Miss Vickie

Glad to hear in the end the medical issue was resolved satisfactorily.

 

We are traveling on the Emerald Princess in March and have contacted Levi twice via his website but he has not responded. I am surprised since he is so highly recommended by cruise critic members. I used the contact form supplied in his website, and in the comment section indicated what we would be interested in.

 

I did contact Mangoo in Grenada and have a commitment from him for a tour there.

 

Maybe January is too early to get a commitment from him? I don't know whether to look for someone else for our tour or for a third time, contact Levi via his website.

 

We are also going to Bonaire, and know he runs tours there too and would be interested in his group in Bonaire also.

 

Any suggestions to me from you?

Hi, we did Mandoo, too (we've used him twice, once for the Spice tour, this year for the Northern, and next year we're going to do his Seven Sisters Hike). Which tour are you taking?

January shouldn't be too early - we booked our tour with Levi about 11 months before our cruise. He was very good about getting back to me, and I wrote him a bunch of times, with different questions. I copied the e-mail address from one of my e-mails, hope it helps. <levibaron@bumpiingtours.com>

I don't think Levi has a tour in Bonaire. Just Dominica. We used our ship's water taxi excursion to get a water taxi over to Klein and snorkeled (we carry all of our own gear). A lot of people seem to like Windwind or Renee, if you want to book with somebody.

My husband, sister, brother-in-law and I were in Dominica last week, and went on the Roseau Valley Best tour with Levi. It's a full day, starting with a challenging rainforest hike to Middleham Falls. It includes Trafalgar Falls, Wotten Waven Springs, Titou Gorge and we had added a chance to snorkel at Champagne Reef. We had chosen the cruise we were on, Celebrity Summit, specifically for the chance to visit Dominica and Bonaire, and we were really looking forward to Levi's tour.

There was a pretty large group scheduled for this tour the day we were there, and the 4 of us were in a very comfortable minivan by ourselves with Joseph, who was personable, informative and an all around nice guy.

The day started off with the hike to Middleham. It's a challenging hike, and very beautiful. The trail is pretty muddy, probably all the time, given the amount of rain they get in Dominica (350"/year), uphill for quite a bit of the way to the falls, and inlcudes crossing several streams. (The best shoes are closed toe hiking sandles, by the way, so the mud doesn't matter and neither does walking in the water, although there are rocks in the streams). Levi provides lots of interesting commentary along the way, and the trail is beautiful.

And here the story gets interesting....

My sister slipped crossing the last stream at the end of the hike (about 5 minutes from end of the hike, actually), and hurt her finger pretty badly. When she got up and we saw what had happened, it was obvious she was going to need medical treatment, and possibly quite a bit more than could be offered on the ship. Levi put us back in the van with Joseph, who took us to the hospital in Roseau. We spent most of the afternoon there. They provided good care, and my sister and brother-in-law were able to return to the ship and complete the cruise. Joseph stayed with us the entire day, made sure everyone understood what was going on, helped navigate the health care system, made sure she got her meds. Levi called Joseph, checking on my sister several times during the day and relaying the news back to the other folks on the tour. We've heard from Levi since, as well. I can't say enough about how well they took care of us during the day.

It was definitely a different way to spend the day - we've never had an excuse to get quite so "local" during our travels. We regret having missed the the rest of what we were going to see during the day, but it gives us a great excuse to go back. And when we do, we're going to see Levi again and finish the stuff we missed!

Levi and Joseph are great guys, and take really good care of everyone - even in the most challenging of circumstances.

thanks for the replies!

I've got a question for those who have done the Roseau Valley Best tour with Levi (includes Middleham Falls, Titou Gorge). We're scheduled to do this tour in a couple of weeks - what kinds of shoes would you recommend, considering there's hiking, as well as swimming?

Thanks!

Our group of 4 is cruising beginning of next January, and booked Levi for our day in Dominica 3 weeks ago :D . Wanted to make sure he didn't fill up before we got to him!

Thank you so much for posting this! I'm sorry your trip wasn't as you had planned but I certainly hope that if ever faced with circumstances as unexpected, that I react as gracefully, and certainly wish I had half your writing talent!

Wishing you less adventuresome cruises in your future!

Has anyone been to either of these locations? How is the snorkeing at them? Any wildlife on Bird Island?

We've been to both numerous times, on Eli's EcoTour (www.adventureantigua.com). Bird Island has shallow snorkeling, Cades Reef has pretty good snorkeling. I've seen lots of different fish, sponges, and corals. Once we saw a small shark of some sort (swam right away from us), and an octopus.

Bird Island has birds, and someone we were with saw an Antiguan racer once. I keep looking, but I've never seen one. Not a lot of other wildlife, though.