Traveled in an air-conditioned van with no seat belts, cruising on highways with hairpin turns. "Tour" is typical for Caribbean, with long drives and short stays. Emerald pool was difficult for our age (70's) with uneven wet surfaces and long steep climbs up high steps. Pepper should caution older clients that the pool has no hand rails and slippery rocks. Next stop, "Black beach" isn't black, with very poor amenities; toilets with no seats; no beach chairs or umbrellas w/o paying an extra $10 US. Worse was the cramped seating. Pepper than stopped at his Air B&B under the auspices of stocking up. Asked us to extend our time to a 4 hr. excursion, and got snippy when we declined.

After some confusion about which tour we were on, our family of 6 (grandparents, parents and two young children) joined 4 other adults on a mini bus that headed into the hinterland. The roads were steep and winding, so our family members in the back were battling motion sickness for much of the time (not normal for them). We arrived at the Emerald Pool site and started the trek down to the base of the waterfall. This had been described as 'not wheelchair accessible' which is putting it mildly...there were hundreds of steps down (and then up) so I was unable to make the trek due to my bad knees. Everyone else in our group managed to get to the bottom of the waterfall but not many entered the pool because it required navigating slippery rocks. Once everyone had climbed back up to the bus we headed off again, making an unscheduled stop at the house of Pepper for some undisclosed reason. After that we drove miles to Mero, a fairly basic black sand beach, where some people swam and/or bought some food & drinks. Overall, the commentary from our tour leader was interesting and the scenery on this volcanic island (seen through small bus windows) was often beautiful...but I would not have paid AUD$500 for our family to do this tour if I had known what it was going to be.

Elvera (guide) and Damian (driver) gave us a wonderful tour on Easter Sunday. We visited the Emerald Pool (rumored to make you look 10 years younger) and saw beautiful foliage, including the Bird of Paradise flower. I warn you, if you are not in shape, to stop at the viewing area and let others go all the way down. Down was not bad, but going back up....ugh!! Elvera pointed out many places of interest as we traveled along. We spent a nice time at Mero Beach before heading back to the ship.