Rosario Islands Private Boat Tour

DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR

DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR. We were taken to two different lousy beaches/restaurants where they attempted to fraudulently charge my credit card an extra 20%. I had an altercation with the staff on the beach and requested the Tourism police. Our guide did not intervene or protect us from these scammers. I am the son of Colombian immigrants to the US who brought another family to Colombia to visit. I know a scam when I see one and I strongly suspect there was collusion between the operators and locals to extract as much money as possible from unsuspecting foreigners. Only because I spoke the language and know the local customs, the damage was limited BUT for a average lunch meal, I still paid the same price as we had for a dinner at Cande, an excellent high end restaurant the night before. BEWARE OF THIS. I will be requesting refunds

Response from the operator: Hola Victor! Thank you for bringing this serious issue to our attention, and we are deeply sorry to hear about your negative experience, specially being a Colombian relative. We take your concerns very seriously. This is certainly not the level of service or the type of experience we aim to provide at Gran Colombia Tours. We are extremely concerned about the situation you described, particularly the overcharge and the lack of intervention by the guide. We want to assure you that we do not tolerate fraudulent behavior, either from our staff or from any of our collaborators, and work only with reputable establishments. We will be investigating this matter further to ensure it does not happen again. We have already contacted you regarding this issue, and we kindly advise you to reply to our customer service agents so we can resolve this situation thoroughly. Your feedback is invaluable, and we are committed to resolving this issue as quickly as possible.

via Tripadvisor

Don’t waste your time or money!!!

Gran Colombia Tours advertising their tours to be luxurious and fun are far from the truth. Here’s the true treatment you’ll receive: You will be brought to a port where your guide picks out a fishing boat (literally a fishing boat! Nothing like the photos in the advert). from a group of rag-tag kids who have borrowed someone else’s fishing boats looking for work for the day. Once on board you will not receive or be asked if you need a life vest. You will also be told that you can buy water and anything else you may need for the trip at the port. Yes, you will not receive a complimentary water for $350 per person. You are also not told that you will have to pay for snorkeling gear until you’re out to sea (which is NOT listed in the exclusion or listed in what IS included). You will be taken to only 2 beaches, one of which is nothing but coral. The other had so many small boats coming and going in the water that the fumes from their diesel engines was dizzying. Let us not forget the people on the island who your guide warns of being gouged. 2 mixed drinks will cost $50 or more and you will be harassed constantly even if you’re in the water. They will be watching and waiting on the beach for you to get out of the water or they’re literally in the water trying to get you to either buy something or ride on jet skis (this should be expected though). When you’re ready to head back to land, you’ll have to wait nearly 20 minutes to track down your crew because one is off playing in the water and the other is knocked out asleep on the boat where it’s anchored. For the return to port you will be asked by your guide if the driver of the boat can pickup his mother. It was a unsettling and very uncomfortable situation. Technically they weren’t “asking” they made that decision themselves. By the time we were “asked” they were well on their way to the area that his mother was waiting, which was no where near the attractions I wanted to take pictures of. And for the cherry on top of the sundae, you’re brought back to port on the yacht side and have to be hoisted up nearly 6 feet by hand in order to get off the boat. It was unacceptable. It was not worth the $700 price tag and certainly not luxurious. TripAdvisor should be ashamed to advertise this group. I would suggest anyone who views this to please not be taken advantage of and lied to by these people. If you do decide to take the chance of having a better experience, only pay with a credit card. That way you dispute the purchase and actually get your money back. Hope this helps. Enjoy the beautiful beaches of Colombia with someone other then Gran Colombia Tours! 😁

Response from the operator: We are truly sorry to hear about your disappointing experience with US. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we deeply regret that the tour did not meet your expectations. We apologize for the issues you encountered, including the condition of the boat, the lack of life vests, and the additional costs for snorkeling gear, beverages, and food. We want to clarify that these experiences are indeed extra and not included in the initial price of the tour. However, we understand that this should have been communicated more clearly. To address your concerns and ensure this doesn't happen again, we will be: Reviewing and updating our tour descriptions to make all exclusions and additional costs explicitly clear. Investigating the specific incidents you mentioned to improve our service quality and safety standards. To make amends, we will be issuing a full refund for your tour. Please expect to receive the refund within the next few business days. Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention. Your feedback helps us improve our services, and we hope to have the opportunity to provide you with a much better experience in the future.

via Tripadvisor

Magnificent Boat Trip

Snorkeling over the coral reef was incredibly clear and beautiful. Our driver and guide, Eric and Tiberio were both nice and helpful.

via Viator

Cancelled 36 hours prior.....

I scheduled this boat tour in July for January 1. On the evening of Dec 30 I received an email and text saying that the tour had been cancelled and our money refunded. No explanation or other information. This was our family's day long activity and it was a little late to find another option. I emailed and texted requesting and explanation and the next day heard back that our boat captain decided to take Jan 1 off and therefore there was no boat for us. This was incredibly disappointing and frustrating. After pushing Gran Colombia did send me a couple of contacts for other options, but at the end of the day we were left without a tour for a full day and replacing it with short notice on a holiday just wasn't going to happen. At minimum I would have liked an explanation with my email cancellation as well as options to pursue - it was frustrating to have to ask for this.

