We did the post-cruise ship's tour in March of 2009. Our driver was dangerous and talked nonsensically. I am not a physician, but if I were to guess I would say this quite elderly man suffered from Parkinson's disease. We were told that we would be returned to the airport by 1:30. We arrived at 3:30 and 6 of the people on the tour had 4 p.m. flights--2 of these had international flights. We only made our flights at all because at the second stop we refused to get off the bus, as a group, and forced the driver to turn back to San Juan. He had driven between 18-21 miles an hour all the way to the rainforest area. We had vehicles backed up behind us for perhaps a mile and a half (we cruised at about 45 mph on the return trip--conditions or speed laws did not dictate the erratic and extremely slow trip). We all had motion sickness and headaches and anxiety about reaching the airport. RCCL (thankfully) refunded 50% of this experience after many many phone calls. We were told that tours offered through the ship are for the convenience of their guests and are in no way guaranteed by RCCL or vetted by them for quality. They merely reserve the right to cancel tours with a vendor they get too many complaints about. The rainforest was lovely and I would love to see it some other time, but will probably never do a post-cruise tour again in the wake of this near disaster. The rain forest is a goodly distance from both the cruiseport and the airport. With one direct flight from San Juan to Minneapolis daily I will not chance missing it again. It was also a good education in what kind of protection you get when booking through the ship.
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Laurie
RCCL Nordic Empress 1993
RCCL Nordic Prince 1994
RCCL Explorer 2003, 2005
RCCL Navigator, 2004, 2007
RCCL Mariner 2006
RCCL Liberty 2008
RCCL Adventure 2009
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