After going through a year of breast cancer treatment, we booked a holiday to Dominican Republic specifically to see the humpback whales, as this was one of my bucket list... read more items. Because my partner wanted it to be extra special for me, he paid for the private excursion with Booking Adventures. This was advertised as being more flexible with timings, with a personalised itinerary, customised to you, the customer. It was expensive ($540) but we decided to go for it, as this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Unfortunately, the excursion was memorable, but not for the right reasons.
Firstly, the driver (through no individual fault of his own, but rather Booking Adventures) couldn't get into our resort when he arrived - something that, if the company had asked us to sort out in advance, would have taken us 5 minutes. Instead, it took over an hour to sort and we ended up leaving an hour behind schedule. The driver rang the guys who were going to be on the boat to tell them and all seemed fine.
When we got to the port two and a half hours later, we boarded a small speedboat. We were not given lifejackets to put on and, instead, were advised to stand up because it was choppy. We travelled a further half an hour on the boat to get to the whales and, within 10 mins of reaching the area, we did see two. That bit was great. BUT, after that, the guys on the boat waited a further 5 minutes, spoke to each other in spanish and, before we realised what was going on, started travelling at speed to the island, and the whale watching was over. So, we travelled 3 hours in total, and spent $540, to spend only 15 minutes looking for whales. All we can think is that the guys had an arrangement for food on the island at a certain time, but we'd rather not have had the food and stayed out longer, but weren't given that choice. Clearly not the flexible, personalised itinerary they'd advertised.
When we got off the boat, I asked one of the guys if we could go back out after lunch to look for whales again and he said ok, so we arranged to meet back at 3pm. When it came to 3pm, we were put on the boat, but two of the guys started talking in spanish again and were clearly having an argument and stormed off, leaving us sat there in the boat waiting for them (while a bigger boat parked right in front of us blasting fumes at us). When they came back, we started driving out in the direction of the whales, but the waves were considerably larger and the seas were really rough. Again, we weren't wearing lifejackets and were told to stand up again. The guide said that the weather had turned and the seas were rough, and that three boats had been out that afternoon and not seen anything. It didn't feel safe at all, so my partner made the decision for us to head back (a decision that the crew should have made, knowing it was rough with low chance of any sightings).
The journey back was absolutely terrifying. Both my partner and I have been on boats on the ocean before many times, big and small, and have never experienced anything like this. We honestly thought we might get tipped overboard. Water was hurling into the boat and, at times, the boat was basically vertical, because of the choppiness of the water. I was clinging on so hard to the rail that I badly blistered my hands (I have lymphoedema from my treatment, so this was even more concerning) and the rail was getting really slippy, so difficult to hold on. I am not exaggerating when I say that I thought I might die. There were no other boats around us either, so god knows what would have happened if we'd capsized or someone had gone overboard. It was so unsafe.
When we finally got back to the hotel, I burst into tears because of it all and it left a bit of a cloud over the next few days of our holiday. We got the details of the owner of Booking Adventures, Halle Jackson, and contacted him about getting some form of compensation. He insinuated that we just weren't used to being on boats out at sea and that what happened was normal and he said it was unlikely we'd get a refund because refunds weren't available after you've done the excursion. We tried to be reasonable and fair with him and wanted to talk it through, but he stopped responding to our messages and we never heard from him again.
So, in short, we paid $540 to spend 15 minutes looking for whales and then have our lives put in danger on the boat ride back. DO NOT BOOK THIS TOUR. IT IS A COMPLETE SCAM AND REALLY DANGEROUS AND UNSAFE.
I spent 10 days in Dominican Republic, most of that time I was with Jackson, from Booking Adventures. We went bird watching (EXCELLENT guide), boat tours, caves, waterfalls, you name... read more 