Spencer Ambrose Tours

[travelloverontario]

We have booked a Land and Sea with him and will be going in just a few days. He was very prompt in answering all my questions via e-mail. If his operation is anything like the communication thus far, it should be great.

 

I will report back after our trip.

[knots4crewzing]

Hi,

 

I was interested in booking with Spencer for our day in St Lucia.

I have a question~~~~~Is the Land And Sea Tour($90pp) a private tour for your group only or are you with other people?

 

 

If it is with other people how many people does he take in his van?

 

Thanks for your help

 

Liz:)

[bettyboop16]

Hi,

 

I was interested in booking with Spencer for our day in St Lucia.

I have a question~~~~~Is the Land And Sea Tour($90pp) a private tour for your group only or are you with other people?

 

 

If it is with other people how many people does he take in his van?

 

Thanks for your help

 

Liz:)

 

Hi Liz,

When I booked with Spencer I booked for 2 people & I assumed we would be with others that booked & I also assume that if a group wanted to book they could as he has more than 1 van. This is our first tour with him.

 

Betty

[Illinois cruiser]

Booked this tour online and had a quick response. We were there last week off of the Jewel of the Seas on Jan. 9, 2014. We walked off the ship and found the Spencer Ambrose representative right away. She was directing people to their different tours. It seemed very disorganized, which was disappointing and hard to understand why since they have these tours all the time. We were finally directed to our boat and then the boat departed but had to drop the representative off by the Carnival Cruise Ship pier. I am still not sure why we had to delay to do that. Anyway, we were finally underway and they were hurrying to try and beat a large ship excursion boat headed to the same beach. Unfortunately, one of the engines burned out. They shut it down and we limped along on one motor until they were able to contact another boat that was kind enough to let us get on with them to ride the rest of the way to the beach. There was a very small area on the beach with a limited number of chairs and umbrellas. We opted for the sand beach to avoid the crowds in the chair area. It rained on and off most of the day. The tour provided plenty of beer, rum punch, soft drinks, and water. The lunch was served and it was very good. The staff was friendly. There was quite a bit of confusion when it was time to depart. Again, very disorganized. We were finally on our way and were supposed to do the coastal tour on the way back. The boat made some stops to show us the sights, but it started raining really hard and most of us just wanted to get back to the ship and out of the cold rain! We arrived back to the ship at 3:30pm.. I had read good reviews about this tour but I would not book with them again. I would try and find another tour that would be more organized.

[Xcitdcruiser]

Just wondering for those who have done the Beach Break -

 

What time is the arrival at the beach & what time is lunch served?

 

Also, re payment does he accept card or is cash the preferred method?

[lss111]

Just wondering for those who have done the Beach Break -

 

What time is the arrival at the beach & what time is lunch served?

 

Also, re payment does he accept card or is cash the preferred method?

 

According to his website, says cash only...

[harry0]

We booked the Jaliousi Beach. Our experience was that of confusion and disorganization. We cancelled after waiting at the Jewell pier for close to a hour and then boating to the Carnival pier only to wait more. We told the organizer we were cancelling and we walked away. I guess the tour finally took off but we had enough.

Edited February 3, 2014 by harry0

[Xcitdcruiser]

According to his website, says cash only...

 

Thank you - I must have missed that.

 

It's a shame to hear that Spencer's is back to being disorganised. I know they changed a few things to streamline but doesn't look like it's stuck. I'm hoping we have a smooth sailing in a few weeks when we are there.

 

Another question:

 

What kind of 'creole' food is served? Anyone remember any specifics?

I'm unable to have dairy - are there traditional dishes that have hidden cheese?

 

I did try to organise lunch at the resort but they have given me a run around...

[canadarocks]

I did try to organise lunch at the resort but they have given me a run around...

 

I experienced the same thing. When I asked why his website says lunch at a resort (for the Land & Sea tour) and his emails say otherwise.... he told me not to worry about it. :rolleyes:

 

We've decided to spend our day a different way.

[tiny traveler]

:eek:we did the land and sea tour last week with spenser, it was the most unorganized caotic mess i've ever seen. the only thing that saved the day was Mango, the boat driver, he was wonderful very freindly and informitive

[Xcitdcruiser]

I experienced the same thing. When I asked why his website says lunch at a resort (for the Land & Sea tour) and his emails say otherwise.... he told me not to worry about it. :rolleyes:

 

We've decided to spend our day a different way.

 

Sorry what I meant is that the resort itself has been giving me a run around.

 

Spencer's beach break includes lunch by the resort - literally on the sand form my understanding. He serves the creole lunch.