Response from the operator: Hola, Betsy. We apologize for the late response to your review and for all the inconvenience this cancellation may have caused. We checked ways of guaranteeing the service before notifying anything but due to holidays and the high season we weren't able to find another boat captain. Jan 1st is a busy day and at the same time is a rest day for most Colombians and it was harder to offer options to replace the tour. We understand your frustration and we are working to improve our service and avoid this from happening again. We hope you give us a new chance in the future to compensate for this. Kind regards.

via Tripadvisor

The Trip organized by...

The Trip organized by Gran Colombia tour offer included a bunch of surprises according to the offer on your website. Starting with the price: offer says USD335.00, if you update to a private tour only for 1 adult the price changes immediately to USD668.00🤔? This is a very peculiar practice, in Europe and the US this kind of offer will be treated as fraud and your website will be blocked by law immediately. Continuing with the original offer I booked: offer included soft beverages on the boat and also lunch. So I thought that justified the higher price per person. Great service and lunch was also mentioned in a high number of reviews. The booking was confirmed, excluding lunch, including soft drinks on the boat. Okay, I didn’t cancel the reservation because I already had invited my Colombian friends and I wanted to spend a wonderful day with them. But this treatment made me very unhappy. In addition there were no soft drinks aboard. Asking for a bottle of water, they couldn’t even offer it. Disappointing. For lunch Junior, the guide, took us to a place called Tequila on Barú. We ordered the food immediately after getting there at noon, after 3 hours and embarrassing discussions we got our food. Food was okay. Nature was great, transparency of booking and communication was miserable and I am very disappointed that I offered this badly treated service to my friends. As I can see you updated your offer according to food and drinks. Nevertheless your offer still remains at USD 335.00. I am pretty sure that this treatment will kill your business, because no client wants to be treated like me. My columbian friends apologized to me and assured me that this is not the way they want their guests were treated in their country. Thank you for listening to my comment and I hope you will change your profile immediately. I will never forget your bad treatment. Friends from Germany are coming on a cruise in December, passing by in Cartagena and I will recommend them to avoid booking with Gran Columbia Tours. Sigrid

Response from the operator: Dear Sigrid, We are sorry the tour didn’t meet your expectations. However, we kindly want to clarify some information as we consider it may tend to misunderstandings. Firstly, in regard to the price, take into account that you booked directly from the Viator platform (and not from our company). The platform uses the information we provide but we do not intervene in the way the platform displays the prices. Viator is a well-known company with a wide presence in many countries and we’re sure they do nothing illegal or that could be treated as fraud, otherwise they might not have the prestige they hold. Regarding your experience with the tour and specifically the lunch, our team contacted you over than one week in advance to inform you that the tour did not include lunch. All of our tours are under continuous update or modification. For this reason, we provide detailed and accurate information in the different sections of the platform, and we always recommend to use only the information from the site and not from old reviews our tourists and customers have left in the past. Maybe your experience wasn’t as expected but our team did their best to treat you respectfully and to offer you a nice service. And lastly, our reviews are a reflection of the hard work we put into our tours and the services we provide and although we know there is always space to improve and grow, we are confident that we work transparently and with the best attitude. Respectfully, Gran Colombia Tours team. Buen día Sigrid, Sentimos que el tour no cumpliera sus expectativas. No obstante, nos gustaría aclarar algunos datos que consideramos pueden dar lugar a malentendidos. En primer lugar, respecto al precio, tenga en cuenta que usted reservó directamente desde la plataforma Viator (y no desde nuestra empresa). La plataforma utiliza la información que le proporcionamos, pero nosotros no intervenimos en la forma en que la plataforma muestra los precios. Viator es una empresa muy conocida y con amplia presencia en muchos países y estamos seguros de que no hacen nada ilegal o que pueda ser tratado como fraude, de lo contrario no tendrían el prestigio que tienen. En cuanto a su experiencia con el tour y en concreto con el almuerzo, nuestro equipo se puso en contacto con usted con más de una semana de antelación para informarle que el tour no incluía el almuerzo. Todos nuestros tours están en continua actualización o modificación. Por esta razón, proporcionamos información detallada y precisa en las diferentes secciones de la plataforma, y siempre recomendamos utilizar únicamente la información del sitio y no de antiguas reseñas que nuestros turistas y clientes hayan dejado en el pasado. Puede que su experiencia no fuera la esperada, pero nuestro equipo hizo todo lo posible por tratarlo con respeto y ofrecerle un servicio agradable. Y por último, nuestras reseñas son un reflejo del arduo trabajo que dedicamos a nuestros tours y en los servicios que ofrecemos y aunque sabemos que siempre hay espacio para mejorar y crecer, estamos seguros de que trabajamos con transparencia y con la mejor actitud. Respetuosamente, el equipo de Gran Colombia Tours.

via Viator