Privérondleiding door het gebied van Port Au Prince

First of all I need to say that I took this tour mid March of 2023 during a time of national crisis and turmoil. The entirety of the tour lasted not more than 2 hours instead of the 6 hours as described in the ad. That was a very sad pill to swallow because I do believe that the description of the tour needs to be adjusted! Besides the museum in the capital and a drive through Petion-Ville there was not much else to be seen or done. For safety reasons I was not allowed to leave the car, again, while I appreciate the concern, I wish I was made aware ahead of time. The price to be paid for the tour should also be adjusted. I had to pay full price for a 6 hour tour. That is simply unacceptable.

I was in PAP for a few days and decide to see more than the hotel. Vladimir was the driver and Pierre the tour guide. They picked me up on time, but other than expected with a motorcycle. Because of security reasons it was not possible to go everywhere. But Pierre knows exactly where are the save places in town and where you are better not going because of gangs and shootings. Most of the time we are driving around and I saw the real life in PAP and a few "sights" from the motorcycle but me spend also some time in an old sugar factory and have a cold drink. Pierre is a nice, very friendly guy - if I will ever go to Haiti again, I'm going to plan the next trip with Pierre.

PAP was an interesting city to visit and for the most part, Pierre my guide/driver did a good job of showing me the city. However, his conduct at times was extremely unprofessional and at times bordered on aggressive. Firstly, he failed to pick me up in a timely manner from PAP airport, leaving me stranded in a sea of aggressive taxi touts and having to use my phone's 3G roaming data to call him to inquire on where he was. He claimed that because of "government problems" he was not able to pick me up directly from the terminal. However, I had seen other vehicles at the airport pickup area and there didn't seem to be any roadblocks/government restrictions on picking passengers up from the airport. In any case, if he hadn't been able to pick me up directly from the terminal, this information should have been conveyed to me in advance of my arrival. Next, when I questioned him about why he was not at the airport on time to pick me up, instead of offering an apology, he got extremely aggressive, stating that I "knew nothing" about a place like Haiti (I have been to 172 countries in the world including all of Africa), before proceeding to threaten to cancel the tour and take me back to my hotel. He started raising his voice on me which was absolutely uncalled for and then tried to take me back to my hotel without doing the tour. He then proceeded to do the tour, which was for the most part interesting and exciting. However, towards the end of the tour, he tried to spring a "fuel charge" on me, asking me "How am I going to pay for the fuel?" As a traveler who has been to 172 countries in the world, I anticipated the trick he was trying to pull on me and pulled up the pre-paid Viator voucher which showed that there was no additional fee required to be paid. He then proceeded to say that "customers always give me a tip because this is the culture of the country. If you do not tip your guide, they will not protect you in Haiti". Excuse me?? If "tipping" is the sole hallmark of whether or not you offer a proper service, then you most certainly should not be a tour operator. We pay you (at your price) to show us the city and this includes ensuring customer safety. If the price of the tour is insufficient to cover your overhead costs then by all means raise the price of the tour. But attempting to corner tourists into tipping you is absolutely uncalled for (NB: I was going to tip him in any case at the end of the tour, but this incident ruined everything) In short, Pierre needs to understand that the well-being of the customer takes precedence over everything else. We pay you to offer a service so you by all means deliver it. Attempting to blame Haitian "culture" on substandard service such as failing to pick a passenger up in a timely manner, raising your voice on a passenger and bullying customers into tipping you is a poor excuse for a Viator-certified tour operator. As someone who has visited 172 countries in the world, I know that "Culture" does not compensate for poor service. Stop caring so much about money and actually place the needs of the customer before those few extra bucks. Then maybe (just maybe) tourism in Haiti will get a little better. However, with tour operators like Pierre continuing to run things here, it does not spell a very good outlook for Haitian tourism