Questions re Bernards Tours.

[jkelly8646]

I took the $45.00 tour on December 19. A $5.00 deposit holds your seat. The cruise lines run a very profitable excursion business and therefore use their clout to bar private tour guides from hawking on the pier. Thus the need for pre-paid reservations.

 

I saw elsewhere that Serafinas recently closed for renovations.

 

My tour guide with Bernard's was the Mailman - I highly recommend him.

[Morgsmom]

I took the $45.00 tour on December 19. A $5.00 deposit holds your seat. The cruise lines run a very profitable excursion business and therefore use their clout to bar private tour guides from hawking on the pier. Thus the need for pre-paid reservations.

 

I saw elsewhere that Serafinas recently closed for renovations.

 

My tour guide with Bernard's was the Mailman - I highly recommend him.

 

They switched to a deposit situation I should think to discourage the high number of no-shows that would have been experienced with any kind of no-penalty booking process. $5 is just enough to show interest, and to give them a little bit of money in case of a no show, but not punitive enough that people won't hold a spot in advance.

[Morgsmom]

I saw elsewhere that Serafinas recently closed for renovations.

 

.

 

Fortunately there are recent YELP reviews for Serafinas so it appears that the bakery is still open!

[jkelly8646]

I took the $45.00 tour on December 19. A $5.00 deposit holds your seat. The cruise lines run a very profitable excursion business and therefore use their clout to bar private tour guides from hawking on the pier. Thus the need for pre-paid reservations.

 

The above was explained to me by the tour operators.

 

I saw no hawking within the port area & did observe that the port security personnel permitted the operators to muster only at the security exit of the rear parking lot.

[Fighterone]

Hi all,

 

 

Is there a map of the tours ? I would love to see what is the route of the tours.

 

On his site there is a small pic and it doesn't open when I clic on it...

 

 

Thank you all in advance,

 

 

 

.

 

Bonjour Sebas! I am French Canadian too. You can always email Bernard, he has always responded to me quickly. I removed my email here but will ad it again in my signature. Josette

[seabum]

We booked with Bernards last year - and weren't impressed. maybe our expectations were unrealistic but here are the things that happened on our tour.

 

We left about 30 minutes late waiting for a late arriving couple - they then reversed the order of our tour so we went to Maho first - before any of the larger planes were scheduled to come in. Even though we were told this would be last and when told of the change the entire group requested we do this last as it was supposed to be the highlight we all were looking forward to. As it went, we only saw a couple smaller "puddle jumpers" come in.

 

Time at beach was cut short to only about 30 minutes.

 

We were told there was excellent snorkeling - but where they dropped us off there wasn't enough time to walk that far down the beach to where the snorkeling was decent, and still make it back with the new shortened time allotted for the beach. Wouldn't have mattered had we not been misled, and schlepped our gear. Advertised as 90-120 minutes then cut back to 30.

 

No iguana farm - but instead stopped on side of road for about a minute or two max as driver pointed out one large one in a tree across the street. no biggie for us - we've seen hundreds in our travels.

 

No "photo stop" at border - just blazed across instead. Couldn't even get a photo out the window he was going so fast. Again not a big deal - but still a fun photo op promised and missed.

 

Very limited rum punch served in small almost shot type glasses, which ran out halfway through our tour. Not free flowing as advertised - and we weren't a young "party" group - rather more "mature" group of adults.

 

Lastly - though we left very late - we still got back early - even though everyone in our group was on the same ship - which was not leaving for several hours. They could have easily extended the trip to make up for the late start.

 

Wouldn't even drop us off in town for shopping but insisted on taking us back to the pier.

 

All in all not a bad tour - especially for the cost - but not what we were expecting - and it was nice to not be the driver for once as we usually rent a car / jeep whenever visiting St Maarten.

 

we really got the impression that our driver had some place to be that afternoon and was going through the motions and couldn't wait to get finished for the day.

 

Rather than a nice relaxing tour - we just felt rushed at every stop - and missed a couple on top of that.

 

From all the excellent reviews I'd have to say ours was the exception - but still it was disappointing.

 

Hope this helps - and hope y'all have a better experience.

