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Chiva Party Bus, Cartagena


holdon216
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  • 2 months later...
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My information is going to be a bit dated, but we did the Chiva Party Bus in April 2012. Keep in mind that this is an open air bus in a very hot country. I struggled with the heat index.

 

The emphasis is on music, booze and partying, but they did a very credible job of providing standard tour info. It was billed as multi-lingual and they did some English, but you will get more out of it if you speak Spanish. They chattered in Spanish for maybe 5 minutes, and they gave a quick 60 seconds in English. Spanish-speaking friends on the tour told us we missed a lot.

 

Every row on the bus got an ice bucket, coke and a bottle of rum. We did the obligatory stop outside the fort and also a lakeside stop to dance and try to play some of the instruments ourselves. We spent quite a bit of time at a section of the old city wall, where we were able to shop in some shops that were built into the wall and then climb the wall for yet another opportunity to listen to music. The tour ran over. Long after I was expecting us to be heading back to the ship they were still partying atop the wall. I was so hot, I just wanted to be back on the ship. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/30/2018 at 11:20 AM, holdon216 said:

We have booked this tour for April. Fingers crossed and i'll let you know once we get back.

please report back! i'll be heading to SA on NCL in Demcember 2019 and am interested to know how this excursion is. the NCL reviews are quite good!

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  • 2 months later...

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On 2/13/2019 at 4:20 PM, yebba said:

please report back! i'll be heading to SA on NCL in Demcember 2019 and am interested to know how this excursion is. the NCL reviews are quite good!

I would not recommend the Chiva Party Bus in Columbia! Reason being when we were brought to the Artisan shopping area a few people needed to use the bathroom. Which is fine. But our whole crowd was herded over to the bathrooms where we stood in line for about 25 minutes and each paid $1.00 to use. We were then all walked up to a sorta walled area which overlooked the ocean. Again OK! But once we got to the top the tour guides then went into a twerking type dance and this lasted/wasted a good 30 more minutes. We were given some free snacks there but NO drinks. We then were walked back down to the shopping area and walked into a store. ALL of us, say 25-30 people into a small store. The tour guide then just basically left us hanging for a good 30-45 more minutes. Never once saying OK you can shop around the other stores and meet me here in such and such amount of time. A group of us started to then gather outside the store. After a good 25 minutes i looked into the store and our tour guide was chatting on his cell phone and with the women behind the counter. I waited another 10-15 minutes and went in and told him the group was outside all waiting for him. IF when we got to the stores we were told OK you have X amount of time and we will all meet here it would have been a very good tour. But in my opinion way to much time was wasted. Not only did i feel this way but once we were back on board i talked to two other people that were on the same excursion but not my Chiva bus and they both felt the same exact way. Poorly run!!!

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  • 1 month later...

did anyone book the HOHO option in cartagena (assuming it was offered) THROUGH NCL? if so, what were the logistics. i'm seeing all kinds mixed reviews specifically when arriving my cruise ship.

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