SANTIAGOB_S, nov. 2016
This company was by far the most kind and accommodating that we came across when booking tours in Punta Cana, and we were thrilled with our snorkeling trip with them! The staff was incredibly friendly and upbeat, which we loved, and they made sure that we had fun and were constantly laughing!
We were picked up on time from our hotel in the afternoon over to where the boats are, which only took about 15 minutes. We were warmly greeted by David, who speaks both English and Spanish wonderfully we speak both, and he explained all that we would be doing and introduced us to the team! It was just my husband and I, so they took us out on a speed boat where we went over to where the trained sting rays and nurse sharks were. There they brought the stingray over and had us hold it, touch it, take pictures with it, and have it give us a back massage! Lol! Then we went snorkeling just a bit in that section to see a shark, but it was dark down where they were, so I couldn't see them well.
After that, they took us over to the party catamaran, where other people were also coming on with us. At that point, another company took over the party part, and they were not quite as attentive, but our Thoms Tour representative made up for that by always making sure we had a drink in our hand, telling us about Dominican life, and taking tons of pictures of just us privately in the catamaran and in the natural swimming pool. He took pictures during the entire trip that we got to purchase not expensive at all, either! at the very end, too. We even had a little photo shoot in the pool! It was awesome.
In the catamaran we basically danced and had drinks and yummy snacks, before going swimming in the natural swimming pool in the ocean with the other catamaran parties around us. There was plenty of music and drinks for everyone the floating bar was very cool, and it was a really fun time to just relax and swim around!
After we came back we had a chance to go into one of the shops, but the owner was really pushy and rude, which is common in these kinds of stores, but we have 0 tolerance for it, so we opted out of buying anything. He was also charging a pretty penny for some stuff that was cheaper in our hotel, so be forewarned and check your hotel prices first. Luckily David stayed and helped us escape lol because the owner kept wanting to show and sell us more stuff.
They had explained to us in the catamaran that the waves were really bad and choppy that day, so we had to skip out on the actual snorkeling for our safety. We were really upset since that's why we had booked the tour! BUT - David came to our rescue and planned another trip for us on his day off that weekend to bring us snorkeling. We were so grateful that he did that because the snorkeling was AMAZING. He gave us each a piece of bread to feed the fish with, which was so cool because fish of all shapes and colors came up practically to our faces and were swimming right in front of us! And of course we got to see the reef and just explore all around. We saw so many cool things, and it was just a great experience overall!
We were really happy with Thoms Tours and how hard they worked to make sure we got to see and experience everything! They were so accommodating and amazing, and we just had the best trip. My advice is to book snorkeling in the beginning of your trip in case the waves are bad that day, and you want to reschedule it! Other than that, we did a LOT of research on snorkeling trips, and this was by far the best one with the best value for the price. I would 100 recommend it!