Review of Rajasthan Trip(Feb.11-18, 2017)
Tour Manager/WOW Buddy – Shreya Nangalia
Submitted by Shruti Gupta
Day 1 – I arranged my own airport transfer to the hotel because we would have to wait for another 2-3 hours for all the guests to arrive at the airport. Dinner location was not planned; Shreya first takes the group to the music festival location and then asks the local shop keepers for a local restaurant for dinner since several of the group members had traveled and didn’t have lunch. The group is then abruptly taken from the music festival location to the dinner and then taken back to the open air ground for a little while since the rest of the group(not all members) were tired and wanted to go back the hotel to rest. The choice of the hotel(Hotel Fern Residency) is poor. It’s located in the outskirts of the city and is a hotel for business travelers and not tourists. The hotel had several weaknesses – paper thin walls, intermittent hot water availability, unreliable Wi-Fi.
Day 2 – Time assigned to leave the hotel for sightseeing is not kept; the guide inserts his own modifications to the published itinerary by including a boat ride on Lake Fateh Sagar which means that the group doesn’t visit one of the stops in the itinerary – Shilpagram. The lunch location was also undecided and Shreya again practices “jugaad” and figures out by asking the locals and the guide for a restaurant. Lunch is between 2:30-3pm. I skip dinner because of the late lunch.
Day 3 – Again, Time assigned to leave the hotel for Chittorgarh is not implemented. We leave 45 minutes late. During the entire 2-3 hour bus ride to Chittorgarh, Shreya plays Antakshari and sings song with the group and is at the back of the bus. No restroom stop is made. Again, we arrive at Chittorgarh close to noon with no preset lunch stop in place. Instead of having lunch, we begin the sight seeing which is rushed so that the group can have lunch by 3pm. Shreya again asks the local guide for a lunch stop recommendation and we end up at local street side makeshift lunch place like a dhaba. The dhaba was dirty, the food had grit and dust and that night I had diarrhea. For the sightseeing portion, tThe bus that drives us to Chittorgarh stops at a point and then Shreya asks the group members to sit 6 in an auto rickshaw to go the fort. I am told that only autos can go to the fort even though I can see cars and SUVs. The auto rickshaw that I am seated in collides with a motor cycle on the ride to the fort which alerts to the lack of traveler safety that defines the rest of the tour. I skip the trip to the dinner restaurant because it involves another auto rickshaw transportation. The rationale provided again is that only autos can go to the restaurant. This despite the fact that my fellow travelers find that there were plenty of cars at the restaurant.
Day 4 – The travel to Kumbal Garh is also longer than the time given to the group. Of course, the departure time is again not implemented and we leave 45 minutes after the scheduled time. This means we arrive at Kumbalgarh at 1:45pm and lunch is again at a late time. Because of this chronic lateness we are rushed through the tour of the fort because it promptly closes at 6pm. Throughout this day, Shreya’s bags are misplaced and the entire focus of the stay at KumbalGarh is about her bags instead of her focus being on the guests. This is also the first day of the planned PINK dinner and though we are given a dinner time of 9pm, we find that we can’t be seated in the restaurant because another tour group is dining at that hour. So, our tour is left sitting outside for an additional one hour which means we go in for dinner at 10pm. Given the lateness of the meal time, I only sample the food and leave. The wine is served to us at the dinner table instead of being served while we were waiting outside along with some appetizers, perhaps. This hotel also has no Wi-Fi – really?
Day 5 – This is a long road travel day to Jodhpur. Yet again, we leave the hotel 45 minutes after the scheduled departure time. The visit to Ranakpur Jain temple is without a guide and Shreya tells me this is a stop for “darshan” only. What does that mean? If this is a stop on the published itinerary, shouldn’t there be a narrated guide provided as part of the tour? And, what if I am not a Hindu who knows the meaning of darshan? In fact, there were 2 travelers of Islamic faith in the group and I am left to wonder how they used the time to do “darshan” at the temple. Again, there is no planned lunch stop. So several tour guests suggest that we should eat our lunch at the Jain temple kitchen but Shreya overrides it because she and some fellow travelers whom she had befriended suggested other local restaurants by looking up trip advisor on their phones. Shreya, the bus driver and her traveler friends are unable to find any restaurant and we stop at a local street side dhaba at 2:30pm for lunch. I don’t eat lunch there because I can see how the dishes are being cleaned by the restaurant worker in which the food will be served to us. Please note that the toilet at the dhaba were smelly, dirty and unsanitary. The bus driver seems clueless about how to take us to the next stop – the rug cooperative. Finally, we reach the cooperative around 5:30pm and Shreya gives us 30 minutes to see and leave. From there, Shreya’s group of traveler friends convince her to make a detour and stop at a local market in Jodhpur instead of checking into the hotel. Please note that this shopping stop is not in the published itinerary. She makes 6 fellow travelers wait from 7pm-8:30pm in a local restaurant in the market and promises that we will leave at 8:30pm sharp. At 8:45pm, I called Shreya and was told that she is still gathering the fellow travelers from the market. The Bus driver again didn’t know where the hotel was located. That night we didn’t check into the hotel till 10pm. At first, Shreya’s traveler friends were giving the bus driver directions by looking Google maps on their smart phones. When that didn’t work, someone from the hotel was called to take us to the entrance of the hotel.
