Courtney Taylor?

[svmodi]

Can you tell me what his rates are? I am interested in doing an island tour + Dunn Falls. Thanks in advance.

 

 

We booked Courtney Taylor, for our group of 4, a couple of weeks ago (We were on Freedom of the Seas and arrived in Jamaica on Nov. 18th). Courtney met us at the pier and within minutes, we were off to Dunn's River Falls. It was great because we got there early and there wasn't anyone there. Courtney talked all the way and informed us of various things regarding the island. He also gave us insider "tips" of what to do/say to avoid being bothered by people selling things.

 

After Dunn's River Falls, he took us tubing. Again, he talked all of the way and provided some very cool info on the island. He was pretty funny - had a pleasant demeanor.

 

He was waiting for us at the end of the tubing and he then took us to a great beach spot for lunch. We told him we wanted authentic jerk chicken and red stripe beer. He took us there...and even walked us down to the beach and made certain we were taken care of by a server there (who also happened to be Courtney's neighbor). We were given excellent service for lunch...and the food was fantastic!

 

All and all, it was a fabulous experience and I would highly recommend Courtney Taylor to anyone going to Jamaica. You certainly don't want to explore on your own. You want someone who knows the in's and out's of the island....someone who is pleasant and informative....someone you can trust. Courtney Taylor was all of those things! I give a big "thumbs up" for our day in Jamaica!!

 

:D

[svmodi]

I was wondering where you went for shopping. We love to bargain in smaller markets as well for best prices rather than shoping downtown.

 

 

I've been a member for over a year and have read the board for much longer. I find it informative, but have not had anything worthwhile to add, so I felt no need to post. Now I do.

 

The reason so many "First posters" are praising Courtney is because they have *met* him and taken one of his tours. Unless one has, I think it extremely unfair to disparage him--or the people who *have* toured with him and rave about it.

 

As to why they *are* "First posters," it is because Courtney has introduced them to the CruiseCritic forum--which, I believe, is a good thing.

 

I discovered this list in May 2009, while planning a Western Caribbean cruse in June for my extended family. I spent many days researching cruise lines and ports of call, and a couple of days on Ocho Rios. I decided to contact Courtney Taylor primarily due to the praise he got on this website.

 

I sent him an e-mail describing my group of 20 people, ranging in age from 13-83. Most were in their 30's thru 60's. I requested suggestions for possible visits. He replied *immediately* with a long list of possible activities and attractions. I then spent another day researching each--and others--and then e-mailed him back for a quote.

 

I also requested information on various local items, such as cellphone service and wireless internet. He responded immediately, again, and was most helpful--expanding upon the services given and the highlights available.

 

We settled upon a price of $300 for 7 hours for 19 people--payable at the end of the tour, and with *no* deposit.

 

I was a bit late arriving, as no one had mentioned that ships time was an hour earlier than Jamaica time, but when we arrived, all I had to do was ask for Courtney and one of the other drivers went and brought back his brother Orville. Courtney was tied up with another tour, but Orville was also a wonderful guide.

 

He pulled up a large bus that would have held nearly three times our number and we clambered aboard and were seated in air conditioned comfort.

 

I always plan my own self-directed tours with room for driver input, so I polled my group and we settled on three locations to start. But first, a quick stop at a local bodega for a quart of local rum, a case of cokes, a handful of limes, a bag of ice and a Styrofoam cooler, a tube of disposable cups, and a couple of gallons of water--all for about the price of two drinks on the ship. It was party time in Jaimaca!

 

We dropped off the first group for tubing and the second at a beach for snorkeling.

 

After reclaiming the tubers at the bottom of their run, we took a nice tour up the coast seeing the native country, the backstreets of the city, lovely homes, and some of the well-known sites of Ocho Rios--stopping along the way for a few roadside vendors.

 

I asked Orville to take us to an off-the-beaten-path market, so we wouldn't be hounded by the normal tourist scams. He found a nice little place where the prices were slightly lower than downtown, but where bargaining was the order of the day. I *love* to haggle--it's my favorite game, so I had a ball. I bought everything I had on my list and paid anywhere from 50-75% off of the original asking price. I was very happy with the prices and, a year later, am still pleased with the quality of the merchandise.

 

After that, we picked up the snorkeling group and Orville took us to a great little local restaurant up on a hill, where we were the only customers. We sat out in a garden under a large palapa, and ate the most delicious chicken jerk. My family are mostly tea-totalers, so they drank various fruit drinks, and the waiters had no objection to the boozers in our group bringing our own Cuba Libres.

 

By then, it was approaching embarkation time, so we had him drop off a dozen hard-core shoppers at the market by the port and the rest of us at the ship.

 

It was a fantastic way to see Jamaica, and I would never go back without first arranging for another day with Courtney Taylor's tour group!

[jiimmy2k]

Can you provide contact info for Courtney. We would love to do an island tour + Dunn River Falls. Thanks on advance.

