Wife and I will be on NCL Pearl in December and are considering private excursions on 3 respective islands. Has anyone had experience or have any thoughts with the following: Antigua: Adventure Antigua.com Eco-tour with Eli Fuller 6 hrs with lunch $90 pp ; Barbados: Thriller Snorkel tour 4hr $50pp; and St Lucia: Serenity Travel land/sea tour 7 hrs w/lunch $90 pp (serenitytvl.com). Any thoughts on these companies appreciated. Thanks so much.

I have not been on Eli's Adventure Eco-tour, but have read so many good things about this tour and Eli. He's very well-regarded on one of the very active Antigua forums. The only reason we have not been on this tour is that we prefer just pure snorkel tours or just being on the beach. Otherwise we would definitely try this tour.

The other option would be to do the Prickly Pear Island tour with Miguel. Lounge on a small island beach, a little bit of snorkeling, lunch, and an open bar. We loved this tour.

We used Serenity Vacations & Tours for our carnival Destiny stop in St Lucia and will recommend their ambassador service very highly to anyone. You get a private ambassador on most of their tours and the service / attention is genuine. Our day in question was particularly busy for them yet we got full attention from our private anbassador Sherma and one of the managers John. The tour itself was worth every penny, great Creole food at the Fond Doux restaurant all included and Serenity has its very own rum punch. Be careful, it is very tasty but creeps on you. After the tour you get a free offer to return to the Island on a five day vacation and I am leaning towards taking it up. A little rain (about 8 minutes) did not dampen the essence of the day. The Island is lush and green. I recommend a private tour away from the cruise crowd with an early start. they try to get you to see and sample as much as possible in a day. Also be careful with over zealous staone chain sales people. Hats off to Sherma

Check out ShoreTrips and Port Promotions, which are companies that offer extensive shore excursions in many ports around the world. They offer shore excursions that are similar to the cruise lines, but at better prices, along with some specialty shore excursions that aren't offered by the cruise lines. Have gotten great feedback from my clients.

Best Regards,
Julia

Eli's Eco-Tour is great and I highly recommend the experience.

Don't know the St. Lucia tour specifically, but if it is a land + sea tour that includes a visit to the Pitons and some snorkeling, it will be a good time. St. Lucia also has amazing botanical gardens that are worth a stop if you find a tour that includes them. But I'd say that seeing the Pitons by sea would be a must-do.

Jay

Regarding Serenity Tours in St Lucia

We did not Cruise but stayed at the Windjammer Landing Resort with them recently and will also highly recommend their services.Got them from ratings and reviews on the Trip Advisor site and also Cruise Critic. We had Charlie as our personal ambassador for the entire vacation. He was available anytime we needed help on just about anything, in so much that we did 8 tours in seven days with Serenity. The last tour was a Pigeon Island tour free of any cost. I recommend the partial private land & sea - tout bagay. You get more stops at practically all points of interest as they advertise and Charlie to escort you with a history book on his brain. They serve lunch at a coco estate where Hershey's get some of their first grade cocoa. Then you get a "cocoa tour" before you are escorted aboard a catamaran for a cruise up the island cost. We stopped for swimming at the Marigot Bay (I think) and then back to the hotel. If you get Charlie as your ambassador you have it made.

hello Jay,

But you are in safe hands with serenity, they are really friendly and reliable i spent a week in st.lucia and should have booked all my tours with them. Instead i only did 2 with them and 3 with another compant but didn't know any better then. You can try out the private cruisers exclusive which i highly recommend. I do think you will enjoy the island.

Thanks for all your thoughts. I have signed on with Shasa Tours in Barbados, Eli Fuller's Adventure Antigua and Serenity tours on St Lucia. As it turns out, I also signed on with NCL Pearl for beach day at Cayo Levantado and Virgin Gorda Baths on Tortola. I'm done and thoroughly exhausted now!

So glad to read you too had a wonderful experience with Serenity, we had a tour with them earlier this month, it was an educational Island tour, this was one of the best tours we had ever experienced. There were 35 people in my group,8 of us are teachers, many questions were asked the entire time, but they were always more then willing to answer every detail. I would definitely recommend Serenity to anyone.

I can't comment on the options in Antigua, but I support the thumbs up for Serenity. Very courteous guides /ambassadors with well organized activities. It is also very easy to reach them with their toll free number.

I jsut got back from my 4th trip to St. Lucia and always recommend Serentiy tours that are fantastic and very reliable too.

You can't go wrong in choosing Serenity Vacations for Tours and excursions. Everything about them is out of this world. I will say they're a breath of fresh air. The ambassador service is yet to be experience. They are on your beck and call 24-7, great personnality and highly recommendable. We did the Tour to the Grenadines and never regreated a momment spend. We will choose them anyday once it is St. Lucia