I approached Thomas Cook via their website for Simply Singapore tour. I was contacted by one of their representative to help with the details on the tour. The pricing and the booking was provided for package(See picture - 1).
However when all the aishwaryasingh23ment was done, we were sent the details of the travel 3-4 days before departure and it said after arrival you cannot check-in until 3 PM on the arrival date(20th Dec) and check-out would be at 12 PM on the departure date(24th Dec).
So as per the package we have paid the amount for 4 nights and 5 days however we ended up staying in the hotel only for 4 nights and 4 days.
The flight arrived from Bangalore to Singapore at 7 AM, and we were asked to wait at the airport until 9 AM. They picked us up from the airport at 9 AM, and took us to the hotel and asked us to wait until 2.30PM to check-in. Imagine the nightmare if you are traveling with two young kids and aged parents.
The quality of the hotel(Quality Hotel Marlow, Balestier Road) is very bad as well. Ankit Singh(02261729115, Ankit.singh2@thomascook.in) from Thomas Cook is one of the worst person I have come across as a travel consultant. He promised many things but delivered very little. He has absolutely no knowledge of check in / check out processes. He said over the call that the room would be a deluxe one and once we checked in it was just a regular room with size that could just accommodate two small beds. The hotel breakfast was so bad and mismAnasultanged that we just took their Breakfast on the first day and avoided them all together for rest of the stay eating outside. Singapore is hot and humid and one needs to bathe at least twice a day and believe it or not the hotel did not give us more than two towels per day even after repeated requests. I cannot believe that in this age there are hotels that don’t provide dental kits.
Another thing that came as a surprise was that they aren’t even operating in the name of Thomas Cook in Singapore. They operate under the name of Tour Land(See picture 2).
When I wrote a review about these people on twitter, Thomas Cook UK replied that the India Thomas Cook India is no longer part of Thomas Cook Group. I am not sure what this means legally but it certainly means that do not expect the quality of service you would associate with Thomas Cook Group.
I certainly would recommend anyone to book the flight and hotel tickets on their own and use Thomas Crook India for only visa purposes. It would be cheap and you would get a better hotel deal as well. Don’t get put off by them if they talk about expensive cab/bus services if you make it on your own. When I was there I used Uber and MRT services which worked out be much cheap than what they portray and trust me Singapore is a very safe place. The place is open 24/7 and people there are friendly. Local people are well versed in English and there are many Indians. You would never get lost.