I had 2 trips so far with KSTDC and Overall I am happy, though I would like to mention a few things based on the trip
1. Hill Stations of South India( Year 2013) - Mysore-Ooty-Kodaikanal-Doddabetta-Coonor(5 Days)
Overall Good, Spent decent time at all places, Boating was good, had good enough time for shopping, horse riding. Overall it was good. The best part was the guide who was jovial and kept everyone active.
Things to be careful about
- Rooms availability is first come first server, sometimes you may not have choice but hotel selection are mostly decent.
Somehow I enjoyed this and was overall happy
2. Goa Gorkhana Jog Falls( Jan 2014)
This was not a bad trip, but I was disappointed with 2 things
- Mandovi River Boat Cruise - It was the worst thing, absolute trash.
We were told a boat trip with cultural programs, availability of food, drinks and we trusted the guide. We ended up in a 1.5 hrs of absolute nightmare in a ship which was carrying more than 2 lakh people, could hardly see the cultural programs which were hardly good, crowd was mixed and can make you insecure, drunken people, samosas were trash, so was food, notorious crowd What was painful was misguidance by the tour guide and imagine misguiding even elderly people who could hardly walk up the stairs, any clear cut information that it was not going to be nice would have been great, but the guide misguided us. KSTDC should actually cancel the mandovi river cruise unless it is for 500 people only cruise. Elderly People were utterly dissappointed and Guide did not give a proper expalanation and neither did feel sorry. This was one thing that spoiled whole tour as we could have utilized this time for shopping or something else like spending more time on a beach . We were more hurt because we compromised on
Jog Falls - Off season so it was not spectacular
Gokharna - Beach was awesome but were not allowed to spend time
Somehow at all beaches, we were not allowed to spend much time.