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Luxury Trips Vacation Comments
Country -- United Kingdom 2006-10-24
Caulat@ashridge.org.uk
Dear Durjay,
We have now got back home and before work takes all my attention back again I would like, also in the name of my partner Francis, to thank you and your team for one of the most fascinating and wonderful trips that we have done so far. India, or at least the north of it as we have seen it, is a wonderful country and discovering it has been for us in turn wonderful, upsetting, touching, overwhelming... It has definitely been an intense and stretching experience with good learning for us... You and your team have contributed to this experience. The programme was excellent: it has enabled us to learn about the past of India as well as to get to know the India of today with its culture and its people at the same time. The pace of the programme also worked very well for us. The guides that you have selected have all been nice and very professional people. We have particularly appreciated Aman in Varanasi (a passionate and kind person keen to convey so much about his country, a real wealth of knowledge with excellent pedagogical skills), Raghu (?) in Jodpur (a real fine man, very knowledgeable and handling his guests very well), Man Singh in Jaipur (very efficient, straightforward, always finding a good balance between the level of details to communicate and the number of things to show) and Netin in Delhi (very knowledgeable, personable and full of humour) . Francis has also appreciated Satender (?) in Bikaner who did the tour in very good French! Most hotels that your team has selected for us have been excellent. Udaivillas was a real dream! Deogarh was a pleasure, as was Devi Garh (a fantastic hotel). Mandawa Castle was maybe less convincing (not as well taken care of as the Laxmi Niwas Palace in Bikaner fo example). The only real shadow though was the Rajwada Hotel in Jaisalmer, which we thought was very poor, a real shock after the wonderful Umaid Palace in Jodpur. I gave some verbal feedback about the hotel to Wickram and also completed a feedback form for the hotel. They wanted us to sign the voucher at our arrival so I could not write any feedback on it. We were grateful that your team accepted to give us a suite in the hotel (after I contacted them to inform about the situation), which made things a bit better... Still we were relieved when we left the place... A less serious flaw was the selection of the last hotel (The Grand) in Delhi, which compared with the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi, was disappointing in terms of location (so close to the airport) as well as in terms of atmosphere... While I understand the logic of putting us in a hotel close to the airport on the last day, we would have much more preferred to finish our trip on a nicer note, in a place like the Taj Mahal for example. We would not have minded to get up a bit earlier for the airport.... I would like to thank very much your agents in the different places. We have very much appreciated Piyush's help in Varanasi when I got concerned about several mosquito bites that I got on one day: he has been highly responsive, caring and professional. Also Raj Singh in Udaipur was very responsive and efficient when he organised for some clothes that I forgot in Deogarh to be delivered in Udaipur: thank you! Thank you also to John in Agra and to Ajay in Jodpur for taking the time to come to the hotel and welcome us: a kind gesture. Obviously thank you also to Wickram for his friendly and professional services. Last but not least I wanted to thank the drivers: Ram in Varanasi was a very good and pleasant driver who showed us very interesting aspects of the Indian day-to-day life on the second day: we have appreciated this a lot. In particular we would also like to thank Narendra, our "long distance" driver. He has been an excellent driver. He was discrete while at the same time very attentive to our needs. A very kind man who has been a very good company for us! In terms of the trip as a whole, as mentioned before, we are very satisfied with all destinations that you put on the programme although, in retrospect, we think that we could have skipped Jaisalmer, not only because of the hotel but also because we found the place too full of tourists, with no particular soul in spite of being the oldest fort in the world... but of course we can only say this in retrospect and we fully understand why you put it on the programme.
I hope that you will find this feedback helpful. We are offering it as a sign of gratitude and respect for your very good work. We will keep excellent memories of our trip. We will certainly recommend you to our friends and families and, should we consider to visit India again in the future, we will come back to Compass Tours. It was also nice to meet you personally and to see the offices and the people behind the email address that I had contacted.... We wish you and your team all the very best for the future.
With kind regards
Ghislaine & Francis
