travelplan

We are travelling to Jamaica on a cruise and looking to book shore excursions through Jaital Tours. They seem to own ochorios.com as well as Jaital.com.

I have exchanged several emails with their customer service rep but there has been no personal contact. They do not list a person's name in their emails. When I call their US's phone number, it is just a recording (have not been able to talk with anyone in person). The web site does not list whether they are member of any industry association.

Has anyone ever used them? Are they legit? Is there any way to confirm their legitimacy?

Thanks

lisanewby72

Hmmm..that's weird. Haven't heard about them though.

We always hire Alrick Allen every time we come to Jamaica. It's critical to hire a private driver that's trusted and reliable most especially if you're in a foreign country.

travelplan

We did use Jaital. so they are legit and I did chat with them over the phone. Actually I had sent them in email asking them to call me before I will consider making a deposit. So they did call and were good about email responses.

As for our experience with them...We could not hire the gentle man listed about, and Unfortunately our excursion was disappointing and we were upset with Jaital for not planning the excursion well. We had planned to go to zip lining and then to Dunn falls. Jaital uses Heaven Scent for the zip lining portion and they had planned zip lining for the beginning part of our tour.

First, the port people had difficulty locating our van/driver. The bus was where it was supposed to be, but the port staff was unfamiliar with Jaital and had no idea where the bus was. They took a while to locate the bus. The driver (Kurt) was nice and friendly and spoke English comfortably. Heaven scent, the zip lining operator Jaital had selected was too far from Falmouth (our port). In a total 4 hour excursion, It took us over an hour just to get to Heaven scent. When we got to heaven scent (zip lining operator), they were surprised as they were not expecting us (a large group of 20+ people). Jaital did not inform them about the Number of people in our group. so, the operator did not have enough staff nor enough equipment to accomodate us. They informed us that doing all the zip lines takes over 3 hours. By the time we got there and geared up, we only had 45 min to zip line and head to dunn river falls. Most of the time our group was waiting to switch equipment as they only had 3 pulleys to support a group of 20+ people. It was highly frustrating. In the 45 min, the group got to do only one zip line (a few kids got to do 2). And we paid full price for this. For folks who have done zip lining in Costa Rica, I would not recommend Heaven scent at all. From what we could see, The zips were small and boring and just went over the farm land.

The excursion to dunn river falls was fine. Overall, I am we cannot give Jaital good reviews. We expected them to know how long it will take from port to each activity, and the duration of each activity and advice us accordingly. We were disappointed by what we got.

qwovadis

tourguides.viator.com/Listing.aspx?Country=Jamaica...City=Montego+Bay
Lots safer better otions for you

KVR

We just returned from Ocho Rios in December and used A-Z Jamaica Planners. I've have talked to Belinda by e-mail for several years as my plans to Ocho Rios had gotten scrapped 3 times. Was glad to finally get there and do the tours we wanted. She set us up with Oscar, who was wonderful. We intially told her what we wanted to do and Oscar made it happen. WOuld recommend. Here's their site:

http://www.a-zjamaicaplanners.info/