Jul 29, 2011 11:01 AM
8993 Views
Nothing is more delightful than a holiday away from the regular and routine life for a few days at beautiful locations with your dearest ones and we a family of three just had had such a wonderful holiday of 10 days during first two weeks of July 2011 in the exotic far east with raj travels. In this piece of writing we would like to share our experience with countless fellow travelers like us who might be facing dilemmas, obstacles and apprehensions before going for a holiday and sometimes end up with disappointments due to misinformation or lack of information, wrong choice of destination, tour operator, etc.
A well spend holiday never gets materialized without proper planning, organizing and logistical decision making, and implementation. It is no different for us too. Of the various packages offered by many tour operators finally we zeroed on the Exotic Far East package constituting tourist destinations in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore for 9 nights and 10 days offered by Raj Travel World, India and contacted the Kandivilli branch in Mumbai. We observed that the response from Kandivilli branch in Mumbai headed by Mr. Vikas Bhatt was quite proactive and looked genuine. After a few email interactions and telephonic discussions we booked the package by paying the whole amount at once around six months before the travel date in order to get a substantial discount, which though looked a bit risky at the outset, was in fact never wrongly placed as we experienced.
Contrary to many reviews which we had come across about Raj Travel World and Mr. Vikas Bhatt we observed that the tour was impeccably planned and well organized except a few trivial problems. Although, initially I had faced certain obstacles in obtaining Visa for Singapore and Malaysia as I had to do it myself since I am residing and working in South Africa, because of certain requirements such as Letter of Introduction from a local contact in Singapore, Return Air Ticket, Hotel booking, etc., by the consulates of respective countries in Pretoria, Mr. Vikas Bhatt personally helped in acquiring those documents which facilitated my Visa processing. There was another problem we faced just a few days before our ravel date which had put us in some kind of jittery. Two weeks before the journey date Mr. Bhatt informed us that unfortunately there would not be any group traveling on our desired date of travel and if we prefer we may defer or make advance our travel date or travel alone without a group. Accommodating a change in the travel date was impossible on our part, so with a lot of doubts and worry we had to agree to travel alone after receiving adequate assurance. Of course we were joined by another four nice young boys, of whom two of them accompanied us for the whole trip followed by other people in small groups at different destinations. We would like to share here that we do not have experience of traveling in a large group but traveling in a small group or as a family alone provided us with more freedom, flexibility, privacy, and more importantly greater pleasure and happiness. We would rather prefer such arrangements than traveling in large groups in future.
The local tour operators who were conducting our travel programme were highly professional, courteous and cooperative. They were always there to assist us whenever we required. The tour guides were reasonably resourceful and helpful. The accommodation provided to us was of high standard and food in Local hotels particularly Breakfast and Dinner were extremely good. The food in Indian restaurants was good too except in one or two places. Local travel and drive by coach from Kualalumpur to Singapore were comfortable. The execution of iternary was well organized and extremely punctual.
Overall, we are of the opinion that the whole tour programme was properly organized and well executed by Raj Travel world, India, with the help of local operators at different destinations even without a large group and Indian tour manager. We find Mr. Vikas Bhatt amicable, proactive, helpful and professional in contrast to many people’s opinions. We would definitely travel with Raj Travel World, India(particularly with the aid of Kandivilli, Mumbai Branch) in our next tour.
Dr.dillip das.
