Cartagena-San Blas

Unfortunately our experience with Hernando and Maria's boat hasn't been so good. We had read some suggestions on internet and so we did the trip Cartagena-San Blas with them but the service has been quite disappointing. Maybe in these years things has changed as there is more request.

I'll try to tell our experience as it can be useful to someones. Hernando's catamaran is in good conditions and he seems to be a good person, but:

1.Capacity. the boat had the capacity of 10 persons maximum and he filled it up to 13 people. 2 persons had to sleep in the kitchen's sofa bed, wich they knew in the last minute (quite injust, as they paid the same as everybody) and on top they had to share it with Hernando's helper who didn't have a bed. The cabin's beds didn't have pillows nor bottom sheets. Somebody asked for it and the answer was "what do you need another sheet for?!".

2.Tank water. It was forbidden to use water (they kept the autoclave closed during the hole trip and you couldn't even wash your face and teeth in the morning, unless you had a little bottle to fill up when they switched on water to cook). Soon we discovered that there was so few water because they were giving us tankwater to drink! Awful, since carribbean tapwater is not drinkable, in fact Hernando and his wife had their own bottles of sparklingwater. Fortunately we had some yodopils, but we've had anyway stomach problems. In the meeting we have had some days before leaving, they had told us that there would be enough drinkingwater for everybody, but they never told us that it would be tankwater and that we couldn't even have one shower during the five days.

3. The food. Hernando said in the meeting that in the islands he would buy fish and lobsters but the reality was different: during the ride to San Blas we ate only salads for lunch and dinner (some people had already told to María that they didn't eat salad and she gave to them a plate of corn, although there was lots of other cans and other food in the fridge). When we got to San Blas, they bought some fish but no lobsters. Hernando said that they were too big, so we had to pay for it. We told him that, if they were too big to eat one each, he could just buy a couple of them and we would share them, but he said no. The worse was the last dinner of the trip: they had bought fish and María made soup with it. They gave us a cup of soup each, but actually there was no fish inside but only the hot water! this and some crackers was supposed to be the dinner.

4. Service. We had to pay the whole price of the trip (400$) the day before leaving but we suggest to pay the half before traveling and the other half only at the end. We chose these people because they seemed to be friendly and reliable, but since the beginning of the trip we noticed a big change in manners (quite arrogant) and service (didn't correspond to what we paid). and service. Paying the second half in the end is the only way to make sure to receive a good service.
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