We were considering having lunch at the resort itself (not cheap) but they have been unhelpful which brings me back to square 1 - what actual; food is served by Spencer?

[Xcitdcruiser]

:eek:we did the land and sea tour last week with spenser, it was the most unorganized caotic mess i've ever seen. the only thing that saved the day was Mango, the boat driver, he was wonderful very freindly and informitive

 

 

May I ask why it was a chaotic mess? What went so wrong?

Really hoping that for Spencers sake he receives feedback & is able to streamline his processes!

[dz63]

Sorry what I meant is that the resort itself has been giving me a run around.

 

Spencer's beach break includes lunch by the resort - literally on the sand form my understanding. He serves the creole lunch.

We were considering having lunch at the resort itself (not cheap) but they have been unhelpful which brings me back to square 1 - what actual; food is served by Spencer?

Check out post #4 at this CC link: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1864563

[sbnuggie]

Okay, just back from valor cruise and a day with Spencer Ambrose, DO NOT BOOK with him, most disorganized and disappointing tour I have ever been on in my cruising history, here is my review from trip advisor cut and pasted here:

 

We had read some great reviews here on TA and another site (Cruise Critic) so we decided to go with Spencer Ambrose Tours. We went with the Land and Sea Tour. We walked off the Cruise Ship and had no problems finding the Spencer group. Spencer was there and this should have been my first clue when I saw he had 15 names all handwritten on a crumbled piece of 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. He had the groups broken up and was trying to read the writing and breaking up everyone into their groups.

 

We eventually got into our appropriate groups and introduced to our driver. He was okay, difficult to understand, we were in a van with 10 others so we were maxed out. There was ice chest stocked with various soda's, beer and rum punch. We began our land portion of the tour which was fine. The island is gorgeous so it sort of sells itself, just sit back and enjoy the ride. By the time we got to the Banana Plantation, we were virtually out of Soda's and water.

 

One of the group wanted to do the mudbath while others wanted to do the Volcano. Well, the gentleman that wanted to do the mudbath's was not allowed as it would "take time from the beach" and we weren't allowed to walk up to the close viewing area of the volcano as that would take too much time, instead we stood with a guide while she gave us a 2 minute narration, a far cry from his website advertisement:

 

"At Sulphur Springs you can either walk with a guide to see bubbling pools of mud and clouds of sulphur-laden steam rising from a dormant volcano or rejuvenate yourself in a therapeutic hot, sulphur mud bath. The black water of this bathing pool is filled with volcanic minerals which is reputed to have therapeutic, healing qualities for your skin. Changing rooms and showers are available at the Mud Baths."

 

The driver also stated he didn't want anyone in his van that had mud on them from the baths. Off to the waterfall and then to lunch. We stopped at a restaurant where the drivers ex-wife was working. He just dropped us off and left to move the van. We all shuffled in and that's when we discovered the restaurant doesn't provide drinks, we had to get them from our Driver!!!! He left. Another Ambrose Tour arrived and that driver made sure everyone had a place to sit and explained the food (which was delicious BTW) and everyone in his group had something to drink. This left a very sour taste in everyone's mouth in our group.

 

Now at this point we still haven't paid, Spencer showed up and started collecting money from the other tour group but not ours. I started to wonder when he would collect (should've been another clue). Finally our driver returns and we mention the drink situation and he seems not to care, we went to get a beer and he was all out, a couple of bottles of water left and that's it. We hope on one of Spencers leased boats for a short ride to Jalouise Beach.

 

What a dump. Sure the resort area is nice but the Public use area is over run with tourists and local thugs hanging on the rocks smoking weed. The snorkeling is fair at best. The attraction is being between the Pitons. So I get a quick snorkel in and get out of the water since the visibility is bad and the coral is fair. The "sandy" side of the beach is free to use since all area's are public, you just can't use the super nice resort loungers and umbrellas (Fair Enough).

 

Spencer is there running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to organize the various departures of his tours. I flag him down on the pier and tell him my name, my tour group and ask him what time the Land & Sea Tour departs (I knew it was different from his other tours) and when we pay him. The time was 2:00pm and he looks at my watch and says to be on the pier at 2:30 pm since we were going to lay our towel down on the Sandy side of the beach to get away from the throngs of people on the "Snorkle Side" especially since a cruise ship excursion just arrived with 100 people. He told me no worries.

