Oct 04, 2015 08:26 PM
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I had many bad experiences with this club and I would advice female travelers to stay away from travelling with them
Last month I had booked a trekking trip to Gangotri. After transferring the money and receiving confirmation for the trip, I went ahead and made travel and acco from my hometown to Dehradun Having spend 40K on the trip and 25K on the travel before and after, I received a call from them the week before the trip saying that they are closing the trip since 4 out of 10 travelers who had booked the trip cancelled due to the news of a landslide in the Himalayas. At first I was disappointed and thought safety was first, but on further research found that landslides were a daily occurance in the Himalayas and the Gangotri trekking route was safe and realized that they had cancelled the trek just because they didnt have enough folks for the trek.
When I called their customer service I was asked why I had made travel arrangements on my own and that all their clients made all travel arrangements with them. When I pointed out that nothing in the trip confirmation or earlier conversations with them had indicated that the trip was tentative or cautioned me against making travel arrangements, customer service was outright dismissive and said there was nothing they could do.
I emailed Sumitra herself detailing the matter, but received no response.
To avoid cancelling all my flights, I looked into a Ladakh trip they had on the same date.
I had the absolute worst experience with this trip. The Wow Buddy they send - Ajantha, a girl in her early twenties was irresponsible and outright unprofessional. She would give long lectures on the importance of everyone being on time and then would show up a good half an hour late herself and carry on as if nothing happened.
We were 15 women and many of us had altitude sickness at Ladakh. Health and safety of passengers were of least importance during the trip and all of us were left to fend for ourselves. I had severe motion sickness for which I was taking tablets, but sitting in the middle or back seat of the Toyota Innova on the rocky himalayan roads left me throwing up every hour or so. The Wow buddy did not have any first aid kit or arrangements for those in bad health.
Majority of the group were girls in their twenties who formed sub-groups and preferred to travel in a vehicle together. One of the days, I got ready early and chose the seat by the side of the driver to avoid motion sickness, one of the group members approached me and asked me to switch to another vehicle since 4 of them had decided to travel in this van. When I mentioned I had gotten ready early to get the front seat and that I was really sick and it was necessary for my health to sit in the front, the Wow buddy Ajantha came and said I had to switch to another car. I later found that she herself was part of the 4 person gang. When I spoke to her privately that evening that seat preference should be on a first come first serve or health-need basis, she was very rude and unprofessional in her responses to me.
I later came across instances of her being in conflict with many other members of the group and speaking in raised voices and in rude tones. The iternary was planned badly on many days. We were on our own for lunch and there was no planned stop along the way, most of us having to skip lunch till we got back to Leh which was 4 - 5 PM.
Overall the trip was very disappointing, the Wow buddy's presence was more of an amateur unprofessional burden rather than a value addition.
I will not be taking another trip with this group and do not recommend them to anyone.
