Caravans

I agree, it is a way to have upset customers. I am pretty sure who it was.

I am not sure if the company was French - I am not going to name names - there were French speaking people and Quebec license plates - things worked out but my point was it is hard to believe a reputable company would show up without confirmed reservations - assume does not work.

I know it wasn't you because we know Kevin & Ruth and also Sal & Barb and they were all in Valle de Juarez at the time this happened - along with your group.

Someone recently stated on another thread on this forum that they do not need phone numbers as they do not make reservations. Anyone who has much experience in Mexico knows these places go in and out of business all the time. We call or email in advance to make sure the place is still functioning if nothing else. We do occasionally make reservations at certain places but mostly we just wing it. But we don't drive all day so we can get somewhere only to find it closed and locked up and out of business. RV parks in some areas of Mexico are too few and too far between to risk having nowhere to stay. A caravan in my post above would not be very professional if they do not have confirmed reservations.

briansue wrote:
We were at San Ramon near San Miguel de Allende when caravan arrived unannounced. They claimed they had a reservation. They said they emailed. San Ramon never received the email and never sent a confirmation. The caravan could not produce either the email or a confirmation. There wasn't room for the whole group to have hookups so about half of them had to boondock. You would think the caravan organizers are in touch with the places they visit either by email or by phone and that they receive confirmation from their prefer stops before they proceed. If you do not know the place is there and expecting you and has room for you why would you go there?

Know which one it was? French maybe? It wasn't me.

I am sorry to hear you were a bit unhappy with Adventure. They are doing Yucatan next season (jan 2017). I know because the company I am a wagon master for is organizing most of the tours for them, as they did for the trip you took. Hopefully none of those were an issue. Adventure is a very reputable company, but any issues on caravans usually boils down to the wagon master. Getting competent & experienced wagon masters is a challenge. Adventure also tends to run 20 rig caravans and I know from experience that anything over 13-14 is pretty tough to lead, even with a tailgunner. Road logs are another issue. The company I wagon master for is doing a Yucatan trip in Jan 2018 and I will be using next season establish route & road logs for that to ensure there are minimal issues, plus I wnat to come up with something a bit new. I will be taking 5 former customers along to provide advice on this scouting trip. We will also cap it at 10-11 rigs. The hope is to use Kevin & Ruth Read as wagon masters,(www.travelswithkevinandruth.com). We used them as relief for myself for one month this season while I dealt with my wifes illness. No previous experience, but they were excellent and know Mexico extremely well. Next to recruiting Mike & Terri Church, I can't think of a couple more suited.

The issues with wagon masters is that the best ones are all getting old. We use Yves Currier who is the most experienced guy in Mexico, but he is in his upper 70's. He is doing a French one for us in Yucatan next year and the english one right after. Despite the fact he has done over 35 of them, health is always a time bomb. No one makes money by being a wagon master, at best it convers all your expenses. People who do it, do it because they like people and they love this country. We did the tours for the trip you took last year and I know the wagon master had some problems as I talked to him by phone a couple of times regarding route while you were in the Mexico City area. I do not know if it was his first trip, but everyone has to start somewhere. If he is doing Adventures next season, I am sure it will be a lot better as gthe route is the same. Even if a wagon master does know the route well, things change down here so quickly, you almost have to do it once a year to keep up. Regardless, anyone signing up for a caravan in Mexico should expect some inconveniences. It's not Alaska. I learn things every year, this year I learned I need to carry spare trailer shackles (mine plus one over rig failed and fortunately my wife was able to fly some down with her). Also the fact you cannot get replacement tires down here for many rigs, class A's & trailer tires esp. I will be advising future customers to carry an off rim spare. One trailer in our group currently has the spare for my truck on his 5th wheel. Being a wagon master in Mexico has plenty of challenges, don't be too hard on the guy you had, he probably did an excellent job in the circumstances.

We were at San Ramon near San Miguel de Allende when caravan arrived unannounced. They claimed they had a reservation. They said they emailed. San Ramon never received the email and never sent a confirmation. The caravan could not produce either the email or a confirmation. There wasn't room for the whole group to have hookups so about half of them had to boondock. You would think the caravan organizers are in touch with the places they visit either by email or by phone and that they receive confirmation from their prefer stops before they proceed. If you do not know the place is there and expecting you and has room for you why would you go there?

You asked for the good or bad on Mexico caravan travel. We have taken two Mexico trips with Adventure caravans. 6 years ago a 42 day Copper Canyon trip that was well organized, well planned and almost flawless. Highly recommended!
In Jan. 2015 we took another Mexico caravan with adventure that
lasted 59 days and over 4000 miles.This covered the Yucatan and down to Belize . Apparently this trip had not been ran in years. Getting lost was a normal occurrence. Causing many rigs to purchase a Mexican GPS as the logs were not updated. There appeared to be strife with in the Adventure caravan staff as they were frustrated also. We spent many nights in parking lots because some campgrounds were no longer in business or entry was not possible due to overgrown vegetation. The most serious situation was when a road was closed in a small city and we spent the night on a residential street with 3 other rigs and hired a local to escort us out in the am and meet up with the group. This was truly unsafe!
Many of us called the Adventure caravans office and voiced our concerns and they responded by sending a troubleshooter to help for a couple of weeks. This did help. You learned to travel with your pod and leaned on each other during travel days. Roads were blocked during strikes and you found your way, sometimes by hiring a cab to find the way. Some awesome sights were scene. Mexico is a beautiful country.
I believe if Adventure would have ran this trip to check out conditions before the trip it would have avoided many of these problems.

Well i have considered filling my fresh water tank with Vodka

Kidoo; They were just plain stupid!! Had they been caught the vehicle would have been confiscated and they probably would have gone away accompanied by a Mountie! Smuggling liquor into Canada is a serious violation.

Moisheh

Tequila wrote:
Sure, you pay for a tour to avoid the hassles and not have to worry. Same with caravans. There is a couple from Quebec in our park right now who did not get either visas or vehicle permits. They just drive across the border & south. They did not know they needed them. Naive, maybe, but there are language barriers as well in the picture. Now they are in big trouble. I am going to have my boss, who is Mexican, speaks French fluenty, and has connections with officials to try & resolve it for them. He will do it for nothing just for the PR value, but it does show why some people should use a Caravan for their first trip. There are gators out there waiting to bite you if you do not know the ropes.

Some people just don't read and don't care about the rules and end up in trouble. I know a women who came back from USA through Canadian border with her daughter for the first time in their life and they declared 40 bottles of alcool they bought at Walmart! they did not know there was a limit... She was turned around to return the bottles and she thought, gee, let's try again but don't say anything, they hided the bottles, came back and said they had nothing to declare and went by. They could have been in big trouble, not just once, but twice, naive or just plain stupid

I have been on trips with Baja Winters, Adventure and Fantasy. I would recommend them all. I would pick Adventure over Fantasy. At the time, you got a couple of more days for a few less $ and they were a little easier to deal with.

I was thinking most of the caravans stopped running the mainland trips around 8 years ago. This thread interested me, so I checked the current Adventure and Fantasy trips. Not much---mostly Baja and Copper Canyon. Not like the old days when each were running multiple trips as far south as Belize. Just checked my passport 02/25/2007 in Belize.