Anything bad about Cosol Tour?

[filamy]

I have read countless excellent comments about the Cosol tours. I did find one poster who did not seem satisfied with the tour but his comments seemed ridicules, drinks not available immediately and the high cost of the chairs at the beach (not controlled by Cosol) .I’d appreciate hearing if there are others who were not satisfied. We’re not looking for a wild party bunch but I definitely don’t want to take a senior citizen tour and fall asleep from boredom.

Thank you,

[celticd1]

The only thing bad about Cosol's tour is that it has to end! :p

 

There are a couple negatives about any St. Lucia island tour.

 

One, you do spend a fair amount of time driving on narrow, twisting roads. If you are prone to carsickness, you may want to take Dramamine or try to ride in the front seat. Two, you don't have a lot of time to spend at each stop. We never felt rushed on our tour but it would have been nice to spend more time a couple of our stops. Three, at a few stops it can get a bit crowded. This can't really be helped since everyone is trying to see the same things you are. The one place we didn't encounter any crowd was at the Jalousie Resort beach. It was the perfect spot to end the tour before heading back to the ship.

 

An island tour is not for everyone, no matter which port or tour guide. If you are looking for an excursion that will take you to see some of the island "highlights" in a relatively short period of time while enjoying the amazing scenery along the way then you will be happy with an island tour. If you want all that plus a little beach time at a fabulous beach with great snorkeling, an interesting narrative on St. Lucian history and culture, locally homemade snacks and all the beer, water and rum punch you can drink, then you will LOVE Cosol's tour!

 

Happy sailing!:)

[wibeachbum]

Thank you Debbie. It sounds like Cosol's tour may be for us. This will be our first southern Caribbean cruise and the first time to St. Lucia.

 

By the way, we are your neighbors to the west, in Waukesha Co. :)

[celticd1]

Your'e welcome, neighbor! :) We are in Waukesha Co, too. I list Milwaukee but we actually live in the Falls.

 

We really enjoyed Cosol's tour and have no trouble recommending him. Be sure to try all of the food, the warm bread and fish cakes with banana ketchup/hot sauce is so good!

[filamy]

Thank you so much for your reply. With your reply and the lack of any other, I am sold on this excursion.

 

Happy sailing,

[celticd1]

Thank you so much for your reply. With your reply and the lack of any other, I am sold on this excursion.

 

Happy sailing,

 

You're welcome! :)

 

I had been watching this thread since you posted it and I was pretty certain that no one would respond with a negative review. Every review I have read about Cosol's tour has been glowing...with the exception of the one poster that you referred to.

 

I should probably clarify the "unlimited beverages" that are included in the tour. Cosol will have a cooler full of drinks (Piton beer, water, juice and rum punch that I remember for sure) and he will offer these at each stop...if you want more, ask, but the cooler does stay in HIS van. The other drivers (he has several, you may or may not end up with Cosol as your guide) will not have a cooler so when drinks are avavilable, take what you want. I believe this is why the negative review from the one person. I also wanted to add that this is not a "party van" type atmosphere even with the beer and rum punch being served.

 

There are a couple rest stops along the way, I do remember one that did charge us...$1 I think? And don't expect much in the way of "facilities" LOL For us it was all part of the adventure. :p

 

Although we did not have Cosol as our driver, we still enjoyed our tour very much. We had opportunities to chat with Cosol at a few of the stops and he is a very charming and friendly young man. He will tell you at the begining of the tour that payment is not expected until you return to the pier and if you did not have a great time you do not have to pay. I doubt that he has ever had anyone take him up on that. :)

 

Have fun! I'll be back in St. Lucia in 215 days! Can't wait!

[KAWS]

We have Cosol Tours booked for next March and I must say that so far I am mighty impressed with him. He responds super quickly to emails and makes sure he has all YOUR details so everything will be right for you. There was no nonsense about us having to get a minimum amount of pax to go on the excursion either. I will email him again about a month before we leave just to confirm everything again, but he responded quickly and politely and gave me all the information that I needed to assure me that we chose well.

[mel9294]

I have heard rave reviews about him too. I contacted him in regards to a group tour and got an email back VERY quickly (impressive) BUT it was basically a copy and paste job from his website and he only answered 1 of the 3 questions I had (NOT impressive)! :( Emailed him again re-stating my questions and no answer yet. I am never impressed with someone that can't answer a simple question.:(

[drakes2]

Don't give up on Cosol yet. I'm sure he gets a lot of e mails and trying to respond to each and every question as well as running his business is not an easy task. He will reply to you but just be patient as he does aim to please and offers an excellent tour at a great price.

I have heard rave reviews about him too. I contacted him in regards to a group tour and got an email back VERY quickly (impressive) BUT it was basically a copy and paste job from his website and he only answered 1 of the 3 questions I had (NOT impressive)! :( Emailed him again re-stating my questions and no answer yet. I am never impressed with someone that can't answer a simple question.:(

[jamscckmc]

Booked with Cosol in August. Would you reccomend bringing sneakers on the tour? Was there much walking at the volcano and other spots that flip flops would not be sufficent? Thanks!

[mel9294]

Don't give up on Cosol yet. I'm sure he gets a lot of e mails and trying to respond to each and every question as well as running his business is not an easy task. He will reply to you but just be patient as he does aim to please and offers an excellent tour at a great price.

 

 

Just got an email from him this morning. He answered my questions this time. :)

[celticd1]

Booked with Cosol in August. Would you reccomend bringing sneakers on the tour? Was there much walking at the volcano and other spots that flip flops would not be sufficent? Thanks!

