Travel agency review (Moscow)

This can happen to anyone!

Author:
Date of purchase: 27 april 2011
Written: 20 may 2011
2.0
Travel agency: (Moscow)
Service type: экскурсионный тур

May 2011, 6 nights, Netherlands-Belgium, tour operator Lanta-Tour, host company Rossia Evropa. Schengen was open, tickets could be bought for 12,500 rubles. at KLM, book a hotel through booking.... and what the hell brought me to this Lanta? after all, they already flew through it to Cuba - they saw a representative once, they decided everything themselves. He did not come to the first meeting, to the second, after the call he was late for hours - we did not even approach him, although he rushed past us a couple of times. We met the guys from the hotel, took a guide and had a wonderful time. Upon departure, we saw a sad group waiting for Lanta's guide, who was late ... In general, once, on a beautiful Sunday evening, I heard enough enthusiastic stories from friends who came from a similar trip with Vand International (they lived only in fours!) And I wanted to be taken too - they drove, otherwise they all did it themselves, according to the guide ...

I wanted to look at the canals, shy away from Amsterdam cyclists, admire blooming tulips, eat Brussels chocolate and Dutch herring right on the street ... Well, all this romantic nonsense! Lanta had a little cheaper (hee hee, it became cheaper then more expensive: 110 thousand rubles ticket + 1640 air tickets + telephone conversations + 450 taxis. When paying under the contract for the second part of the ticket, at a time when the dollar and the euro began to fall, they increased "internal exchange rate. " I wanted to terminate the contract, but again gave up slack ...) I ran after the manager Yulia with money, and not she after me - she never called me. I didn't like it, but it didn't bother me. And we flew .... I can say the following - the trip was organized by the host simply negligently, by chance - for a long time we could not find a meeting person at the Amsterdam airport - the tour program said - "a guide with a Rossia Evropa sign is waiting for you at the exit, which is indicated on screen "... some kind of puzzle

! Everyone who arrived on this flight quickly found each other and searched for a mysterious screen for a long time ... We called the girl who met us on the cell phone and she was found under the screen on the side of the exit from the customs zone. A tour of Amsterdam - a C grade, a young guide, a weak voice, does not hold listeners. But to Lena, who took us to Delft-Leiden and The Hague, great respect! We met wonderful guys (Natasha, Igor, Yulia, Oleg, hello!) and no guides and bad weather could ruin our impressions! Departure to Brussels was delayed for 2 hours, as some tourists were taken from the hotels to the bus not by representatives of the travel agency, but by a hired taxi driver who did not speak Russian, and it seemed that they spoke English too. Moreover, no one warned us that a taxi would be picking up ... My husband and I, as two scouts, cut several circles around the hotel and realized that the bus simply would not pass here .....

I calmed down when I saw the guys from the group, but the Romanians stopped laughing after 5 minutes ... When they found out that we were not going to Rotterdam, they became completely sad ... Our bus arrived, but four were missing .... After half an hour, they realized that they will not be there and that Romanians were taken away instead of them ... After numerous calls to the travel agency (not cheap, by the way), they finally gathered everyone. One could laugh at the two-hour delay, but as a result of this, we arrived in Brussels in the evening - we lived in Atlanta, we were lucky, but the rest got into a huge traffic jam - for two hours the guys got to the hotel under the driver’s selective obscenity, I’m not talking about those who returned to Amsterdam, so the driver after such a trip was put on the site sucks ... I liked the hotel very much in terms of location and service! especially breakfasts in the open area, on the 9th floor! Excursion Bruges-Ghent too ... Moreover, we got on the day of the city in Amsterdam and Brussels.

We saw Queen Beatrix in her wonderful hat .. The day came from Brussels to Amsterdam. Lanta saved a lot on tickets - why should we fly from Brussels? Expensive! We have a group ticket from Amsterdam! Yes, another crust! Tourists from Ukraine (this is another feature - our group consisted of Ukrainian and Russian), who had a flight from Brussels, were warned in the evening that they were flying through Helsinki and 6 hours earlier! imagine - you sat in a restaurant until late, you think to sleep off, come to your room and find out that there are significant changes in your program ... Class! ... According to the same program, we had a transfer to the airport without a guide. They gave us electronic tickets for the train, again the taxi driver took us to the station, he was Russian well, at least he explained something. Moreover, we stared into the express train, but we had to go by an ordinary train, we saw another ode to our "classmate", she was traveling from Paris, also on her own.

We didn’t have any seats on the ticket, we sat in the vestibule on the side, and there was also a service room where all the express staff hung out, from whom we later learned about what was happening, because there were no announcements, and when they began to announce nothing disassemble. A few minutes after departure, a drunken bum fell under our train - after the city holiday, they were apparently invisible. ..In general, blood, police, ambulance, some old man fainted, etc. We spent 40 minutes without electricity, with curtained windows and non-working air conditioners. Finally, we were released in Brussels at a nearby station, traffic was stopped, a huge crowd gathered, announcements sounded, in French, English and German. It was impossible to get information from anyone. We didn't know what to do. We began to call guides in Brussels-Amsterdam and in Moscow, to the office of Lanta-Tour, by the numbers known to us.

They said that this is our problem, that their working day is over and that they are not paid for this, that they are just guides. In Brussels, they said that they would try to solve something within an hour. We asked to provide a car and take us to the airport for a fee, but we were told at first that they would think, and then that they could not help. As time went. The phone of the office in Amsterdam was silent. Brussels guides were busy with their own problems or earning money... I got the opinion that Russian guides living in the Benelux should not be offended, they are a different subspecies, they are just different, but God forbid they find themselves at least once in their lives in such a situation! After 40 minutes they gave the manager's phone in Amsterdam. She said that she had not been to Brussels, had no idea how to resolve the situation and advised her to somehow get to Amsterdam on her own. It didn't matter to us what to ride - by taxi or by express ... Only the plane had already left.

The manager of "Russian Europe" met us at the airport, emphasizing that she spends her personal time on us (Thank you very much that at least someone spent it on us and somehow helped us!) and offered to get on the KLM waiting list and guaranteed to fly May 12 .... That is, we flew in for three days of the hotel plus food and drink .... Or fly on 09/05/2011 flight 23.35 from a / c Aeroflot, business class tickets. There was nothing to do - we laid out 820 euros each and flew away. Lanta said that they fulfilled their obligations, and we are kind of to blame for being late to the airport. Yes, we had insurance against non-departure, and not from "not flying"! In Amsterdam, we gave our guide a document from the railway stating that we did not have time to board the plane because of their emergency situation, she promised to help, but not guaranteed))) so we also lost documents confirming the situation ... And if we were taken by bus, and not 4 people, but a group .. or there was an escort with us, would this not happen?

I understand that there are a million such stories and you will say, well, bad luck, it happens ... But you need to think at least sometimes and protect yourself from accidents, dear (in the truest sense of the word) tour operators ?!




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