Thomas Cook Grand Bargain tour Europe with Deepak. Review on Thomas Cook India

Hi, It is a long review but I have tried to address all questions I had when I was searching for reviews so it would help others. I have been to Europe before but traveled on my own. This was my first tour with Thomas Cook.

Some basic info about myself - I traveled as family with wife, parents and parents-in-law.

There are 3 parts to this:

1) Why Thomas Cook?

• I had done an exhaustive study of the available packages with Major & Small Tour Operators - Thomas Cook, Cox, SOTC, Kesari, MMT, Yatra, Star Tours, Veena World etc and compared about 40 packages with itinerary and costs which suited my need. I was looking for UK+ Europe in around 13-15 days. I found Thomas Cook offering that at a very competitive price and covering as many sights as possible.

2) Tour Booking

• The booking process was smooth and VISA was initiated well in advanced. They guide you in terms of required documentation and book your slot. The Sales Exec answered all our queries properly and kept things very transparent right from the start in terms of what will be included and what will not be. No false promises were made. We did hear some co-passengers complaining about the booking process etc but it was not a problem for us. A tip here would be to prefer booking from Thomas Cook owned branches rather than franchisee.

3) Tour -

• It was a 14N15D tour starting on 6th July'2016. I had read a lot of reviews which mentioned that tour would be hectic and tiring so we were prepared for that. However, we felt it was manageable and none of us(including my parents & in laws who are 60 yrs old with history of back pains) felt it was too hectic or exhaustive. Having said that, we were outside the hotel(Travelling+ Sightseeing+ Lunch/Dinner) for almost 12 hours daily which will be true for any group tour but given the quality of bus & roads, you don't feel tired.

Sightseeing:

• All the sightseeings were covered as promised with no hidden/additional/surcharge costs taken on the tour.

  
  




• The Coach(bus) quality was good with comfortable seats and the good roads make sure you enjoy the travel time as well.

  
  




• We were a little worried about the France sightseeing since the Euro Cup Finals was in Paris the next day but in spite of heavy traffic and crowd we covered everything as per the plan.

  
  




• We were never rushed through any of the sights citing time constraints and were given reasonable time to enjoy them except of course, shopping, for which the females will always want more time:)

  
  




• The Tour Manager stays with you at the airport(which we did not expect) for your return flight until you check in and helps out with all the formalities including the process of VAT refund etc

  
  

Food:

• All meals were included and as promised they were Continental Breakfast and Indian Lunches & Dinners.

  
  




• Please do not expect the same taste as you get in India but it is decent and edible. Thomas Cook makes it a point to not repeat any restaurants so that we get some change.

  
  




• Most of us are not used to eating full meals for both Lunch and Dinner so you start getting bored of same type of food in few days but then variations like Gujarati Food, Chat, South Indian etc helped. We had opted for Jain food and it was made available at all the restaurants.

  
  




• There were 2 restaurants which did not serve good food but otherwise it was okay.

  
  

Flights:

-This was the only bad part of the package since we were given 1 stop flight(of course keeping cost in mind) even though there were direct flights available. The return flight was in the evening on the last day when we had to checkout at 11am and were taken to the mall and then to airport for 9pm flight. An extra day was wasted due to this.

Tour Manager:

-We were welcomed by our Tour Manager Mr. Deepak Karkera at Heathrow Airport. He came across as a strict professional from the first glance but turned out to be a soft spoken, friendly and an excellent Tour guide for the entire tour.

-Tour Manager is probably a major deciding factor on how your tour will turn out to be since all the Tour Operators will promise you the best itinerary on paper but executing it well to make it a memorable tour completely depends on the Manager and his/her skills. Thomas Cook boasts of having a very good team of Managers and if the rest of the team is as good as Mr. Deepak then I am sure they are right.

-Deepak made sure he managed our group of 48 odd people(all senior citizens except 2 young couples and 2 kids) very well. He explained the upcoming sights, gave us information about the History & Geo of the places etc. He would repeat the instructions multiple times and explain the process in detail whenever required for visits like to Eiffel Tower, Jungfrauch, Mount Titlis etc

-He was very patient in handling the difficult situations and issues raised by passengers and tried his best to resolve them. Sincere thanks to him for making this a memorable tour of us!

Things which could have been better:

-Better flight timings should be provided

-Tips can be shared on how best to use your free time at sights

-An evening Tea or Coffee would help:)