 

The wife and I goto the Sandy side right in the middle of the swim buoys and enjoyed a little more quiet and a nice swim. At 2:20 pm I glance up and I see the folks from our van lining up on the pier. I tell my wife lets go and we walk over and the group is now in a water taxi, not one of the fancy speed boats you see in the photo's of his website (he does say in there maybe a chartered water taxi on his website). It's now 225pm and they are about to leave. I am now able to flag down Spencer who is still manic in walking around the pier dealing with the throngs of people in his groups. I tell him who we are and reminded him of our conversation not even 20 minutes prior. He proceeds to tell me that I have not paid and can not go with the group and that he was calling my name on the beach.

 

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We then get into a discussion of reminding him that I approached him25 minutes ago, we were sitting on the Sandy Beach and were told to be back at 230pm. I give him the envelope of money I had sat aside and we got into water taxi with our original group.

 

About 10 minutes into our tour, the captain of our water taxi stops the boat and his 1st mate starts tinkering with one of the engines, turns out he loses an engine, so there we are stuck in the ocean with just one motor. We putt along and made it back to the Ship by 4:05pm, 25 minutes before all aboard time.

 

I think this tour is really made by your driver on the land portion. If you've been to Jaoulese beach then you know, don't bother going back, a one time experience then find something else to do.

 

Spencer's operation is obviously getting a little too big for his ability to coordinate everything that is going on when herding groups of cruise ship passengers. I would go with another tour company until he can prove he can handle the logistics of running a large operation

[sbnuggie]

Sorry what I meant is that the resort itself has been giving me a run around.

 

Spencer's beach break includes lunch by the resort - literally on the sand form my understanding. He serves the creole lunch.

We were considering having lunch at the resort itself (not cheap) but they have been unhelpful which brings me back to square 1 - what actual; food is served by Spencer?

 

Lunch is served at a small little restaurant Called Captain Hooks and is basically grilled chicken with various salads and macaroni salads.

 

I took photo's of my lunch plate and the restaurant but they are too big to attach to Cruise Critic. The restaurant is in the small town before you board the water taxi to Jalousie beach. The restaurant is not near Jalousie beach at all. In the past they used to serve lunch at Jalousie beach and have recently changed to this little restaurant. The food was quite tasty. Another person in our van had been with Spencer the year before and stated that it was much nicer to eat at the restaurant prior to the beach as it was such a hassle juggling your plate of food at the beach etc....

 

I hope this helps, and if you read my previous review, I do not recommend you go with Spencer Ambrose.

[Xcitdcruiser]

Thanks for coming back & posting your review. Such a shame to hear that Spencer's is not as well organised as one would hope.

 

Re the lunch - we are doing the beach tour where lunch is served on the beach. When I mention I haven't been able to get info re the lunch that has been form the resort itself (not Spencers)

 

Fingers crossed that our experience is a positive one

[Xcitdcruiser]

[/b]Check out post #4 at this CC link: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1864563

 

You are a star - this is what I was looking for. Thank you!

There appears to be enough variety from what I can pick & choose from.

[reedprincess]

Thanks for coming back & posting your review. Such a shame to hear that Spencer's is not as well organised as one would hope.

 

Re the lunch - we are doing the beach tour where lunch is served on the beach. When I mention I haven't been able to get info re the lunch that has been form the resort itself (not Spencers)

 

Fingers crossed that our experience is a positive one

 

So, for your lunch - are you wanting to have lunch at the Sugar Beach Resort rather than the lunch Spencer provides? You can absolutely do that at the Bayside beach restaurant on an a la carte basis, the menus are on the Sugar Beach website. Keep in mind - service is slow, so order accordingly and be sure they know you have a time limit! lol. Spencer's lunches are usually box lunches (huge lunches though for sure) and usually includes baked chicken, salad, rice, beans, ground provisions, mac & cheese/noodles. Great local lunch.

[tiggerfan616]

Just back from St Lucia and I organized a CC group of 21 for the Jealousie Beach Break with Spencer and we had a great day!

As promised Spencer and his staff were waiting outside the tourism building for us with a sign. We were a bit delayed but it was out fault as we were waiting for two people that never showed up.

Spencer himself escorted us across to the dock where we boarded two boats to head to the beach. We needed to take two since his new one is still not licensed as the person who does the license has been away for 2 weeks.

We had a great ride out to the Pitons and really enjoyed our time on the beach. There was some rain on the ride out and alittle bit more when we arrived but it cleared out nicely and we had a great day on the beach. Since we were the first to arrive there were plenty of beach chairs and Spencer provided us with rum punch, beer, water and sodas. Lunch was very good with Chicken and salads.

I did not snorkel but a few in our group did and said it was wonderful, like snorkeling in a fish bowl. One of Spencers guides even helped one of our members who uses a walker in and out of the water so he could snorkel and was feeding the fish for everyone to see.