 

Their address/url is courtneytaylortours.com :cool:

[caissonqueen]

I read through all 19 pages of this thread last night and today. :o Definitely an interesting mix of one post review members and more experienced members. It seems like he caters to families and groups. I will be traveling by myself as usual. Plus I see links for two different email addresses and two different websites. :confused: I just wonder if I should even bother contacting him. I like the variety he offers. I have excursions planned for Cozumel and Cayman Islands already.

[EnTnSA]

I have to say, I was fairly underwhelmed…

 

After reading all of the glowing reviews, maybe my expectations were too high. Ill list a few things that just seemed kind of sketchy to me.

 

We were with a pretty large group, 9 of us total. I asked Courtney through email how to find him. He said, just ask someone at the dock and they will point you to where I am…Hrmm, ok…not typically how I like to do things, but its Jamaica, lets just go with it.

 

Got to the terminal with kids, grandparents, etc in tow and started asking and people all sort of looked at me funny like…What is this guy talking about? Finally someone pointed me to some guy with a bus…The guy said, you are looking for a tour? I said, not exactly, I am looking for my booked tour through Courtney Taylor. He said, yea thats me. Where do you want to go? huh…I had been sending emails over and over for months outlining my itinerary…talking about various things we could do with Courtney. it was a little fishy that you don't know where I want to go if you are indeed my tour.

 

We ended up doing 2 out of the 5 things I had preplanned. The other 3 we couldn't do for one reason or another.

 

I was skeptical, but went with it. The guide was nice enough, but he wasn't sure what to do, he kept wanting to take us to the falls or rafting. We didn't want to go to the falls, we had grandparents. We didn't want to go rafting…grandparents. So part of that was our fault. I wanted to site see, and do some low key things. We ended up going to some estate, and then just driving around everywhere, eventually eating lunch at Skotchies and back to the boat. In the original email we talked about going to the beach, some spice factory tour, estate, lunch, shopping. Overall I had an ok time, others in our party were kind of bored, as we really didn't do much... I still don't know if this guy was really even part of Courtney's operation or not. I get the impression he may not have been…He wasn't sure how much to charge me and kept asking me what Courtney and I agreed on.

 

Anyway, maybe it was partly our ambiguity, but I wouldn't say it was a great time. I was under the impression that I would actually tour with Courtney, which didn't happen.

Edited July 16, 2014 by EnTnSA

[jiimmy2k]

EnTnSA, sounds like you got the wrong company, i think the tour guides should have an idea or documentation of whom they pickup...............

[mickev99]

EnTnSA, sounds like you got the wrong company, i think the tour guides should have an idea or documentation of whom they pickup...............

 

 

I totally agree. It sounds like another company took you instead of Courtney. You should have made them show you the paperwork. They had my information on a sheet of paper, my name since i made the reservations and the number of people in our group and he knew

what we wanted to do.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[caissonqueen]

I did email him and asked if he would include a solo cruiser on his tours. I have not heard back from him. I sent my email over 2 weeks ago. So far, I'm not having luck with finding something for Jamaica. :(

[debk68]

Check your spam, I think his went to my spam folder. Email again. You might want to try Peat Taylor, his brother. If I remember hearing correctly Courtney has the smaller groups, Peat has the larger ones and could probably accommodate a single.

[em_in_murphy]

I just had a tour with Courtney Taylor on August 7th. I had a group of 56 booked and we had three vehicles; 2 buses and a mini van. Our ship docked in Falmouth and we went to Blue Hole in Ocho Rios. For a group as large as ours, Courtney Taylor and company did great. I will say that Samantha who was my contact person the whole time was a big hit amongst my group. The group that rode in her bus had a blast! My bus was decent but we didn't get the same entertainment that the other bus got. Courtney drive the mini van and I didn't get feedback from the small group that rode with him.

 

Samantha was great in communicating with me to set up our plans. We were given instructions on where to look for them at the pier but of course, I forgot to bring my printout so I just asked where I could find him and they pointed me to the area where the independent tour companies waited. As soon as I approached the group, Samantha figured out it was me with the posse following behind me. Also, they wore shirts that had Courtney Taylor tours on it and they all had badges identifying themselves so I definitely knew I had the right person.

 

It was a long drive from Falmouth to Blue Hole in Ocho Rios but it was well worth it! The Blue Hole was a big hit with our group from the 4 year old to the 50 yr old. We had plans to go do some shopping, maybe also go to a beach for a little bit, and have lunch at Scotchies. We spent so much time at the Blue Hole that we basically had to skip everything else and just grabbed lunch, which we submitted 48 orders to Samantha prior to the cruise so that it would be ready when we got there. We had just enough time to get back to the ship with about 40 minutes to do some shopping at the pier. They did take us to a small shop to buy souvenir type stuff but we only got about 20 min due to our group not wanting to leave the Blue Hole.

 

Overall, they were great and took care of our LARGE group well! I would highly recommend them.

 

Caisson queen, I would email Samantha and ask again if maybe a small private group would allow you to join since it's just you....I would have been happy to add you to our group :D. The email I used for all my communications with Samantha is ctaylorjamaica@gmail.com

[delgadofam2002]

I have been using Courtney Taylor for about 10 years now. My last visit was in June. Samantha is wonderful she ended up taking care of us that day as Courtney was under the weather. We went zip lining in Montego & lunch it was great. I have them organize different activities each visit.