 

I wore flip flops had no problems at any of the stops.

 

Have fun! :)

[celticd1]

Just got an email from him this morning. He answered my questions this time. :)

 

Glad to hear it!

[drakes2]

I wore sneakers on his tour and brought flip flops for the beach. There can be some uneven terrain and steps so felt safer with proper footwear. Wouldn't want to risk a sprained ankle. Just my 2 cents.

I wore flip flops had no problems at any of the stops.

 

Have fun! :)

[Cruising Lions]

After several cruises to St Lucia, my wife and I are staying at Sandals for the week. ( 6/27 - 7/4 ) We booked Cosol and are anxiously awaiting a great tour. He seems very easy to deal with.

[nosmothj]

We went on a tour with Cosol November of 2007. Have to say it was on of our best tours.

 

You are looking for a negative and although we have one we would still tour with him. We had the standard tour, but he cancelled our beach swim at the Pitons. About half way into the tour he was speaking to someone on the phone in there broken English French what ever you want to call it. My wife being familiar with it picked up that he had agreed to pick someone up at the airport s his other driver could not.

As it turned out we had a lot of CC members on the tour and a couple who had sat in the back were getting sick from all the twisting.

 

So all in all still a great tour but we never did get to see the Pitons or the beach.

[drakes2]

That's too bad that you didn't get to swim at the beach between the Pitons. That was the highlight of our trip. I would have opted to stay at the beach and find my own way back to the ship.

We went on a tour with Cosol November of 2007. Have to say it was on of our best tours.

 

You are looking for a negative and although we have one we would still tour with him. We had the standard tour, but he cancelled our beach swim at the Pitons. About half way into the tour he was speaking to someone on the phone in there broken English French what ever you want to call it. My wife being familiar with it picked up that he had agreed to pick someone up at the airport s his other driver could not.

As it turned out we had a lot of CC members on the tour and a couple who had sat in the back were getting sick from all the twisting.

 

So all in all still a great tour but we never did get to see the Pitons or the beach.

[nosmothj]

We never got to the beach at all!!

 

But in light of our sick friends it was better for them.

 

You never now an hour in the sun or shade may have helped.

[J & G]

We liked Cosol's tour, but it was just the two of us with him, since there were no cruise ships in port the day we toured with him. He spoke very loudly, as if the van was full of people, and he didn't interact with us very much. We felt like he was speaking to some invisible people in the back of the van. He did answer questions, but he hardly reacted at all to our observations or comments. I felt like he was going through the motions with the tour and that his heart was not in it at all. I think we were not a large enough audience for his taste. It was sort of a weird feeling.

 

He told us repeatedly that he is the most popular tour guide on the island and that everyone knows him. That much did seem to be true, at least at the places we visited.

 

On the way back to our resort, we asked to stop at Caribelle Batik. Cosol did take us there, but we could tell he was none too happy about it, since it is not on his regular tour. We did not get all the goodies that people report getting, either. We got rum punch, beer, hot bread and cheese. (We were picked up at 9 AM, so it was a little early for rum punch and beer.) We were sorry that we had not eaten more breakfast, because we didn't get much to eat along the way.

 

We paid more than his advertised price, since it was just two of us. We didn't begrudge that, though, and tipped him well. The rest of the time we were in St. Lucia we used Herod and were very happy with him.

[Pomperaugrr]

We took the Cosol tour this past January and will be booking again for next January. The tour is very well done and is a great way to see a lot of St. Lucia, in a very short time. It is, without a doubt, the best general island tour we have ever taken in the Caribbean.

 

Eric

[sueajp]

Hi Fil,

I was looking here too!! I am keeping my booking for sure.

Sue:cool:

[J & G]

Hi Fil,

I was looking here too!! I am keeping my booking for sure.

Sue:cool:

You should definately keep your booking! I think our experience was different, due to the fact that we were not Cosol's usual large group. That may be the reason that we did not make all the foodie stops, too.

[dutchiegirl6]

I just wanted to agree with other posters that the Cosol tour is by far the best tour we've been on. We had a great group of people with us in our van from our ship (all about the same age) and had a marvelous time. I really loved how they want you to experience not just the sites of the island but also the food, drink and culture. My family is still talking about the great times we had on St. Lucia with Cosol and the Piton beer!

[dchip]

in November 07 and March 08. Here is a link to the photos I took on the tours.

 

http://www.pbase.com/dchip/st_lucia

http://www.pbase.com/dchip/st_lucia_march

 

The first tour we didn't stop at several of the foodie spots because there was only one ship in and the vendors weren't there. No sense stopping without vendors :D

 

Our second tour we hit every spot mentioned in these posts. Bring home the Spiced Rum. YUM~!! I only wish I could have brought more of it. The Baron's West Indian Hot Sauce is fabulous. Just found a website and had a case shipped to me :eek:

 

Enjoy, Denise

[onceagain]

We have Cosol booked next January, a group of 24 of us. For the poster who said "I definitely don’t want to take a senior citizen tour and fall asleep from boredom" - I just wanted you to know that there will be 9 senior citizens in our group and I can guarantee you none of us will be sleeping! What makes you think that just because we may be a senior citizen, we'd be o.k. with a boring tour? :rolleyes: There will also be kids ages 6, 9, and two 12 years old with us, I wouldn't be surprised if the 6 year old falls asleep way before we do! :D