Jun 13, 2006 12:34 AM
22529 Views
We were 33 passengers on a tour called Italian Splendours(June 2nd) by Taj Tours which is a tour company run by Indians offering people( mostly Indian) a promise of a memorable holiday with experienced staff .I am a very patient person normally and an Indian myself but this tour , the irresponsible attitude of the tour manager and london head office have prompted me to wite this review.
From day one the bus we were travelling in had problems, the AC wasnt properly functional and there was no cable for the TV therefore no entertainment. It was the next day that the DRIVER of the bus was kind enough to buy o cable with his own money.Not the manger ! The problems with the AC meant that the driver had to stay up as late as 3.00am on several nights and wake up to drive us the following morning by 7am thus endangering all our lives.Yet there was no talk of the bus being replaced.
Hotel in ETRUSCO in Arezzo(Italy) was one of our overnight halts. This place had no water for people to shower in the morning resulting in chaos which finally ended by people not taking ashower that day. Can u belive that !! and one thought these things happened only in the third world!
After much pulling along the bus finally gave way and broke down in the Swiis hills on the MOTORWAY where the driver had to pull into a SOS area where the passengers stood by the roadside for 5 hours before it was temporarily fixed just to reach a place where a police coach was called to take us to the hotel.We reached at 3.00am having missed dinner (several people were diabetics), the tour manager did nothing to provide any compensation or apology.When irate passengers called the headoffice in London from their personal phones the person at the other end was rude and unresponsive.After much argument and debate a seperate coach was then brough in.
The whole tour was grossly mismanaged and the tour manager did not seem to know his job at all. On being asked he said he did not know or didnt have a clue.
Passengers were kept in the dark and were not given correct information about the change in plans etc en route.On a tour as long as this with 33 people to look after the manager did not have a functional phone at hand and kept borrowing phones from passengers.
The tour manger did not communicate with his own team( driver and cooks) resulting in personal conflicts between them affecting the passengers. On the very last day when we all thought it was finally over they failed to provide us lunch due to failure on the managers part to check if the packed lunches were loaded on the bus. A very late lunch (sandwich) was finally provied at 5.30 after making passengers including old people wait in the hot sun for over 3 hours.
*The overall handling was very unproffessional. This is not a tour for those who expect a certain level of professionalism for a service provided. I will never be travelling with them again or recommending them to anyone.