Spencer spent the entire day with us and was a real treat to talk to. He really loves his island.

Our guided tour along the coast was just as much fun as my son asked Spencer to drive fast so he did, just for a few mins to make him laugh, actually he made us all laugh.

We arrived back at the pier by 3:30 and still had time to do some shopping.

Everyone in the group enjoyed the day and I would definitely book with Spencer again

[sj25]

Just back from St Lucia and I organized a CC group of 21 for the Jealousie Beach Break with Spencer and we had a great day!

As promised Spencer and his staff were waiting outside the tourism building for us with a sign. We were a bit delayed but it was out fault as we were waiting for two people that never showed up.

Spencer himself escorted us across to the dock where we boarded two boats to head to the beach. We needed to take two since his new one is still not licensed as the person who does the license has been away for 2 weeks.

We had a great ride out to the Pitons and really enjoyed our time on the beach. There was some rain on the ride out and alittle bit more when we arrived but it cleared out nicely and we had a great day on the beach. Since we were the first to arrive there were plenty of beach chairs and Spencer provided us with rum punch, beer, water and sodas. Lunch was very good with Chicken and salads.

I did not snorkel but a few in our group did and said it was wonderful, like snorkeling in a fish bowl. One of Spencers guides even helped one of our members who uses a walker in and out of the water so he could snorkel and was feeding the fish for everyone to see.

Spencer spent the entire day with us and was a real treat to talk to. He really loves his island.

Our guided tour along the coast was just as much fun as my son asked Spencer to drive fast so he did, just for a few mins to make him laugh, actually he made us all laugh.

We arrived back at the pier by 3:30 and still had time to do some shopping.

Everyone in the group enjoyed the day and I would definitely book with Spencer again

thanks for the update sure hope he has things back organized....I needed another tour guide since one I had done is booked full...hope to hear more of recent experiences from others! My main goal was Jealousie beach so maybe this would be a different way getting there an experience then we did last time.

[pghsteelerfan]

thanks for the update sure hope he has things back organized....I needed another tour guide since one I had done is booked full...hope to hear more of recent experiences from others! My main goal was Jealousie beach so maybe this would be a different way getting there an experience then we did last time.

 

We took Spencer Ambrose's "Jalousie Beach Break" tour last May and tiggerfan616's experience is pretty much the same we had. We thought it was very well organized and with the "Jalousie Beach Break", we were the first group there and had four hours to spend at the beach with allowed plenty of time to snorkel, walk the beach, and kick back and enjoy. The lunch served on the beach was buffet style and very good. We thought everything was well organized we all knew ahead of time to be on the dock at 2:30PM. We had more with us when we left (the few that did the Piton Hike Tour and also the Land & Sea tour), but everything was organized and seemed to go very smoothly. I'm pretty sure there were three boats to take everyone back. On the ride back to the ship we got the "Sea Tour" portion and really enjoyed that. I know that was almost a year ago, but we saw several negative reviews before our cruise and booked anyway because we saw too many great reviews and there were a lot more positive reviews than negative. I will not hesitate to book with Spencer again for the "Land and Sea Tour" to see more of St. Lucia...we had such a great time and this was one of the best tours we've done while on a cruise.

Edited February 18, 2014 by pghsteelerfan

[chelsearay]

:eek:we did the land and sea tour last week with spenser, it was the most unorganized caotic mess i've ever seen. the only thing that saved the day was Mango, the boat driver, he was wonderful very freindly and informitive

 

how was the tour disorganized? I am reading mostly positive reviews from his tours and only a few negatives. But i am wanting to look into the negatives in case i need to choose someone else to go with.

 

thanks

[bettyboop16]

We took our tour with Spencer Ambrose on 2/6/14. Tour guide was his brother Small. Tour started out every disorganized at the port. We were put on the wrong tour bus & then taken off the tour bus. Finally started walking out to the van...we had lost some time waiting around.

It was raining heavy at times & some minor flooding & traffic was heavy. Tour guide pulls out of the parking lot right in front of a semi truck!!!!!

Screeching tires!!!!! I am so glad the truck driver had good brakes & didn't have a trailer on the back of his truck & my husband was sitting up front in the passenger seat....If I had been sitting in that seat my tour would have been over before it got started!!!!!:eek:

 

Tour was good after that episode. We had lunch at a restaurant & was pretty good. Beach was ok...rum punch was good.

 

We really enjoyed the boat ride back to the dock. Highlight of the trip for hubby & me. :)

 

Betty