South America Cruides
Leg 1
Puerto Quetzal Guatemala
Feb. 9, 2013
Description & Accessibility
We went on a carnival arranged tour…
Easy Antigua Sightseeing – Duration 5 hours
Now it was listed as a tour for mobility impaired slow walkers tour, and as such you would have expected the vehicles to have some storage capabilities for walkers, wheelchairs and devices that would fit in under bus storage areas. Where some other tours used motor buses with storage compartments under bus, this tour used mini buses with no under bus storage so mobility devices had to be loaded in the hallway in the middle of the bus.
The tour had some interesting scenery along the way, Antigua area was interesting. The first stop was at a jade factory.
We met a young girl hanging around the outside of the jade factory very pleasant with no hands apparently born that way we gave her a few dollars and my wife gave her a necklace which she really liked.
Well then the buses did not return, several of them broke down, so then the organizers spent considerable time finding and getting replacement vehicles, some people where taken to the main square where there was a park and some shopping while others waited again at the jade factory for other transportation to arrive. We where then taken to that park shopping area where 5 minutes later we boarded other transportation back to the ship. Street venders are there if you look at anything they may as one person did with us follow you until you get on the bus still trying to sell you something.
We got to less than half of what we suppose to be included in the tour because of broken don buses.
We where late getting back to the ship but because it was part of carnival booked tour the ship will wait.
There was shopping at the port which we had no time to check out very well.
The streets around Antigua can be a challenged as some are cobblestone and ruff and can be difficult to get through with a wheelchair.
Shore excursions on the ship refunded 50% of the tour cost because of the issues with the tour but you had to go there and complain they did not volunteer that without first complaining and asking for some discount on it.
By: Donald Kerr