"Barrett Tours" Top 5 Page for this destination Negril Things to Do Tip by toonsarah

We arranged both our tours (one to the Black River and the Appleton Rum distillery, the other to Rocklands) through Carolyn Barrett of Barrett Adventures, having seen her tours recommended on VT. The fairest thing to say about her is that the places we were taken were good (but with the exception of the river-rafting, were places we’d have known to go to anyway), but the service we received from the company was mixed. On the plus side, the drivers (Errol and Decon) were both reasonably good (we felt as safe as you can do on Jamaican roads) and were punctual. On the downside, there was a lack of organisation that led to us missing lunch on the first day, because Errol hadn’t been told that we’d booked it, so took us straight from the Black River to the distillery where no food is sold. However, this was nothing compared to the second day out, when the plans fell apart completely.

Having learnt my lesson from the previous mix-up, I checked with Decon that he was fully aware of our planned itinerary as soon as we set out, only to discover that he only knew about the first of our intended destinations, the Hilton Head plantation. On learning that we wanted to go as well to Rocklands, he said that to do both places in a day would mean not getting back to Negril until about 9.00PM. This would have been far too late as it was our last day on the island and we had dinner reservations at our favourite restaurant (the Rockhouse) so we asked for a rethink of the plans. After he'd made several calls to Carolyn on his mobile (a bit unnerving on these roads!) I was able to talk to her myself and reschedule the day. As Rocklands was the place we most wanted to visit, we went there first and then to the Great River, dropping Hilton which she told us was more or less a whole day out.

This left us with some unanswered questions however. Why, if it was a whole day out, had she herself proposed combining it with Rocklands when we’d originally consulted her about tour options? Why did Decon tell us it would be such a long day, only to back-track later, when all the changes had been made, to say he could have got us back by 6.30PM? And why did we somehow end up paying US$10 more when the river-rafting is clearly a much cheaper attraction than Hilton and we were out for a shorter period than originally booked?

After several emails to Carolyn the last question remains unanswered, though she did refund the money we’d paid for the non-existent lunch on the first day. So I’m afraid I have to say that I would NOT book a tour with her again, and CAN’T recommend her to others.

Website: http://www.barrettadventures.com/