Oct 23, 2016 01:16 PM
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Hi,
We have returned from the 15 day tour of Europe which was concluded on 14th Oct in Rome. The tour title is Grand Bargain. Yeah, it is a good bargain for Thomas cook.
These coach tours are purely for Statistical purpose. To claim that we have visited so many countries but you won’t be able to see the places in detail. For which you need to have lot of time and loads of money. The itinerary is more or less same for all the tour operators from India.
Initially, I had booked land package with Star Tours which is based in London who had cancelled the tour in the eleventh hour(I suppose they are notorious for the same)
We have taken only land package(direct joining at London) as we had traveled a week in advance to be with my sister who is living in London. so I won't be able to comment on the choice of flights and the experiences thereof. I have joined the group on 30th sept in hotel in London. One thing I was really surprised was they had only one day city tour of central London, which includes visit to madam Tussaud's, London Eye ride and outside view of the Buckingham palace and Albert memorial. The tower bridge and Big Ben were shown from inside the coach. for this one day the travelers have to go through the ordeal of getting U.K. visa which is a very tough that too after paying hefty fee.
Suggestion #1: extend London stay by at least a day so that the important attractions can be properly seen.
Unfortunately, when we were about to get on board the London Eye, it had developed a technical snag and our program was cancelled. Therefore, additional day will take care of such exigencies. BTW they compensated the loss with a small Rhine fall boating, which hardly substitute for the loss.
Coming to the hotels booked, most of the hotels were booked far away from city centers. Therefore all the tourists were forced to stay in the hotels and were deprived of exploring the cities on their own particularly in the nights. All the hotels were obviously'bargained' to get a good deal for TC. When the tourists are reaching hotel mostly after having dinner and leaving at 08:00 a.m. it doesn't matter whether it is a four star or two star. We don't use the swimming pools, gymnasiums or other facilities. What we use are only beds and bathrooms. The Novotel hotel provided in Paris Novotel Marne la Vallée Collégien is very far from the city centre where we had to go for Lunch, Dinner and city sightseeing. It is closer only to Disney land and that too after Disney visit, we had to go to city centre for dinner. Knowing Paris traffic, no person however insane would book this hotel It wasted our precious time of 2-3 hours each day which could have been used by us to explore the city by night. I give a big zero for the planning here. Thomas cook should try to make profit after making the customer happy and not at the cost of it.
It is the same story with all the hotels in all the cities / countries we visited. The hotel at Innsbruck Kronenhotel was awful with no air conditioner excessive heating.
Suggestion #2: Please Please don’t go for star rating and boast about the hotels provide decent hotels near to the city centers without bothering about star ratings. You may mention the same in your itinerary.
Coming to Paris again, as per the itinerary given in the website, and as per our Hyderabad(Saifabad) Thomas cook, the 30th Sep, 2016 departure included Versailles and Louvre museum and not Disney land. This has come to a rude shock to us when our tour manager announced that he was taking us to Disney instead of Louvre and Versailles. The sales guys do not have a clue about this. How can a reputed company like TC be so careless?
The food: The food provided was by and large okay and exceptionally good at some places like Rome, Innsbruck, Florence, Amsterdam, Titisee . Some places it is worse(caterer at NH hotel). The main problem regarding food is breakfast. In most of the hotels you get to eat only bread, butter, eggs and some fruits. The problem is even more for Vegetarians like me ?.
Now coming to the best part of our tour… the tour manager, Mr. Praful, who has accompanied more than 50 groups to Europe. Very well informed and multi talented person. He mingled well with the group and saw to it that we had a wonderful time. An excellent manager and asset to the group and to TC. He planned the trip immaculately and his knowledge about the region is exceptional. He mostly made good all the minuses the TC has.
Finally, I want to thank my group-mates, who came from different parts of India, gelled together well and we had a good time together.
I WOULD WITHOUT ANY HESITATION GIVE 5 STARS TO THE TOUR MANAGER, MR. PRAFUL.
