We booked an English speaking tour but almost all explanation were in Portuguese only. We reminded the guide more than once to please speak English with us, however his English speaking skills had room for improvement. If you pay the taxes and the island entrance fee (total 45R$ p.p.) with card, you have to pay 55R$ (so better to bring cash). The boat takes you to a private beach with three restaurants. We were asked immediately after the arrival to place an order for the overpriced food (e.g. 40R$ for a portion of fries). In return, the umbrella on the beach is for free. The beach is very nice und the crew asked several times of everything was okay ("todo bem?") so we appreciated the effort but all in all this tour is not worth the price.

Nice beaches and good transfer. There wasn’t enough beach buggies to accommodate everyone in the tour and communication wasn’t very smooth.

Enjoyed a perfect day. Very well organized and you have a lot of alone time to do as you please Great hosts!!! Only positive !!

We spent five hours in a bus as opposed to enjoying more time at Praia do Forte e Guarajuba. Far too many pick ups all over the city. We've Benn told to be ready at 7.20am and ended up arriving ar Praia do Forte which is 60km away from Salvador at 10.30am. It feels to me that they just want to take as many passengers as possible regardless of the area they are staying. Very disappointing service.

The experience was great. The hotel pickup was very convenient and both the driver and the guide Thiago were very nice, friendly and respectful and with great content on the history and location. The morning time at Praia do forte was a bit rushed (I decided to do both snorkeling and Tamar project), but if only one is chosen then it would have been more relaxed. The snorkeling activity was okay, not entirely happy with the pictures I was sent and they should perhaps organise it better because other people on the way kept scaring all the fish when I was had my pictures taken. The Tamar project was very nice with a 40 min guided tour. Praia de Guarajuba was beautiful and we spend there about 3h. The facilities were very nice and pleasant too (see pictures added).

Wow! I rarely write reviews, but must rave about this incredible cruise to two amazing islands near Salvador Brazil: Islã dos frades and Itaparica. The boat is lovely, staffed by a smiling, courteous team who make amazing drinks with fresh fruit while playing Brazilian music on drums and tamborine. Islã dos frades has crystalline water and Itaparica is a lovely place to stop for lunch and enjoy local history. The tour agency was great, and have us all the information we needed, along with a reminder about check-in the night before. Our kids loved the entire day as much as we did. We would highly highly recommend this cruise to anyone looking for an amazing day in Brazil.

Unfortunately choosing this tour was a disaster, even if Ilha dos Frades is a beautiful place. I tried repeatedly to book several days in advance via TripAdvisor, but I was rejected for lack of a Brazilian CPF. I ultimately was able to book directly on De Boa’s website the night before, but I missed the fine print that reservations must be made 12 hours in advance (I was 10.5 hours in advance). I don’t understand why the website let the booking (and my payment) go through if this is the policy. I tried to confirm directly with the tour company in the morning, but I didn’t receive a response for over two hours, by which time the boat was already boarding. The guide then told us, as we were getting on the boat, that our trip was cancelled due to “bad weather,” and that we were taking a different route instead. Rather than five hours at Ilha dos Frades, we would have only two. We were not offered a refund as is claimed in the description. At midday we were able to negotiate with the guide (who had disappeared as soon as we arrived at the island), who said we could stay later and take another boat back. Unfortunately, returning to the boat terminal, waiting in line, and negotiating with him ate up an hour of our day, and ultimately the boat we took to return was smaller and not so seaworthy. Many people were having panic attacks and all the passengers were soaked as we ran into the “bad weather” for which our tour had supposedly been canceled in the first place and for which we were not offered reimbursement. When I contacted De Boa again that night, the owner told me “thankfully everything worked out.” I disagree. All of this could have been avoided with better communication—I would have happily accepted a refund if he had answered my communication in the morning and told me that he could not honor the reservation because I had made it too late and because the travel would be unsafe. Rather than book with De Boa or a similar company, we recommend taking the brief ferry from Madre de Deus to the other side of Ilha dos Frades. Business owners on the island informed us that De Boa and other tour companies do what I described all the time.

I think you'll find, my reviews are balanced and informative, so I've never said this about a travel provider or excursion before: This one is irredeemably AWFUL. The logistics of this trip make absolutely no sense except to line the pockets of a money-grubbing tour operator. Ultimately, while the Tamar project was interesting and the ice cream at Praia do Forte delicious, the beach at Guarajuba was just so-so by our standards and the restaurant there was more touristy than tasty, and there really wasn't a lot of educational information such that the "guiding" provided much additional value. So I would probably give only a moderately-positive or mediocre review even if the logistic had been wonderful... and they absolutely were not. We understood this excursion to be 8 hours long. I even contacted the company in advance to confirm the departure time and tour length so we could safely book evening plans, but they never provided a clear answer. But when we were told pick-up would be before 7am, I figured we were safe to make dinner plans (spoiler alert - we were not). We were picked up in the Pelourinho neighborhood at 6:45 a.m, and then proceeded to drive around for MORE THAN 2 HOURS picking up other passengers (we were the 2nd pick-up of maybe 20?). We picked up the last passenger, still in Salvador, at 9:05 am and then BEGAN the 1.5 hr trip to Praia do Forte. Our guide, Vladamir was oblivious for awhile, but once he understood our frustration and our evening conflict, he did what he could to help. We were the only English-speakers on the tour of at least 30 (so no fast-friends made from commiserating), but Vlad's English was excellent, and I believe his recaps for us were complete. And he was apologetic that we had not been given clear information about the trip logistics and seemed to share our dismay about how much of the day consisted of hotel pick-ups. Unfortunately, he also confirmed that the order of drop-offs would be in reverse so if we stayed with the tour, we would waste another 2+ hours at the end of the trip before arriving back to our accommodations. He offered to help us arrange alternate transportation (at our cost), but at the end of the day, we had the bus drop us off as soon as we got back into Salvador (near the mall and airport) and we took an Uber back to our accommodation (the best ~USD5 we spent that day) to save us the 2+ hours of driving around. We still missed our dinner reservation, but thankfully made it to the theater performance that followed.

I honestly don’t understand what we paid for with this booking. on top of the booking fee, we paid for the return boat fare, fee to enter the island, a tax, a very expensive lunch, all drinks on the boat and tip for the music. It could have been done alone. The boat was so slow too, the three hour journey back was unbearable.

The operator cancelled the tour in the early hours of the morning, supposedly because of the weather but I didn’t understand this reason as the weather was fine. It was too last-minute to book another tour so it was essentially a wasted day of holiday

Everything promised in this tour is a lie Not only did we not get an english speaking tour guide as promised (no one spoke english and wouldn’t even use google translate to tell us anything ), we went to two islands not the one as said on the tour. We wanted to spend several hours on one island which is why we booked this specific tour . It says music is included but they ask for money for the band so it isn’t included. Very disorganized. They said 3 hours on each island but it was 2. I would not recommend. Save yourself the money and go on your own. Also I wouldn’t Call the boat a schooner. I asked for a refund and they are saying we got on the wrong boat at the wrong time. This is a lie . We showed up to the dock at the time asked for us to come and were pointed to a boat.