Top Ocho Rios Day Trips - page 7

I'll start with the great! Carlos, our guide and driver, was amazing. Very friendly and we enjoyed his commentary. Highly recommend him as a tour guide. Next, the river guide, Duane was friendly and informative and we felt very safe throughout the whole river run. Crazy how they ride stomach down on their tubes and guide us here and there like that! Bamboo Beach Club was very nice. We had chairs reserved for us )thru the tour) which made it nice to get off the bus and go right to our chairs. The included lunch was good...jerk chicken and yellow ride. Drinks were cold and strong and yummy! Now, getting to all that goodness was not as pleasurable. The chaos at the port led to us not leaving there until after 10:15. After rushing off the ship, there were plenty of people there who worked for Bamboo Beach club, but only a few had any idea what was going on. They took buses and buses of VIP Beach Club people to THEIR buses, while we stood there as there were only 11 of us it seemed they were looking for a smaller bus to take just us (that is how we got the wonderful Carlos...he has his own bus/company that Regae/Bamboo Beach must have contracted to take us) The ride to the river was closer to 50 minutes (only 2 ships docked in Ocho Rios) therefore setting us back even further. Becasue of the delays we had zero time to shop at port when we got back. A 5 hour excursion took 6.5 mostly due to the chaos at the port. I realize they are a secondary excursion vendor and would not be give priority for set up to receive passengers, but a better system of getting off and onto buses needs to be implemented. I will also say, they were the ones in charge of getting even the Carnival excursions onto buses...definitely not efficient like Carnival usually is. The tour, the guides/driver and the river run was amazing and worth it for sure.

Cooper tours were fantastic. We had good communication while were delayed getting off the ship. Desmond our driver arrived with very nice, clean van. Super safe driver, explained the area as we drove. We got to see the areas outside the main tourist zone. I would highly recommend Cooper tours and Desmond again. No scamming or upsells. It was just what we asked for.

Great experience! Good communication and made sure we arrived early. Travel light and bring cash. You won’t be able to take anything down to the water with you at blue hole including sunglasses and towels. You can leave all that stuff in the van or rent a locker for $7.