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P Kaye |
| Lives in: | California United States | | Registered: | 16 September 2005 | | Last visit: | 16 September 2005 |
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| Puerto Vallarta Review: Puerto VaExpedia's transfer/excursion operating by Expo Vallart | | Written by P Kaye on 16 Sep 2005 about a trip in Aug 2005.
| - if anyone ever do their trip booking through Expedia to PV - please make sure you don' t take the transfer offered by them. They are using this company called Expo Vallarta. It was horrible.
The transferred was a rip off. Expo Vallarta called the airport taxi for us on arrival. Customary fee for airport taxi to our hotel is 100 peso which amounted to approximately $8. We were charged $16 each or $32 for roundtrip transfer. The departure transfer was scheduled almost 3 hours early and amounted to only calling the taxi that customarily waited outside the hotel for services any way. Again - the charge was 100 peso for the both of us but we paid you guys double.
The guy who came to meet us at the hotel jumped in the cab with us in the front to be dropped off at his next hotel meet. It was almost 100 degrees that day and humid. I requested that the taxi turned on the air-conditioning. The Expo Vallarta rep. told me, after speaking Spanish with the driver, that the air-conditioning was not working - that it was the "motor problem, you know". When told him he should have selected the taxi with a working one to begin with, he insisted that he couldn't do anything about it.
I told him I want to change the taxi and he quickly jumped off at the next corner and said "Sorry - can't help you". The taxi moved along with the traffic. I told my husband that I would be writing to anyone I know to warn them of this scam of a transfer including TripAdvisor site. The taxi driver rolled up the windows and turned on the air-condition - which works perfectly.
He, then, with almost perfect English, said that he told Expo Vallarta rep that he will charge $3 extra for the air-con - and he told me that it is customary in Puerto Vallarta to do so. However, the Expo Vallarta rep said too him in Spanish to forget it. They are not going to pay extra for the air-conditioning and turned around and lied to us that the air-conditioning was broken.
The taxi driver was nice and genuine. He said that he couldn't say anything at the time with the guy there. He said that they have been operating this scam/cheat for a while.
The taxi driver didn't charge us for the air-conditioning. It was nice to know that someone there is still honest and not trying to rip off American Tourist.
My transferred amounted to a taxi ride to the airport with no air-condition - costed me doubled of what I would normally pay with convenience since our concierge just have to wave the taxi in to pick us up from where they were waiting outside the hotel. And allowed me little flexibility in pick up timeframe. A coupled friends of ours on the same flight departure left almost two hours after us to the airport and enjoyed two hours at the beach while we were sitting at the airport all that time.
A note to you on excursion: Expo Vallarta acted as if they owned you once you get there. They pushed an excursion on us to a lesser known catamaran called Calieto Lindo to Los Arcos and Las Animas. When we wanted to examine another company rep - they said you are with Expedia and you should go through us. The rep, Miquel, as well as the other rep who met us at the airport pushed us to buy the excursion in which turned out to be the worst excursion I have ever been to - I'm sure much worse than the other excusrion we wanted originally offered by Vallarta Adventure, the more reputable company to Mariettas Island.
The excursion was promised to be more intimate with better service, all inclusive of drinks, snacks, continental breakfast, lunch and kayaks, etc. - and the snorkeling spectacular. The owner of the company of the small catamaran stated on the phone that if the snorkeling was not good - they would take us to somewhere else better. Continental breakfast amounted to a slice of cheap pound cake from grocery store and a few pieces of fruits. When got to Los Arcos - the catamaran dropped us far away from the prominent arches where most other ship was at. There was few fish and the water was dirty and murky - couldn't see anything. We got back on the catamaran quick enough and went on to Las Animas beach - where we received small lunch at a beachside restaurant. We were told that we have to pay for our own drinks at the restaurant. When asked for drinks prior to leaving to the beach/restuarant, they said no - the bar is closed - so that we would have to buy drinks offered by the restaurant.
There was no kayaks offered as promised. The food was terrible and the beach dirty. Even the beach chairs in front of the restaurant required payment. We couldn't wait to leave.
The excursion ended hours early. The promised of fishing was amounted to two fishing lines hooked up to the back of the boat unattended. At the end by the pier, the guide walked around with a tip jar to each one of us and forced us to have to put something in there.
It was the worse $120 ( about $60 per person) spent on any excursions I have ever participated.
In my opinion, Expo Vallarta is a dishonest, rip-off company Expedia is associating their name with. We are seasoned travelers and enjoyed at least 4 trips a year to Europe, Asia, Hawaii and the Caribbean. We will have to think twice before buying anything expedia offered through their website again. |
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