Compliance price-quality

I want to share my impressions about the tour "St. Petersburg from Kharkov" from the company "Recreation for all 100" 14.07-20.07.2016. because before deciding on a trip, I read a bunch of reviews on this site and on others about a trip to St. Petersburg, not only from Kharkov, but also from other cities of Ukraine. 80 percent of them were negative. I understand that more often it encourages a person to write when they get it very much, and when it was good it was perceived as the norm - we paid for the service, they provided it to us.

Having read all sorts of horror stories, especially about the last tour from Kharkov with a guide Elena, I began to look for alternative options. There are close relatives in St. Petersburg and they invited, but the four of us went to an apartment where 4 adults and one baby live and did not want to feel like a “Tatar-Mongol invasion”. And I really wanted to see modern St. Petersburg (after the collapse of the USSR I wasn’t there). I started looking for options for apartments, hostels on St. budget tourists like us, if the apartment is on the outskirts of at least 2500 rubles / day. As an economist, I calculated everything, travel from the sleeping area (35 rubles metro + 40 rubles one-way minibus per person) + food + cooking time + cost of excursions + travel Slavyansk-Peter (2200 per person round trip) and I got it the amount is more than 2 times the cost of a voucher from the company "Rest at 100%". We consulted and decided to endure "all the hardships and hardships" described in the review and bought tickets. Honestly, we were set up for all the dirty tricks that we read about.

When the guide met us in Kharkov, she introduced herself as Elena and according to the description she is very similar to Elena from the tour 20.06-26.06.16. All right, I think the rest was a success.”

But as soon as they got on the bus, Lena began to tell everything, to explain how everything would go. She introduced us all, arranged a quiz about Peter with the presentation of prizes. Before customs, she explained how to fill out the documents correctly, how to behave at customs. I already realized that this is not the same Lena.

And so it was all 7 days t cheers. She told us everything, repeated what time we were leaving, where to go, how to get there. I asked again for the time of the meeting. This is a professional with a capital letter. She was more than just a guide. She and the guide (in the direction of the bus, she talked about all the sights in the areas passing by, Peter knows how his hometown and the location of the streets, and history, will be able to conduct a tour no worse than a local guide),

she and a health worker, she and a cleaner (she constantly collected garbage from those who were on the bus), she and an economist (advised where it is cheaper to buy souvenirs, where it is cheaper to buy groceries, where to go to the toilet for free, where it is better to go in your free time and how to get there) , she and a confidant (when in the Hermitage in the storage room of tourists from our group “wrongly closed” the cell, sent the owners of things to listen to the tour, and she went to the administration to resolve the issue), she and the psychologist (when several people were late and detained the whole group , people said, “Let’s go, we won’t wait for them.” She didn’t leave them, but made them sing a song, the whole bus clapped them, and she seemed to be jokingly saying, “Next time who is late for 2 minutes sings, and who dances for 3 ... At the place where the bus was ". And we all had no more latecomers. I was very struck when Lena brought us to the Smolensk cemetery in the chapel of Xenia Petersburg Gskoy and led to a memorial stone to the first burial place of T.G. Shevchenko. And a resident of the eastern region, not in our surzhik, but in the correct literary Ukrainian language, spoke about Shevchenko's life in St. Petersburg, as if she had never spoken in another language. Even the Russians passing by stopped and listened. And I heard one say "I have never heard such a beautiful Ukrainian language." Our politicians should learn such patriotism.

Then I realized that in the ability to organize 50 completely different in age, interests, upbringing people, not so much her professionalism, but her human qualities play a role. She loves people, we don’t annoy her, with all our cockroaches in her head, each with her own. She is tolerant of everyone and sets the whole group up for it. Thanks to her organizational skills, we were in time for all the main events in St. Petersburg, which are not repeated for latecomers: the shot of a cannon at noon in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the moment the fountains in Peterhof were turned on, the moment the bridges were raised, then we drove past all 8 drawn bridges along one fixed one to get into to the hotel. The program is very rich and if we went ourselves, we would never have seen it all in such a short period of time (Even my relatives who live in St. Petersburg told me this). We understood this when there was a kilometer-long queue for tickets in the Hermitage in the pouring rain , the same in Peterhof, and we pass with dignity

I also want to say about the St. Petersburg guide Merimpolskaya Oksana. Even in the Hermitage, the guide cannot compare with her. A person is obsessed with his work, it is tireless, it can be listened to and listened to. Tells historical facts about which you will not read in any textbook.

Pleasantly pleased with the hotel. Although not 4 *, but very clean, modern kitchen. there is Wi-Fi. Olya Freimut can be invited, she will not find any flaws.

Drivers Egor and Sasha, always in snow-white shirts. This immediately speaks of their attitude towards the people they work for, they keep the cabin clean, who needs boiling water. Egor, before the night crossing, personally went through and fastened everyone with seat belts, and explained to those who resisted that this was for our own safety.

There were no people in our group who were not satisfied with something. Everyone was delighted.

In this regard, I would like to recall the old slogan of the Soviet era “Cadres decide everything” or even the ancient “It is not the place that colors the person, but the person is the place.” The same tour developed by managers with the same hotels, excursions, cities can cause such different reviews if a person is in the wrong place.

And now we will collect money for a new tour from this company to Georgia.

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