Dune Buggy Adventure by Caribbean Tour Service

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Sabrina M.

November 30, 2024

This review disheartened me to write. But, if it’ll save other tourists from the experience we had, it’s worth it. I’d like to start out by saying I have been on many many excursions and tours throughout all of my travels around the world. Some with large groups and some just my friend and I. Nevertheless, every time I went on one, the person who picked us up did so in a car, van or bus with some sort of decal or branding signifying they were indeed the accredited tour we booked. Most times, they would even wear a shirt or hat with company branding. Not this time. As we walking out of our hotel area looking for our “tour” we were met with a man and his small, personal, red car. There were excursion buses and vans all around and something in my gut didn’t feel right. So I asked “are you taking us to a location with a bigger bus and we’re meeting the group?”, which has happened before to me. To which he said “this is it! You get a private tour today”. My boyfriend who has never gone on an organized excursion thought it was great. But I didn’t feel 100% comfortable. To back up for a second, we paid $260 total for an excursion that took us to do 5 different experiences. As the day went on, I started to relax a bit more as we got to know the driver, Chris and he kept calling us family (yuck). It wasn’t until the second to last excursion when I noticed he started to drink mamajuana freely. As if he wasn’t working. I don’t know if this is a cultural thing or if he just didn’t care. But, by the end of the tour when he went to drop us off, he was visually not as “put together” as the beginning of the tour. We still tipped generously since he took us all over the place and overall, we did have a nice time. Minus a few red flags. He mentioned over and over how he wanted to “hang out” again at no cost to us the next day or before we left to go fishing. We didn’t give it a second thought until we were on the beach we were staying at and sourcing prices to go snorkeling. At that very moment, he messaged us. And we thought “oh. Maybe he has a tour since we already went out with him”. We asked him and he assured us that he did. We once again exit our hotel and look for the small red car. While I was still not comfortable 100% with this, we had just gone out two days before and maybe this was just the norm here, right? Wrong. As soon as we entered his car you felt a sense of dread and like something wasn’t right. We asked if everything was ok and he immediately said “family, I have a big favor to ask you. I need $100. I can even go to my house and get you my laptop to hold until I bring you the money tomorrow morning.” Here we are, in a foreign country, with little to no cell service in a local man’s car and we had no choice. We tried to say we didn’t have money but then he said we can Zelle his brother. When we said we didn’t have service he was quick to turn his hotspot on for us to be able to send it. We don’t know this man at all. I felt the only safe option was to send the money seeing as what else could we have done?! Thankfully we are ok. And back home in the states. But he has promised over and over “I’ll talk to my brother. I’ll talk to my client. I’ll send the money in 20 minutes. I’ll send the money in an hour” and now it’s been 6 days. We know we won’t get our money back. And at the end of the day, this isn’t even about money anymore. This is about a scam, warning others and principle. He got $100 or DOP 6,020. I warned him I would write this review if he didn’t pay us back and he begged me not to. Obsessively video calling, texting and voice noting us telling us he was sending the money soon. Luckily and thankfully we are safe. And with this we will warn everyone against going on their tour and being scammed out of your hard earned money. There were lots of tour options to book from. DO NOT BOOK CARIBBEAN TOUR SERVICE!

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Francisco J.

January 29, 2024

We took the Samana tour, in summary it was a total disappointment. We were very clear that we had a pregnant friend in the group and the manager said there is no issue at all, this was totally inaccurate. During the boat trip to see the whales, we felt like we were in a roller coaster. They promised we were going to see whales, but we saw only three small whales that were scared because the number of boats chasing them. During the horse riding tour, the path to the Limon waterfall was flooded with lots of dangerous spots even for the local guys that were walking the horses. Absolutely no suitable for a pregnant lady. The breakfast was some watermelon and a sandwich with nothing more than half slice of ham and half slice of yellow cheese. The meal was a low quality fish, pork chops and some salad. After this food, half of our group was sick. The only good part was the Bacardi island where we stayed for about 50 mins. Natalia, please listen to your customers, and suggest the most adequate options instead of trying to sell the most expensive tours!

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Immanuel W.

May 06, 2023

Overall this was a really good excursion! I really enjoyed Javier and Chimbala the driver they were very energetic, funny and excited to have us. I went on this excursion during our spring break trip 4-11-2023 with my wife and two children ages 21 and 14. Be prepared for a long excursion because it lasted almost 8 hours from pick up to drop off. We even made an unexpected stop and got empanadas before we started the excursion which was really cool but beware that's not included so you have to pay extra for that. The horseback riding was okay especially if it's your first time. The horses were tame an easy to ride but the scenery wasn't all that great. I guess I'm biased because I did horseback riding in Costa Rica and the countryside there was lovely in comparison to the 10-minute ride we had on horses in this particular part of Punta Cana/Higuey. Seeing how they made the cigars was cool and the little shop they had their was okay but the stuff is a overpriced in my opinion. The air conditioning went out on the van so we had to open the windows which didn't bother me but I could tell was bothering some of the other customers including my wife, LOL! But Javier did offer us water continuously to help with that. The stop at the Higuey city cathedral was really brief. If you're not appropriately dressed as a woman (wearing a tank top or shorts) you can't even go inside of the cathedral so that wasn't cool but I did get some nice pictures of the 1000 palm trees around the cathedral and at the entrance of the cathedral. We stopped in downtown higuey and walk through the market and it was funny because all the guys were staring at my daughter. But the market was cool and the last store that we stopped at was nice and better than all the other stores and allowed you to do some negotiation on prices. So negotiate! After that we headed to the countryside where we got to taste some of the Cocoa in see the cocoa trees and see how they made mamajuana. That was cool also afterwards we had lunch and it was delicious! We also got to walk down to the river where we had lunch at which was another plus. After that we headed it over to do Ziplining. They do not allow you to take your cell phone even if you have a carrying case or strap for it for the zip line so be mindful of that. It rained on us but we still had fun but that made the ATV portion of the trip extremely muddy so you get to appreciate the river at the halfway mark to rinse all the mud off of you just to get it back on you again, LOL! There are outdoor showers for those who want to use them to get the excess dirt off. Overall this was a good excursion my wife felt like she was getting rushed from place to place and didn't like that but if that didn't happen then the excursion would be 9 hours long!