[fsjosh]

Does anyone know if it is reasonable to do Dunn's river falls, rafting and Blue hole from falmouth on a 10:30 to 5:30 port day? Not sure the distances on all of those and figured someone here would know. I guess the other question is if not, would it be better to do rafting and dunns or rafting and blue hole?

[jiimmy2k]

Does anyone know if it is reasonable to do Dunn's river falls, rafting and Blue hole from falmouth on a 10:30 to 5:30 port day? Not sure the distances on all of those and figured someone here would know. I guess the other question is if not, would it be better to do rafting and dunns or rafting and blue hole?

 

The tour is possible but you would have to get off the ship ASAP. Also i suggest you do Blue Hole then Rafting, afterwards base on time you can determine Dunn's River.

[mickev99]

One thing to check is if there are other ships in port that day. We went in June when a Disney ship was in Falmouth (no other ships in Jamaica in any other port), had a 10am arrival, got straight off the boat and went straight to Dunn's and waited forever. We were going to try to do Green Grotto Caves after and we were afraid we wouldn't have time (well, the rest of the group was afraid, I was willing to try since we didn't need to be back until 7pm, I think we would have been fine). If other ships get there before you, then you will wait longer at Dunn's.

[jiimmy2k]

One thing to check is if there are other ships in port that day. We went in June when a Disney ship was in Falmouth (no other ships in Jamaica in any other port), had a 10am arrival, got straight off the boat and went straight to Dunn's and waited forever. We were going to try to do Green Grotto Caves after and we were afraid we wouldn't have time (well, the rest of the group was afraid, I was willing to try since we didn't need to be back until 7pm, I think we would have been fine). If other ships get there before you, then you will wait longer at Dunn's.

 

The Dunn's River [# 1 attraction ] is always pack especially on a Wednesday when there is more than 2 ships on the island. I recommend Blue Hole over the falls but it is best if you try to be early for every excursion to avoid crowd ...:cool:

[websiteauthor]

The Dunn's River [# 1 attraction ] is always pack especially on a Wednesday when there is more than 2 ships on the island. I recommend Blue Hole over the falls but it is best if you try to be early for every excursion to avoid crowd ...:cool:

 

I agree, Jimmy. We went to the Blue Hole with Courtney Taylor on September 18 and there were very few people there. The guides were great, helping people climb around the place. I posted a trip report that has a writeup, photos and video of the Blue Hole, along with Scotchies and Mammee Bay.

 

Courtney Taylor tours had some issues with communications thru their site but the email address others have posted here worked just fine.

[jiimmy2k]

I read many reviews about the Blue Hole which tells me it is getting as popular as the Dunn's River so you have to visit it now if you want to see it in all it's natural state..:rolleyes:

[dafam32]

Does anyone know how much the entrance fee was to get into the Blue Hole on top of the price for the tour? I was quoted $15 by Courtney but i read on here where many said $10.

Just curious.

[jiimmy2k]

There are other unofficial lagoons on the the same river that charges $10 but then you have a long hike up the river to see the same waterfalls and lagoons shown on the internet video. $10 is not the correct price for the legitimate Blue Hole Tour.

[tomsuelaw]

I just booked and was asked for $31 deposit? We have 9 total in our group. Just not sure why the deposit was more then the $10 others have been asked for.

 

Anyone else been asked for more then $10 deposit?

 

Thanks

[outbackpaul]

I paid the same for a deposit.

[tomsuelaw]

Does anyone know if the deposits are refundable if your ship does not make it to port? Since my deposit was $31, I would prefer not to be at a loss for something out of my control.

[scobie15]

Just to let people know we recently returned from a tour with Courtney Taylor and although the tour itself was fine they have a policy of waiting up to 90 minutes for people to meet the tour after the ship docks.This meant we were sitting in a taxi from 8 to 9.30 waiting for others who did not show up anyway.Rather spoilt the trip as we lost an hour and a half of our excursion time due to their policy. If we can get off the ship as soon as possible so should others, and the tour company should not have a policy of waiting so long

[tomsuelaw]

Just to let people know we recently returned from a tour with Courtney Taylor and although the tour itself was fine they have a policy of waiting up to 90 minutes for people to meet the tour after the ship docks.This meant we were sitting in a taxi from 8 to 9.30 waiting for others who did not show up anyway.Rather spoilt the trip as we lost an hour and a half of our excursion time due to their policy. If we can get off the ship as soon as possible so should others, and the tour company should not have a policy of waiting so long

 

I was under the impression that the tours are all private. It specifically said that in my email and we have 9 in our group. Did you have a smaller group that got combined with another group?

[scobie15]

I was under the impression that the tours are all private. It specifically said that in my email and we have 9 in our group. Did you have a smaller group that got combined with another group?

There were only 2 of us so we were being combined with others.I know it wasnt Courtney Taylors fault they did not turn up but waiting 90 minutes was way OTT.It seemed acceptable for people to turn up whenever they liked but they still set off before us and were at the destination when we arrived