When I pointed out to Shreya that the Final itinerary didn’t include a shopping stop on this day, she argued with me that another version of the itinerary did and that I was the only person in the group who has problems. Her response towards me is rude and unprofessional.(Please find the final itinerary here).
Day 6 – I skip the first half of the day’s sightseeing because of the late check in. I call Shreya at 7am to let her know that I will meet the group for lunch in Jodhpur city. Shreya informs me that she will let me in an hour about the lunch location and that we will meet there at 12:30pm. By 10:30am when I speak with Sumitra Senapaty, I still haven’t received a phone call from Shreya about details for the lunch stop. An hour later at 11:30am, Shreya calls me to let me know the lunch location and the time which is now going to be 1:30pm. The drive in the second half of the day to Manvar desert camp also includes a case of the bus driver speeding who is pulled over by the police. The local guide openly talks to the group about how the police had to be bribed with Rs.4000. This event consumes close to an hour of our time which means we reach Manvar much later. In a state of rush, Shreya asks everyone to sign a form without providing details about it. I read the indemnification form and find that Shreya has on behalf of all fellow travelers indemnified the safari operators of any injury that may be caused. Again, details about the nature of safari and a list of “do’s and dont’s” are not provided by Shreya. I find out about the jeeps that are open, with no safety belts or other form of security restraints and decide to not participate in this activity. Shreya also tells us that we don’t have an option to not participate in the jeep safari because that’s the only way to reach the site of the cultural program and dinner. Again, other fellow travelers find out that the above is untrue and the staff will transport others who don’t want to participate in the safari separately to the dinner and cultural program location. By the time, we return to the hotel it’s past midnight that day. On the entire trip to Manvar, Shreya presses people and tries to convince them that the concerts scheduled in the early AM hours the next day as part of the Jodhpur music festival are not worth attending. She doesn’t have the logistics figured out on how she will transport the tour guests to attend the music festival scheduled to begin at 7am the next day which is the highlight of the tour – Jashn e Rajasthan. On the return road trip from Manvar, Shreya tells the group that while we were enjoying the cultural show she was talking with her “senior” to figure out the transportation logistics to the music festival the next day. Seriously? Shouldn’t this all be part of the the planning before a tour is executed? On the ride back, Shreya also makes every traveler sign a hand written note that we are okay with changing the dinner location on Day 7 from the published itinerary location to a restaurant where the music festival is held.
Day 7 – This is the day of the scheduled Jodhpur music festival for which each traveler had to purchase a separate ticket at the cost of Rs. 4500. Again, given that we reach the hotel around 12:15am(past midnight) I skip the music festival and agree to meet Shreya at the second hotel that we are scheduled to spend one night in Jodhpur. At 2:45pm(again later than her earlier stated meeting time of 2pm), she informs me that the dinner location has been changed back to the earlier scheduled restaurant as stated in the itinerary because there are no restaurants inside the music festival for a group of 18 members. We arrive at the dinner location at close to 10pm and don’t leave till 11:30pm. Again, this dinner is a waste for me because of its lateness.
Day 8 – I arrange my own transportation to the airport.
In sum, this tour receives a minus 5 star rating from me on the following grounds:
Zero upfront planning about scheduled meal stops, restroom stops and coffee stops. A group of 18 women were expected to be on the road without restroom stops for over 3 hours at a time.
Zero communication between the tour planning team, Shreya(tour manager or wow buddy) and the bus driver about directions to the designated stops in the itinerary and hotels
Complete absence of attention to traveler safety with fellow travelers allowed to be walking, dancing around the bus while it is driving on the bumpy roads; transportation via auto rickshaws where mine had a collision with a local motorcycle driver; speeding by the bus driver; late midnight arrivals of an all women group which is not the norm in India.
Total incompetence of Shreya Nanglia at being a tour manager in terms of keeping and enforcing timeliness, maintaining professionalism in her communication with her guests(who are not her friends), openly flirting with the guide at Chittorgarh fort, zero knowledge about the tour details, making unscheduled stops in the itinerary after negotiating with the tour guests
Incompetent bus driver and the state of the motor coach selected. The bus clearly didn’t have the horse power to navigate the uphill terrain necessary during the trip. Therefore, at several locations, the bus driver’s assistant would get off the bus, find a rock that he would place in front of the rear wheel, the driver would reverse to gain traction and move the bus forward. This poor quality of transportation is unacceptable for the cost of the tour.
My recommendation – The tour manager should “shadow” another tour manager before taking responsibility for a group of 18 women independently. Shreya Nangalia is incompetent, rigid, defensive and not open to learning from her mistakes. This trip was a total waste of my money and I will never recommend the tour, Shreya Nangalia and WOW to anyone.