We had an incredibly poor experience on this tour. Before you write this off as a random 1 star review, I highly recommend reading through our experience detailed step by step below.
We arrived 45 minutes early for the 10 pm 90 minute tour, and our group of 11 people was ready to go 15 minutes early. On their website, we had selected to use single kayaks for our party of 2, but upon arrival were told that they only have doubles, and that everyone was going to ride tandem. The website should not present options that do not exist. Not really a huge deal, but something to note.
At the time we were supposed to leave, a large group of ~20 people came late (at 9:58 pm, after we had finished the orientation and were about to take the kayaks out). They were initially told they would not be allowed on due to late arrival by our tour guide, but after much insistance from their group and a phone call to the main office, they were let on. I suspect the boss in the main office didn’t want to lose all of those paying customers, even if that meant departing late.
Because of the new group we didn’t get into the water on time (the first group got into the water at 10:15, and we did not start moving until at least 20 minutes later). Again, not a huge deal. We expected the 90 minute tour to end late, given we had started late. But, that did not end up being the case. Instead, we were on the water for about 45 minutes, with 20 minutes as an optimistic estimate of time spent kayaking and touring (the rest of the time the tour guides spent keeping the group of 16 boats together). We did a small loop around the canal that was clearly a lot shorter than those that other tours were doing. We ended up being the first group in our tour to reach the shore at 11:08 pm.
We took a few steps to try to amend the poor experience. While we were on the boat, we realized this excessively large group was extremely slow and that we were burning valuable kayaking time, and asked the guide if we could move to the next tour (at 11 pm). The guide said that was not allowed. We then called the main office after arriving back on shore to ask if we could be placed on another tour that day, or receive a partial refund for the experience detailed above. The guy on the line said “I have not heard anything else negative regarding that tour and can not do anything.”
The experience left a bitter taste in our mouths. We didn’t get the tour we paid for, which was half the length we signed up for with a majority of the time spent by two tour guides trying to manage a clearly overbooked group of 16 boats. We paid for a kayaking tour, not a float in the water tour. Another group that arrived early felt similarly as well, and to put it in their words, “that was total bulls**t.”
I hope this review is valuable for whoever reads it, and I’d recommend considering other tour companies before settling with Florida Adventurers.
Réponse de l'hôte
Sep 2022
Hey Karen, thanks for your insightfully dishonest breakdown.
First off, we make it blatantly clear in the "What you should know" on every tour options page, that we only offer tandem kayaks, we even let you know the combined weight they hold. No need to be dishonest about things plainly visible for all guests to see, to make an educated purchase.
As for the guests we waited for, Unfortunately we had been in contact with that large party the entire evening as they were coming from Atlanta. They had hit traffic and were doing the best they could to arrive on time. We couldn't get ahold of the guides down there as the signal isn't the greatest. As I told you that night, we hadn't heard anything about any tour from anyone. Guides leave tour notes at the end of the night.
There is a reason we wait to refund guests as opposed to just blindly issue refunds . Your tour was cut short by 5mins. You still haven't called back like we asked you to so we could speak w/you after speaking with our guides (3).
Typically this happens when a story is known to be false and the strike early for the refund didn't work. We do not refund guests for a tour that was cut short by 30 minutes or less, we'd issue them a raincheck, as we offered to do w/you.
However, we'd still love to have you back out w/us and would be very happy to offer you a raincheck.. Plz call the office 😊