveling to be told there were no boats. There was no one to explain what had happened, and why. No explanations, nothing. Basically, we were taken back to the bus which brought us to the dock; we drove in that bus for about 30 minutes and stopped at some random curve in the road and we were transferred to a smaller bus. I didn’t even know such level of unprofessionalism existed. I am still waiting on my refund.