My parents recently travelled in Anand Vihari Package tours to Gujarat - Rajasthan for 20 days. They normally go by travels whose hospitality is very good. The only reason they opted for this travels over rest is because they charged about Rs 2000.00 less per person for the overall trip compared to other travels.
However we found later that we were "Penny wise but pound foolish". Their tour package was 2 days less compared to other travels & they had saved a lot more on accommodation & boarding compared to Rs 2000/- rebate we got.
If you are looking for Good quality tour packages with good knowledgeable, professional tour operator with good hospitality then please choose some other travels.
Below are the reasons to say so:
Lack of Knowledge:
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1. During the trip, guide did not have knowledge about the places we visited and was not helpful in explaining about any places that we visited. He would just stop at a place & tell us to venture on our own about the place.
Low quality of tour package(Hectic schedule)
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2. The hotel rooms provided were very mediocre in quality. But the bigger problem was that he would ask us to vacate it as early as 5:00 AM so that he can save some money towards the rent. This was very streneous for my parents as they did not have leisure time to sleep sufficiently and then get ready in the morning. They fell sick due to such hectic schedule.
Lack of hospitality
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3. My mother suffered from fever and acidic reflexes at night & could not sleep. She wanted some cold milk to bring down her acidity problem. It was late & we could not find any local vendor for cold milk. When my father approached the tour operator he refused & mentioned that they do not provide milk for drinking at night even when we offered to pay money for it. But he had stocked it milk for early morning tea & coffee the next day.
4. Other travels provide snacks along with coffee or tea in the evening but this travels did not provide any snacks.
Miscellaneous
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5. Tour operator has tie up with specific merchants in some areas & allows us to shop only in those places. However these shops charge way too higher for same commodity compared to outside market. For example, he took us to an emporium where the bed linen cost Rs 600.00 whereas same was Rs 300.00 outside. He does not give us time to shop outside of these shops. This is because they get some commission from these shops for getting so many customers.
6. We were 5 members from a family with 4 senior citizens but the travels had booked train seats in different compartments. There was no preference given to senior citizens on Berth. They preferred lower berth but they had got upper berths.The travels had not taken adequate attention to these details & just booked some berths.
7. The guide took an advance of Rs 1000.00 per person towards entrance tickets etc but did not pay back any rest of the amount on return.
We don’t want others to feel deceived like we felt at the end of journey & so I’m writing this review.