Nightmare.We booked a nighttime clear kayak tour for 7 people. You cannot get anyone on the phone to answer questions. When you call you get a text asking to talk that way. I texted my questions and never got an answer. We went ahead and booked online. The day of our excursion I got a text saying that the tour would need to be canceled with a refund OR rescheduled due to the tour guide having a tire shop "fuck him over" and a tire blow out and almost kill him." We rescheduled.
We all requested individual kayaks due to weight limits or 425 per kayak, we didn't want to cut it close with 2 people in each. The guide adjusted the seat in each kayak to "distribute the weight appropriately for one rider".
At the launch site the kayaks were sitting in no less than a FOOT of rotten decomposing sea grass. The smell was vomit inducing.Choosing that area to launch when there was a boat ramp no less than 100 ft away was weird.
A member of our group snapped the straps of their sandals walking through this mush.One member of our group had to BACK OUT and miss the entire excursion because her kayak was in so much rotten grass she couldn't even safely get in her boat without slipping.
The water was murky and full of sand and debris,the guide announced that"we can't really see much on this tour, a storm blowed through earlier and makes the water murky".I understand they have no control over the weather, but when the entire point of the tour is to be out at night and look down into the water with the lights why would something not have been said ahead of time about the conditions not being right.We saw nothing on our tour.Murky water you couldn't and rotten sea grass smells were our companions.
My BIGGEST complaint with the company is once we were out in the middle of the bay, hearing a member of our group call "IM SINKING!" I then turn around to see a sunk kayak and my brother treading water in the bay at night.Everyone rushed over and helped get the sunk kayak out of the water. My brother couldn't get back in the kayak without sinking.
He had to drag his kayak and swim to a shallow area where we finally got him back in the boat. The boat started immediately filling up with water and we tried to get him to shore. My brother mentioned multiple times that he believed his boat had a leak, the guide insisted the boat was fine. He had no choice but to swim back to shore - about 250 yards - in Tampa bay, at night, in black water.
The guide, who was forced to jump in the first time the kayak sunk made multiple comments about how he hated swimming in the ocean at night and "who knows what type of sea life is out here" and he quickly wanted back in his boat and out of the dark water. He made the journey back to shore in his boat while my brother swam and had to wade through the rotten sea grass at the bank.
Our tour was cut short due to spending 30+ min on a water rescue.
The next morning I texted the owner and asked him if he had been made aware of the situation, let him know that we felt we were entitled to a refund for at least ONE tour, for my brother who spent his tour swimming in Tampa bay at night. The owner said he hadn't heard anything about this, would contact the guide and get back to me. He never did. 24 hours later I sent him a follow up text asking if he "had any updates" He immediately responded saying that the my brother sunk due to being over the weight limit, and that the company was not at fault and no refund would be given. He also said he got our full 1.5 hour tour. When I responded back that text saying my brother was NO WHERE NEAR the 425 POUND weight limit and we would like at least ONE refund, the owner quickly responded back asking me to quit texting him and told me "you are the issue".
There was no harassing texts, and I would have been happy to discuss things over the phone initially, but he would not answer.
This experience was so bad, so expensive, and had so much poor customer service, I couldn't not warn others about this. read more
