Jun 24, 2019 10:41 PM
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Two weeks back, I returned from Magical Char Dham yatra tour. Here I am penning my feedback on the same and urge to take action on it.
My family is travelling with Cox and Kings for the third time and we would like to point out that our Bharat Dekho experience of Magical Char dham yatra 2019 was really bad.
First of all, the tour manager was ill prepared for the tour. He mentioned that he was making his first visit to Char Dham; however he didn’t make an effort to do his homework and was clueless about places and itinerary for most of the days. He had been checking from us about itinerary. Even after checking, he had to be reminded about places to cover.
Secondly, the tour manager didn’t set any deadlines for daily departures. He hardly addressed the group through a speaker(which was working) installed on the Bus – that would have ensured all are in the same boat. Often, he would inform us about tomorrow’s departure timing only late in the evening(after dinner) – that too on an individual basis. It created a lot of confusion.
Not setting a deadline resulted in our journey starting late and being behind schedule. For instance, on the last two days, he had told a deadline of 8-8:30 am for us(on being asked). And when I called him at 8 am to check the whereabouts of the rest of the members, I found that he had just woken up. The whole group finally left late at 10: 15 am. On questioning him, he said it’s the IST – Indian Standard Time.
Thirdly, we saw him get friendly with girls/ladies in the group and were seen chatting with them on the back and playing cards . Once, they were seen chatting loudly at 3 am in the morning in the bus and we promptly told them to go to sleep. On many other occasions, we noticed that he would go to the back of the bus and socialize. The consequence of it was that over a period of time, he was seen favouring the group while setting deadlines for departure and booking tickets on their behalf.
On the last two days of the journey, one of the families in the group didn’t have tickets to move ahead from Delhi. So, he purposely delayed the departure(8:30 am was the time given to us) till it was 10 am. At 10 am he was seen booking tatkal train tickets along with the other group members(we have pictures of the same). When I confronted him about it, he said he would reimburse my train ticket if we are delayed. He attempted to do tatkal booking on two occasions – delaying our departure in the process.
Lastly, at Kedarnath we had to bear the brunt of his unprofessionalism. He didn’t set time deadlines to members and the bus left at 8 pm for the hotel – leaving myself, my husband and my five-year-old son in the lurch. It was raining on that day and he had clearly mentioned a day earlier that bus would not leave till the last member checks-in from kedarnath.
While we were below at Sonprayag by 6 pm, we couldn’t communicate since there was no phone network. We stood in the queue for more than an hour to get the jeep and at 7:41 pm there were 5 missed calls from the tour manager. And at 7:50 pm the bus left – giving us hardly 9 minutes to respond.
We subsequently had to pay Rs 1, 500 to a cab driver(no receipt given) for a pick-up from the venue to the hotel – which came at 10:30 pm(2.5 hours later). The bus driver didn’t come. Till that time, all three of us were standing in wet clothes and in total discomfort. If he had preset a deadline, I would have planned to come by that time. That’s what happens in most tours. When we asked, he said that free parking was not allowed in front of that hotel and we had to bear the consequences for that.
Moreover, he gave us a wrong phone number of a Cox and king representative to be contacted at Kedarnath(above) for the hotel. This man was absconding and five of the group members were waiting for 5-6 hours after arriving at the restaurant in freezing cold and rainy weather at the top. None bothered to inform us at least the hotel name. We were asked to wait in Annapurna restaurant where Mayank didn’t even arrive. After 5 hrs of search we got hold of him through references of localites.
Moreover, in twin sharing allocation, we were asked to share room with a group member who was drunk. It was really surprising to know that Cox and Kings could have such an arrangement. This was despite many rooms being empty in the hotel.
Moreover, since tour manager was ill-prepared - everything was left to the whims and fancies of the driver. On three occasions the tour manager even missed the hotel destinations. The driver purposely was halting at a small dhaba in most localities even when good restaurants were there. On requesting to halt at a proper restaurant for lunch we were asked to shell out the lunch expenses for driver in big restaurants. Most of the days we took lunch around 3 - 4 pm. Instead of halting bus at the good location for lunch after frequent reminders at 12 pm, tour manager was easily sitting at the back bench depending on driver to look for restaurants.
Also, your brochure mentioned about giving 1 litre per day per person. He packed all bottles for the tour and three days before the tour, he said it’s finished. On being asked about it, he said we had consumed more bottles and was very rude. My family and another family member protested against it. For record purposes, he should have handed over bottles to each family on a daily basis to avoid confusion.
In short, the whole coordination for the tour was very sloppy. The tour manager was most of the time glued to his ear phones watching movies – or chatting up with women.
This experience definitely opened my eyes about the quality of services for domestic tours. I tag along with Cox and Kings for their brand promise and for being ahead of the rest in terms of services. But, this experience showed that Bharat dekho tours needs to do a lot to catching up as compared to your own Duniya Dekho.
