How we went to rest with Voyage-Service and why you should NOT do it

We wanted to go somewhere in Europe for the New Year holidays. As a result, the choice fell on Vienna. They began to choose a tour operator and became interested in this office. Why am I talking so dismissively? Later, you yourself will understand why. Voyage service positions itself as

"The leading tour operator in Austria and Hungary", their prices are very affordable, lower than others for similar tours. But as you know, free cheese is only in a mousetrap.

We chose the New Year holidays tour in Vienna for 7 days. The program included a sightseeing bus and walking tour of the center of Vienna, an excursion to the Vienna Woods + a gift excursion to the Swarovski Museum. Well, perhaps I'll start about everything in order.

1) The tour operator offered many hotels of different distances from the center. We chose a hotel from the list and said that we want to book it. A day later, we are informed that only a Hungarian visa is possible in this hotel (!!!

) (I want to note that the flight was by the Austrian airline NIKI and we didn’t fly through any Budapest, which could somehow explain such a visa). They did not provide us with a clear explanation why they did not want to get an Austrian visa. They were motivated by the fact that this particular hotel requires a Hungarian visa. Moreover, my friend, who worked in a travel agency, said that this, in principle, cannot be, since visas are not important for hotels at all, the main thing is that the documents are in order.

2) We had to choose a hotel from the list sent by the Voyage manager. We chose the Post Hotel from her list. We were again unable to book it and Maria sent a new list of hotels.

3) We booked a third hotel, and you guessed it, Voyage couldn't book it. As a result, I had to call and in a raised voice to find out what was going on.

She spoke to me in a negative way, saying that she does not understand at all where we choose such hotels from. After this statement, I literally lost the gift of speech, because. she sent the list of hotels herself. After finding out, the hotel was booked immediately. At what I had to choose not the cheapest and in a remote area from the center.

4) 5 days before the trip, we are told that the hotel was changed to the very first one (!!!), and it cost 2 thousand rubles cheaper, the money was never returned to us and the Austrian visa was made, although at first they said that will be Hungarian (see point 1)

5) Upon arrival in Vienna, we looked for a meeting person for a long time. As a result, there were 2 people in the hall with a completely inconspicuous Voyage-Service sign. One person was on the tour "New Year's holidays in Vienna" and the other "Vienna-Budapest for the New Year".

They stood at different ends of the halls, of course, the details were not indicated on the plates, we first approached not our greeter, we spent time on this unnecessary clarification. Before the bus with suitcases, I had to walk to the parking lot for about 7 minutes, apparently because you have to pay extra money for parking at the airport, which the tour operator obviously saves.

6) While we were on the bus, it turned out that 4 people had vouchers for a hotel in Budapest, and not in Vienna. The meeting Mikhail suggested that Moscow made a mistake and issued either incorrect vouchers, or people should have gone to Hungary first (as I already wrote above on the Vienna-Budapest tour) and they were “accidentally” included in our list. When the tourists bewildered asked: “What should we do now?”, Mikhail (our greeter) replied, “That's a good question.” People were waiting for some kind of calm, in the end, after the flight and immediately such stress.

Therefore, they had to constantly pull him and ask him to clarify the situation. Mikhail, having called his management, could not find out anything to the end and offered. As a result, the second bus, which was supposed to go to Budapest, was detained until the circumstances were clarified. It turned out that the Voyage managers gave the wrong voucher and excursion schedule, or replaced everything at the last moment without warning the tourists, i.e. after all, at first they had to live in Vienna. We were getting more and more scared.

7) The next day was the so-called sightseeing bus-walking tour of Vienna. As a result, we didn’t even go through the historical center of Vienna (!!) and we don’t even know the history of the most central sights (such as Stephansdom, Parliament, etc.) We were simply taken around the city by bus, we got off at Schönbrunn and Belvedere. Everything else was told, so to speak, “from the window”, but we didn’t even go to the center, maybe.

Moreover, on the road, which takes 3 hours, we were told practically nothing about the city we were going to! The guide Sergey was just terrible. Maybe he is a good person, but as someone from the “Tractor driver was arranged as a guide” group noticed, there was very little time in Salzburg, the tour was a run, we did not have time to go to the Mozart Museum and climb to the Hohensalzburg fortress. We barely had time to buy souvenirs. On the way back, as you may have guessed, we were again told nothing, and besides, they reduced the rest time at stops to 10 minutes (neither to drink coffee nor eat).

9) The next day there was an excursion to the Vienna Woods. We almost groaned when we realized that our yesterday's "guide" was coming with us. At the beginning of the tour, he told us which places we would go to, without mentioning a word about the Swarovski Museum. We are not fans of this brand and of course we went not only for her sake.

But, in Vienna, we planned to buy some kind of jewelry, and the prices from production would certainly be cheaper. To a reasonable question whether we would have this excursion, Sergey answered casually that he did not have such an excursion in this program. Moreover, even on a sightseeing tour (apparently we all had different guides and days on which excursions take place), we heard that another group was also not taken to the factory and to the museum, saying that if they want to get there so much, then they can see everything themselves, and the guide will only tell you how to get there. But excuse me, why then indicate this excursion in the tour program, and probably also invest it in the cost ?! On the way, Sergey told little and the same thing that he deigned to tell when we went to Salzburg, and his story continued only while we were driving through Vienna. As soon as we drove onto the autobahn, he did not tell anything more interesting.

we didn’t really understand which monastery we were going to, nothing was told about its history or customs. In the end, after a 5-minute run, so to speak, around the monastery, he generally disappeared somewhere and we ourselves wandered around. In the town of Mayerling (where Crown Prince Rudolf was killed), he did not want to stop at all, as a result, the tourists nevertheless insisted on stopping. We allocated literally 5 minutes, which was only enough to take pictures next to this hunting ground. Then the bus proceeded to Baden. When we got out in this small Austrian town, I got the impression that the guide did not know which way to go at all! Nothing was told about the history of the city, although Beethoven himself once lived in this small town and there is even a house in which he lived, which we ourselves stumbled upon quite by accident.

As a result, he brought the whole group to the park and left there, indicating the time when we were supposed to return to the bus.

10) I also want to note that the tour operator apparently does not have its own guides and uses the services of third-party organizations in Vienna. We made such a conclusion from the careless remarks of the guide and from the badges, on which a completely different company appears.

In summary, I can say that we were shocked. This is not my first trip abroad, we traveled by different tour operators, but nowhere else did I come across such a terrible organization and terrible guides! The amount paid for the ticket was not so small (it turned out to be almost 42 thousand per person). I still don’t understand what this money was given for! As a result, we ourselves looked on the Internet already at the hotel, which places we went to, what kind of sights, etc. We will never go anywhere else with this tour operator for anything else.

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