Blokarts?

[psyfi]

Anyone been land-sailing in Bonaire? We thought this would be a unique thing to try. Just wondering if it was difficult or if you were tired afterwards?

[Fishndawg]

I am also interested in this.

[psyfi]

I leave tonite and will be doing this next week. I'll try to post a review when I get back!

[Sailor Gal]

:pDoing it through the ship or on your own? Web site says @$50 but Princess price is $99. Includes transportation across the island, but that's a big difference. How much dust do you eat?

[TheVegasMan]

http://www.wakensurf.com/blokarts.html shows videos of Blokarts in action.

[Emily76]

My family and I just returned from Celebrity Summit on 1/24-1/31/09 and were only in Bonaire from 1:00 pm - 7:00pm. I highly recommend NOT booking with Landsailing Bonaire as they are extremely unreliable with poor customer service and communication.

 

Since the company does not have a contract with Celebrity, we had to book on our own. We were very excited when we received the following email only a few days after we sent our e-mail request:

 

"Hi Emily,

 

Thanks for the reservation!

 

Your party of 4 is booked for the 28th of January at 2 P.M.

We will pick you up outside the pier entrance at 2 P.M. You will recognize our driver by the yellow and blue van, holding a Landsailing sign.

If you have any more questions feel free to contact us.

 

We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

See you on the 28th!

 

Best Regards,

 

Naomi."

 

 

 

This company was reviewed and advertised through Caribbean Travel & Life magazine last fall, and they already have a contract with Princess Cruises for shore excursions.* They were very prompt in replying to our e-mail and confirming our reservation on December 3rd, yet failed to appear at the port at 2:00 pm on Wednesday January 28th for our scheduled excursion.* We borrowed a cell phone from the tourism booth to call them, and when Naomi (one of the owners who had actually sent us the confirmation email in December) answered, she seemed baffled as to why I would be calling and seemed confused with our reservation.* She asked if we had an email confirmation (we read off it to her..), and asked if she could call us back in 5 minutes, and when she did, she apologized and stated that everyone was*sick with Dengue Fever and their whole operation was down.* The local tourism agency seemed frustrated with this answer since 2 hours earlier, the landsailing company had been seen at the pier with their group from the Princess ship.* They assisted us*greatly by calling the other owner (Nelson Croft) who stated that everyone just got sick at noon and they had no way to contact us.* Our frustration stems not from the fact that the people running the company may be sick and had to close down, but the fact that they did not attempt in any way to communicate with us, even by email as that had been our primary means of communication thus far.* Since the local tourism booth was right off the pier and they knew the company personally, perhaps a message could have been left there or a driver could have come to the pier to notify us rather than leaving us standing in the rain for 30minutes, assuming we still were waiting for an excursion! By the time that we borrowed a cell phone and called them, waited for them to get their stories straight and call us back, we had no other options for ship shore excursions.

 

I suppose that if you already have the option to do this through your cruise line (Princess) you would have a better chance of actually doing the excursion, but as a professional who deals in patient/customer service daily, I'm appalled by their disregard for our schedule and lack of communication.

 

Take this as you will...

 

-Emily

http://www.tomandemily.com

[prose]

DH and I were on the Emerald Princess 1/29 - 2/8/09 and booked this excursion through Princess. Granted, it was $99 rather than $50/pp but Naomi picked us up at the pier and brough us back into town. The track is on the other side of the island...nowhere near the port area.

 

We had a group of 7 in our excursion, meeting for the first time on the dock. Upon arriving at the track, we were given an orientation on how the karts work, an indepth safety briefing, and provided with helmets and gloves (remember you're working with ropes). We were then fitted to our karts...different sizes based on weight. We were off!!!

 

This was by far our best excursion on a cruise to date. Nelson took everyone's cameras and took several pictures. Not one without huge smiles on their faces. The blokarts are challenging, fun, and can reach pretty good speeds. After one spin around the track, you are comfortable enough to speed up getting faster each lap.

 

We were on the track for an hour. What a rush. People in taxi's and tour buses stopped on the side of the road to take pictures. Great excursion with friendly folks. We would do it again in a heartbeat!

[psyfi]

We went land sailing off the Emerald Princess in January and had a fabulous time. We were picked up at the pier, given an orientation by map of where we would be driving and then got a cross island tour to the wild side where the Blokarts were. We had an absolute blast doing the land sailing. They took lots of pictures for us with our own cameras so be sure to bring yours. They give you gloves and a helmet (you can wear your baseball hat under the helmet if you like). One thing to note is that they did give the guys karts with larger sails so they went faster, despite the fact that I weigh more than my husband. We didn't realize this until we parked them beside each other at the end--I couldn't figure out how he kept going faster than I was! the staff were all very nice. We would definately do this tour again.

[Emily76]

Glad to hear it was a good excursion - makes me even more resentful and disappointed! :)

 

Guess the moral of the story is to book a Princess cruise to get this excursion, rather than try to book it on one's own.

 

-Emily