Blue Hole And River Rapids Adventure

It was amazing. The views were great. I had a blast. I highly recommend it to anyone that is thinking about this tour

I want to start out by saying that despite the 3 out of 5 rating it could have easily been a 5 and at the end of the day we still enjoyed ourselves and would even use real tours again. Now onto the reason for the average score. 4 of us cruised into Jamaica with Royal Caribbean and all the communication with Real Tours was great. They answered all my questions and booking the tour was easy and straight forward. We found our private driver in the waiting area and were quickly on our way. We ran into some traffic on the way to blue hole so the drive took right around 2 hours to get there. Once we arrived we left all our belongings in the van and headed with our guide. Blue Hole was amazing. Absolutely loved it. There is a platform you can jump in front of the waterfall and a swing rope and photo opportunities and the area is beautiful. Because of the Hurricane passing by recently the water wasn’t as crystal clear as expected and the waterfall was rushing water so heavy that you weren’t able to swim up to it and under like we had expected either but neither of these affected our time there. Here is where the trip turned from great to average. The entire tour is on a hit of time crunch to begin with because it’s a long drive to blue hole and then a long drive back. Your doing two different excursion stops and have to be back at the ship at a certain time. Because of the traffic delay we were in more of crunch if we wanted to make sure to do the river rapids which we definitely wanted to do. The driver informed us that we wouldn’t be able to stay at blue hole for an elongated time to make sure we got to the river rapids on time. After our guide took us thru some of the spots at Blue hole he said we were free to explore. Jump in front of the water fall , swim around , explore the rainforest, whatever we liked. We told him we had another excursion and what we were doing and that we were just in for the day on a cruise and he said oh no we need to get you back to the van then. We spent right around 45 minutes total at Blue Hole from start to finish. We got back to the van and immediately left to head for our river rapids excursion. We had paid for the lunch option with the tour so the driver asked if we still wanted to stop and eat. We were starving so we said yes. He informed us that because we were in such a time crunch we couldn’t stop and eat at the restaurant and that he would have to pick it up to eat on the way as long as there wasn’t a long line. We were fine with this because we still got food and would be able to make our river rapids appointment. The food was delicious. Jerk chicken with rice and hot sauce and some type of doughnut. It was amazing. It took about an hour and a half to get to the river rapids location and when we pulled onto the road the driver pointed to the river we would be going on. It was definitely moving very fast and the water was bright bright brown and very dirty. When we arrived at the location the gates were all locked up and nobody was there. The driver was confused and called his office to see what was going on. We then turned around and started driving back to the ship. After 5 minutes he got a call back that because of the Hurricane the water was to dirty and to fast to safely do the excursion so the river rafting company had canceled all the tours for the day early that morning. He put the office on the phone with me and they apologized and said they would refund us 120 dollars for the portion of the tour we could not do. We drove about 30 minutes back to the ship with about 2 hours before we were set to leave the port. Here is the reason I scored three stars. I think the day could have been completely amazing with just a simple phone call. Had the Real Tours office communicated with the river rapids company at any point during the first 3 hours of our excursion they would have found that the river was not accessible and canceled it while we were still at blue hole. This would have given us easily 2 hours there and possibly more to explore and relax and enjoy ourselves which we would have loved. It also would have given us time to stop and eat on the way back at the restaurant instead of trying to hurry and eat in the van. The other reason I took a star away is because while they did refund us the 120 dollars for the portion of the excursion we couldn’t do we still paid a total of 470 dollars or 117 per person for a 2 hour drive to blue hole , 45 minutes onsite , and 2 hour drive back with some lunch in the van. I felt like Real Tours could have been a little more generous in regards to the credit we received back compared to the actual excursion experience we received. I understand they are not in control of the weather or the river rapids company and based on what I saw of the river that day I definitely agree it wasn’t safe but a simple phone call could have given us more time at blue hole which was absolutely fantastic and would have easily been worth the full price we paid even without a refund had we been able to stay for two or three hours vs 44 minutes. Sorry for the long post but wanted to be sure to explain everything in detail so people can be prepared for the possibility of issues like this and also so Real Tours can potentially solve this problem for someone else in the future. Just to be clear though I would definitely recommend Real Tours and would have no problem using the again in the future.

Jassi was a terrific tour guide! Very safe with his driving and knowledgeable about his country. Very charismatic and genuine when he speaks to you. Highly recommend to request his services.