Miami Seaplane Tours — Local services in Miami

So I bought 4 Groupons at $75 for our family (a total of $300) for the seaplane flights when we visited Miami in June 2012. The booking process was very easy. They answered the phone promptly, had our Groupon codes down and sent us a boarding pass for 2 flights as we split into two parties as we take turn to look after a young baby. They told us that tax and gratuity were not included and if we want to pay by credit card we should call one day before or we will need to pay by cash to the pilot. I called the day before our flights and said I want to pay the tax by credit card and will give the pilot tip in cash. Knowing Floridan tax is about 7% that would be roughly $20 so I didn't ask them to confirm the total amount charged. The flight was very enjoyable. The pilot told us that he owns this company and two planes and he is going to buy a new bigger plane. My husband said that the pilot shouldn't expect any tip as he would make a lot of money from this business. However, I decided to tip him because I enjoyed his talk about the area. We received an invoice of $110 in my email stating "GT for flights". I called them up to clarify. The same lady who took my credit card confirmed the tax was $20 and the rest was for gratuity I said I only authorised the tax charge and I already tipped the pilot and that I never authorised them to do that on my credit card. She told me I need to talk to Tony. The first thing he asked me "How much did you tip the pilot?" When I told him, he said bluntly "That is not customary. It should be 15% on the full price of the flights which is $600 if we didn't buy from Groupon". Thats why they charged me $90. He asked if I want to get a refund of $40 for the tip that I already gave the pilot. I agreed but felt that I was forced into double tipping because they had my credit card details. I believe in tipping but it is for service people who earn $8.50/ hour at restaurants/ hotels who rely on tipping for their living. However, for a pilot who earns a high wage or owns his own company, tipping should be at customer's discretion, not by forced tipping which was the case in this circumstance. I talked to a travel consultant and he agreed that it was wrong that they did that and what I tipped was reasonable. I wrote to Tony (apparently the president and owner) to ask for refund of this unauthorised charge and as defiant as he was at the first time he said the fee I paid for was only for "chair came with wings attached" and they had fine print on Groupon saying "Tipping is on the full amount of pre-dicounted service". This was not the case as there was no such print on Groupon and its appalling that he could say that about the money I spent on this service. I don't expect any less than how the flight and the pilot were. I would never go back to this company and wouldn't recommend anyone use their service. If you do, make sure you know what you are paying. Dont give them your credit card. Its really sad that how greedy the owner can be. His attitude was absolutely horrible. When I said I will dispute the charge at my bank, he said my "buyer remorse". Seriously, with that sort of service and attitude, I am regretting about using them and giving them my credit card. The bottome line is I never authorized this charge and it is illegal for them to...

Very professional Company! I searched many ideas online, as I was planning for a special marriage proposal to my girlfriend. I was looking for something out-of-the-ordinary, adventurous, but yet romantic. Miami Seaplane Tours popped up in my search and ideas started swimming in my head. From my first email inquiry, to planning the trip (months in advance), Miami Seaplane Tours was an absolute pleasure to work with. Their customer service was bar none! I had many questions and requests. Nicolle assisted in every way possible; she made me feel very comfortable, and if there was a question that she didn’t have an answer to (trust me, I threw a few curve balls at her), she promptly got the answer or offered a suggestion.

Operation Bimini Twist begins. The trip was from Miami to Bimini, Bahamas, and had to be surprise; I mean I was proposing. Miami Seaplane Tours played along with my plan, which was to pretend I won this trip through a raffle. The day before the trip was planned for, Nicolle got me in touch with the Pilot Tony. This was my chance to introduce myself to Tony prior to meeting and prepare a game plan for the day, and make sure we were on the same page. Tony flew a flawless trip over-and-back. He put the plane down in the multiple shades of blue/green water parallel to the coastline better than any professional airliner pilot could put a plane down on a stationary runway. We ended up flying over together (side-by-side) with another plane from Miami Seaplane Tours piloted by Adriel (we were cool!).

Tony ended up being our tour guide for the day when we got to the island. The one thing Miami Seaplane Tours has no control over, is “Island Time”, you just roll with it. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. Tony knew all the right places to take us to in the short time we had planned for (again, I was on a mission more than anything). Later in the afternoon, Tony brought us to a “Slice of Paradise” where I got down on one knee and asked those famous words. I want to note, not only is Tony an awesome pilot, he’s a pretty damn good photographer also. Unbeknownst to us, we accomplished getting our engagement photos out of the trip as well. With about one hour till we had to depart, it gave us just enough time for a quick dip into the amazing salt water, then we were on our way back to Miami after a quick rinse in the showers at the...

My wife and I came to Marathon Key for a vacation from Texas. We hired Miami Seaplane Tours "MST" to take us on a tour of the keys and then out into the Everglades for a Airboat trip. Then my sister and her husband "they live up in Port St. Lucie Fla." wanted to go so what we had them do is let my sister and her husband get on the plane in Miami, fly down to Marathon Key and pick us up then fly along the coast back up to the Everglades. From there it was on out into the glades, along the entire trip our pilot Averil was talking to us and explaining how the glades clean the water and help so much with the Eco system, how the animals live and survive in the marsh. One thing he said was that there were hardly any birds in the marsh anymore because of all pythons that now have taken over out there. You can see birds on lands close to where the tribes live out there because they are always hunting the pythons. Now the airboat trip with Buffalo Tiger Airboat was not that good because the airboat company over booked all there boats for a big tour group. "100 people" so they only took us on a 20 minute trip instead of hour or more. It was NOT the fault of "MST" it was Buffalo Tiger Airboat company. 100 people instead of 4 but that is how the world works these day and MST could not do anything about other the tell them we were not happy about it. From there MST flew us to the island of Islamorada to the Lorelei Restaurant for a late lunch it right on the water and the plane landed a drove right up to the dock. The food was great and the people were very nice. From there we flew back to Marathon so Averil could drop us off and then fly back to there home base in Miami to let my sister and husband off.. All and all it was a great trip and would do it again but ask MST to maybe use a different Airboat company. Again Averil is a great pilot and took off and landed smoother then most of the big airlines we...