Blexie response time--Any second choices?

[Aliza]

I've been waiting nearly a week to hear from Blexie. If I don't hear back after a second try, who would be your second choice tour for approximately the same price?

 

In October the NCL Sun arrives at 10:00 so we asked for a noon or 1:00 pm tour without lunch. Do you suppose that's a problem?

 

Open to other suggestions for a fun and educational time. Cuba is the one port we are most excited about on this cruise.

[kristinp36]

I've heard good things about I Love Cuba Photo Tours

 

 

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[victory2020]

I've used Havanajourneys twice. $100 for 2 or 3 people for the day tour of Havana. They'll tailor it to your schedule & what you want to see. They pick you up across the street from the ship

[Hurlymcgurly]

We went off a recommendation of a Cruise Critic member who went in July and were thrilled with our guide on our August 15/16 visit! Her name is Duramis Carrillo Sosa and she is a professional photographer also so we got some wonderful pictures for a great price too! She is totally fluent in English, French and of course Spanish. She works with Genuine Cuba and you can email her at duramis@nauta.cu

 

She was very knowledgeable about the history and culture and took us everywhere we wanted to go and everywhere she thought we should see. There were 3 of us, myself, my husband and our 17 year old son, and we were an hour late to meeting up with her due to the long lines getting off the boat (Plan on at least 1 to 1 1/2 hours to get off ship first time! After that, getting on and off is very fast) so she just gave us an extra hour the second day. We did a 3 hour walking tour and an hour in a convertible on day 1 and she arranged tickets for us to a show that evening and took us to exchange money when we met with her. Day 2 we did 2 hours walking tour, 1 hour in a convertible and 3 hours in an air conditioned car. All our cars were classics and we got to pick which convertibles we wanted out of a big string of cars. We had a fabulous journey with her! Just a heads up on emailing to Cuba. We saw the lines to get cards for internet as it isn't something they can just pay for monthly like most of us do and they generally have to go to internet parks where you see tons of people sitting around trying to get on line instead of just being able to hook up anywhere they go, so be patient with any of the companies you get with as it may take at least a few days before they can get someplace to check.

[EatonDoolittle]

I had a wonderful full day tour - with lunch- with these folks.

Walking the old city in the AM, lunch at a rooftop paladar, then afternoon touring in an old convertible.

Ended up with a Mojito at the Hotel National

 

Fabulous, and highly recommended. I found them quite responsive.

$99.00

 

https://havanatourcompany.com/

[rumrum]

We used FerTours this past week. Immediate responses, excellent guide.

[rvmike]

Make sure you are using his gmail account. Booked with Blexie and never waited more tha 2 days for a responce

[Tapi]

We used Old Cars Havana. $30/hr for a convertible car or $25/hr for a hardtop. You can go online and select the specific car that you want.

 

They will send you an email confirmation with instructions (even a YouTube video that shows you how to get from the cruise terminal to the meeting port).

 

Overall, very satisfied with our tour! They even made lunch reservations at a wonderful rooftop paladar for us as the tour was coming to an end.

 

My emails were answered quickly, within a few hours.

 

 

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[candydane]

We used FerTours this past week. Immediate responses, excellent guide.

We're booked with Fer Tours in September. Who was your guide?

[Aliza]

I absolutely want to thank everyone for their great suggestions and ideas. Now, please don't shoot me, but we did not end up using Blexie. I know that he has absolutely fantastic reviews on his tours, but the weak link is the communication.

 

It took Blexie 8 days to respond and that was after I resent the first message. Then he specifically ignored my question about a later tour start time and gave the typical "start at 10:00 am" answer, even though our ship doesn't arrive in Port until 10:00! Talk about frustration!

 

I know everyone states there are communication issues with Cuba and I can most certainly understand that, but other tour operators are responding much more quickly. Perhaps those of you there using Blexie could suggest he find a new way/person etc to communicate more quickly? I know I'm not the only person who has had communication issues although others of you didn't.

 

A plus is learning that if you want a convertible, with Blexie it's $30 more, which is fine since you know up front.

 

Now........who are we going with? A shout out to Hurlymcgurly who suggested this:

 

Duramis Carrillo Sosa and she is a professional photographer also so we got some wonderful pictures for a great price too! She is totally fluent in English, French and of course Spanish. She works with Genuine Cuba and you can email her at duramis@nauta.cu

 

I contacted Duramis one afternoon and had a very specific, detailed answer the next morning in in my inbox using great English. I sent off another email and had an answer to that one in a few hours. What we'll have is a tour starting at 1:00 pm which will be totally customized to us. I expressed an interest in meeting the people of Cuba and she will have lots of interactions for us and has even offered to take us into a Cuban home if we're interested. Total cost for the three of us with some fairly tricky customizations due to some of our health issues is $120 for three of us: my husband, myself and adult granddaughter. We are also going with the $50 extra for her doing lots of photos for us. (We're pretty lousy with our phone cameras.) She has a facebook website for Genuine Cuba if you're interested in checking it out.

 

I will update to Cruise Critic after returning from our cruise on October 30. It's fantastic to have a place with so many helpful fellow cruisers.