[buckeye rob]

Has anyone done the Bernard's Private Tour ? Thinking about doing that to be able to come and go throughout at our pace. Gerry

[LuCruise]

seabum, that's too bad that you had such a poor experience. Aside from hearing a few also say that they had to wait to get started (which is the passengers fault, not Bernards), that's the first bad review I've read.

We're leaning towards Bernards now as I showed the tour as an option to DH and he likes the idea of the tour instead of just another beach day (and this is even with kids), so hope this was a one off. The Iquana farm, Maho and 1.5hrs at a beach are the main attractions for us. And if they are taking you for great views, they should stop to let you take photos. I'd complain as this seems like a rare occurance.

Edited December 29, 2015 by LuCruise

[WetToes]

We booked with Bernards last year - and weren't impressed. maybe our expectations were unrealistic but here are the things that happened on our tour.

 

We left about 30 minutes late waiting for a late arriving couple - they then reversed the order of our tour so we went to Maho first - before any of the larger planes were scheduled to come in. Even though we were told this would be last and when told of the change the entire group requested we do this last as it was supposed to be the highlight we all were looking forward to. As it went, we only saw a couple smaller "puddle jumpers" come in.

 

Time at beach was cut short to only about 30 minutes.

 

We were told there was excellent snorkeling - but where they dropped us off there wasn't enough time to walk that far down the beach to where the snorkeling was decent, and still make it back with the new shortened time allotted for the beach. Wouldn't have mattered had we not been misled, and schlepped our gear. Advertised as 90-120 minutes then cut back to 30.

 

No iguana farm - but instead stopped on side of road for about a minute or two max as driver pointed out one large one in a tree across the street. no biggie for us - we've seen hundreds in our travels.

 

No "photo stop" at border - just blazed across instead. Couldn't even get a photo out the window he was going so fast. Again not a big deal - but still a fun photo op promised and missed.

 

Very limited rum punch served in small almost shot type glasses, which ran out halfway through our tour. Not free flowing as advertised - and we weren't a young "party" group - rather more "mature" group of adults.

 

Lastly - though we left very late - we still got back early - even though everyone in our group was on the same ship - which was not leaving for several hours. They could have easily extended the trip to make up for the late start.

 

Wouldn't even drop us off in town for shopping but insisted on taking us back to the pier.

 

All in all not a bad tour - especially for the cost - but not what we were expecting - and it was nice to not be the driver for once as we usually rent a car / jeep whenever visiting St Maarten.

 

we really got the impression that our driver had some place to be that afternoon and was going through the motions and couldn't wait to get finished for the day.

 

Rather than a nice relaxing tour - we just felt rushed at every stop - and missed a couple on top of that.

 

From all the excellent reviews I'd have to say ours was the exception - but still it was disappointing.

 

Hope this helps - and hope y'all have a better experience.

 

I'm sorry you're tour didn't go well. Yours is the only review I've read where the clients weren't happy.

If I were you, I would go on Bernard's site. You can comment there.

They do seem to want to please. I think Bernard would be very interested in your comments.

[Karysa]

Fortunately there are recent YELP reviews for Serafinas so it appears that the bakery is still open!

 

Serafinas was closed for renovations in November but has since reopened.

[LuCruise]

Anyone know if you can pay in cash (USD)? We're Canadian so paying for four of us on a credit card will cost a lot more with the exchange and any extra cc charges.

[WetToes]

Anyone know if you can pay in cash (USD)? We're Canadian so paying for four of us on a credit card will cost a lot more with the exchange and any extra cc charges.

 

We did pay our balance in cash at the time of the tour.

You can contact them if you go to their site.

Edited December 30, 2015 by WetToes

[LuCruise]

We did pay our balance in cash at the time of the tour.

You can contact them if you go to their site.

Thanks

 

Sent from my ONE E1005 using Tapatalk

[WAdisneyfreak]

Anyone know if you can pay using a cc ahead of time for the full amount rather than cash at the pier?

[Colfireman]

Anyone know if you can pay using a cc ahead of time for the full amount rather than cash at the pier?

 

From what i've heard deposit only. Pay in Cash the remainder when you arrive.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Colfireman
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