How they spoiled our impressions of the city, where we had long dreamed of visiting ...

Last weekend (April 19-21, 2013) we made a trip with "Uncle Nick" to Tallinn. We have dreamed of going there for a long time and now the chance has turned up. We traveled with a group of six people, two married couples and a mother and daughter. Before this trip, I did not know anything about "Uncle Nick", but we were told that the company was good. Perhaps we were just unlucky, but I do not recommend the Tallinn-Rakvere tour from the Uncle Nick company. It all started before the trip, when we were told that our company of six people would not fit into the hotel where all of us would live, and therefore we were moved to another hotel, which is supposedly even better and more expensive (and that they would not even take extra money from us ). I didn't like it right away. But not about that now, we will stop at the hotel later. We were promised a large comfortable bus, we received an improved minibus, well, this is because there were not enough of us. Yes, we found out at midnight, when we had to leave.

In general, exactly at midnight, the carriage turned into a pumpkin ... It was terribly uncomfortable to sit ... But then we all gathered, we were counted, our visas were checked, and we set off. The guide brought us up to date, by the way, I can’t say anything bad about her, she told us with interest the information that we had already read on the Internet in advance. In this regard, we once again made sure that you should not deal with travel agencies. Let's get back to the road and our "comfortable" bus. I don’t know when the suspension was last rebuilt, but every pothole on the road was very strongly felt, it was not easy for those who were sick, because there was simply nowhere to move forward. The guide's phrase "Try to sleep" along with this shaking was perceived as sarcasm. The road was not easy, I don’t even know how long we drove to the border, because as soon as we managed to fall into a dream, we were so shaken up that we woke up.

At night, we crossed the border quite quickly. In the dutik, the guide said not to buy Vanna Tallinn, because it is more expensive and fake there, it cost about five euros there, we trusted the guide and did not take it (more on that later). I really liked that the Estonians do not kick everyone out of the bus. We were in Tallinn at about six in the morning local time, it was raining heavily. First, they gave us a sightseeing tour on the bus, we traveled almost the entire city, stopped at the sights, went out for a while, and then quickly returned to the bus, because it was cold and wet. Somewhere at half past eight we drove up to the old city and went on a walking tour, the rain had ended by that time and the weather began to improve.

We walked around the city, it cheered us up, the tour was interesting, but the guide periodically advertised to us places with which they apparently have some kind of special relationship, since she gave us some discounts to these establishments. The tour was somewhere around twelve o'clock and we had about two hours before checking into the hotel. We gladly spent them on a walk around the old city, but it was time to check in, we were the first to be taken to the hotel, because it was very close (as it turned out later there were 4 stars, the rest lived in the top three). But as it turned out, the stars do not mean anything ... So, we had three double rooms, two of them were ready, one had not yet been cleaned, we were told to wait half an hour. At this time, we went to those rooms that were already there, because we really wanted to relax a bit. In principle, the room was not bad, the beds are comfortable, which is important for those who are tired from the road.

One thing, the window that was in the room was in the central hall of the hotel because of this there was unusual lighting. Now about the number that was not ready. Half an hour later we went to check, but the room was not cleaned. After another 15 minutes, we went to reseption and asked when, we were told another 10 minutes, but after 10, 20, 30 minutes the room was not ready, we already decided to just go for a walk ... before leaving, we went again to ask the administrator to whom I called and they gave us another room ... that one was removed and it had a great view of the port and Oleviste. In general, it took 1.5 hours to wait for the room, we got the impression that they simply do not like Russians, since they settled the Finns right away. And even about the new room, as it turned out later, when we arrived in the evening, there was a nightclub under the windows and even with the windows closed you could hear music and basses, but at that moment we didn’t care.

Here I’ll write a minus guide in terms of the fact that she didn’t even check if they gave us a room, whether they settled in or not, she just left and we met in the morning with her. Now about breakfast, the Metropol Hotel has a very small restaurant, a crowd of people, a line for distribution. The breakfast itself was standard and no different from breakfasts in other small hotels. Then we went to the liquor store, where, as our guide said, we can buy Vanna Tallinn cheaper and here it is a surprise instead of five as much as seven euros (but probably real) and so, by the way, Finlandia vodka was sold for 11 euros in the dutik, and it cost as much as 17 euros (feel the difference), by the way, there were gift bottles of Vanna Tallinn in a beautiful bag in the deutik, but there were no such bottles in the store, but there were a lot of liqueurs in plastic bottles for 3-4 euros. In general, decide for yourself.

Now about Rekvere, the tour was not bad, but in my opinion it is still focused on children, and now it’s not about excursions but about food, our wonderful travel agency did not at all take care that people want to eat, there is a tavern in Rakvere itself, but there served a group in which they took care of feeding people, and we were told to go to a cafe opposite, there was Chinese cuisine (agree on an amateur, plus an English menu), and now they cook all this for 40-50 minutes, so that we didn’t have to eat anything ... We moved towards Narva and stood at the border for about four hours, and now the most interesting thing is that we passed it at about nine in the evening, like this ... so I recommend that you organize a trip to Tallinn on your own, ride regular buses, because they are the first to pass and the buses are large, not minibuses ... It's up to you, but I do not recommend you to contact "Uncle Nick".

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