I had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from December 13th to December 18th with my family as part of the "Experience Andaman with Neil Island - Deluxe Ex BOM" tour organized by Thomas Cook.
Our trip started off very smoothly, but eventually hit a snag when we were about to board our ferry from Port Blair to Havelock Island. The ferries earlier in the day had gotten canceled because of weather conditions and there was a good chance that our ferry would’ve gotten canceled as well. Despite that, we were made to wait for 2-3 hours at the ferry terminal(with no arrangements with a place to sit for senior citizens), board the ferry and then get off of it as it was not going to sail. I understand weather conditions are out of anyone’s control, but most of us got the unfortunate impression that this was just an attempt to kill some time as there weren’t any plans for what to do in case the ferry gets canceled. The local representatives tried to talk us into doing the same exercise on day 2 as well but we pushed back as a group, and sure enough, the ferry did not sail.
The same evening, we ended up doing the Bella Bay Cruise. On our way back, we were told that we could make a trip to Chidiya Tapu as an alternative on the next day, but we would have to pay Rs. 350 per person out of our own pocket. This came as quite a rude shock to us, and everyone in the trip was notably upset about having to pay(albeit a small amount) out of pocket when we had all already paid a fairly hefty sum. In any case, we were taken to Chidiya Tapu on the last day, so I’ll excuse this point. Some folks in the group eventually found a cheaper option, so we arranged our own transportation to Wandoor Beach instead, and paid for it ourselves. While all this mess was ongoing, Local representatives kept telling us that planning any alternate excursions or refunding money was not under their control, but all the same refused to contact their management, so we had to fend for ourselves:(. We called Mr. Bhavin Joshi(regional head) and had a good conversation with him, but then he was unreachable after that for the remainder of our trip, which is quite shameful for a person at such a high level.
Eventually, the weather improved and we went to Neil Island. There too, we had to pay out of pocket for water activities such as snorkeling, glass bottom boat ride etc., despite the fact that these were supposed to be complimentary at Elephant Beach as per our original plans. Note that we did our research and found out that the amounts spent on ferry tickets from Port Blair -> Havelock Island, Havelock Island -> Neil Island and water activities at Elephant Beach were refundable. I don’t need to point this out, but the right thing to do on your part was to refund this amount to the travelers, unfortunately, that did not happen. For us, this was a double whammy - we missed out on some key activities, and had to pay for things out of pocket when we shouldn’t have had to.
We were also extremely disappointed with the conditions of the hotels that were offered to us as part of the Deluxe package - the food was mediocre for most part, and the sheets and towels either had holes or stains.
This brings me to my final point, which is that as a company, I’m very disappointed with Thomas Cook as there was no contingency plan in the event that the ferry gets canceled. The local representatives made it sound as though this was a very rare event, but on asking around we found out that this does happen fairly regularly. Note that we’re all internet savvy travelers and are capable of doing our trip bookings ourselves - the only reason we decided to go with Thomas Cook was that we expect that such a reputed company will have a plan B - unfortunately that wasn’t the case. What made matters worse is that the three respresentatives(Sachin, Yohan and Anil) we were working with had no co-ordination amongst themselves - they were all giving different answers to our questions at different times, and even asking the travelers what they were told by the other representative. As much as we wanted to like these folks, this behavior ended up in us losing our trust in them.
After spending close to Rs. 2 lakhs on what was supposed to be a special holiday with my family, I came home extremely disillusioned. The actions of the entire team made it very clear that Thomas Cook merely cares about their own profit and not so much about their guests. I understand that what guests need to pay for in the event of weather related cancellations has been called out very clearly in the terms and conditions, but these were only told to us after we made the full payment, and about 3-4 days before the trip - is it not the responsibility of Thomas Cook to let passengers know of these things before you take any payment from them?