POZOR AquaYune
There is such a firm in the building of the hotel near the Aqua Yuna Air Terminal, which supposedly specializes in skiing holidays for children. I believed their stories that from January 1 to January 13, for 880 euros, I will spend a week with my son in Slovakia in a hotel with a jacuzzi in the room (the rest of the time - on the train), a free transfer up and down the mountain, and in addition my instructor for the group.
We left by train Moscow-Uzhgorod, the leader of the group was not found in the carriage, so we explained several times (at night) with the conductor and border guards where our tickets were and which group we belonged to. , jumped out of the train at 2 a. m. into the darkness - we don’t know where. On the square there were some buses with unfamiliar inscriptions, and the Slovak drivers could not say anything intelligible in Russian. We rushed about with suitcases from bus to bus - and finally, one aunt admitted that she was the leader of all groups from AquaYuna, and allowed me to get on two buses.
We stood at the border for a long time - on January 2, the first stop at a gas station. On the advice of AquaYuna, she took small euro bills with her - to eat, drink at a gas station and pay for the toilet, but it turned out that the payments were only in crowns. The whole angry group went into the bushes. We settled in the hotel for dinner, there was no jacuzzi in the room - this is a paid large bathroom in the relax center. No informational meeting with representatives of AquaYuna was organized. We found our free instructor in the late afternoon - and everyone tortured him several times when we go to the mountain, where we ride, where there is snow, where the rental, etc. It turns out that our instructor came with us, and nothing intelligible can be said maybe. Then every evening, closer to 12 at night, I had to go to the bulletin board and read the information for the next day - the transfer schedule to the mountain and back.
Our economical organizers ordered a transfer to only one place where it was impossible to push through (smokovets station) and at the late time of 10 am and back at 15-30. There were no prospects for skiing freely, so many began to cooperate with 9 people and order minibuses to places where there is snow (Zdar, Strbsko Pleso) from the beginning of skiing (9-30). Once again I was convinced that free cheese is only in a mousetrap.
Our valiant instructor has announced a recommended place for equipment rental. We took the kits. When calculating, it turned out that the tariffs AND DISCOUNTS are "confused", the prices are too high (nearby in another rental it is 100 kroons PER DAY cheaper) On the mountain on the first day of skiing, our free instructor from 12 o'clock cheerfully talked about the rules of conduct, the basics of skiing, he promised every day to study, but on the second day he disappeared, saying that another group had arrived and he had to deal with it. There were no more willing to continue training, and semi-trained dummies dispersed along the red and even black tracks. It's good that no one was seriously hurt. We soaked and healed bruises and bruises in thermal pools. And here our organizers excelled.
They offered to take a big bus for 300 kroons to go to Poprad in Aquacity (without the cost of an entrance ticket). Distance - 8 km, drive - 15 minutes. I compared the price for myself and the child - and came out the cost of a taxi for two. Already in the city I found out that a FREE bus (like IKEA) runs regularly from the aquacity and the MAX shopping center, which passes us. Only THIS information was not at the reception. In general, there are many beautiful places nearby, but our organizers focused their attention on thermal pools 100 km away (Beshenyov), an hour to go, one hour there and an hour back. With the cost of an entrance ticket, it comes out to about 650 kroons, for comparison, the local aquacity cost me two with a child for 3 hours in two zones of 500 kroons (the bus is free).
The group drew their own conclusions and began to independently unite according to their interests - some to caves, some to long-distance skiing in Zdar, some to haunted castles. On the way back, our organizers decided, apparently, to earn even more - they took about 15 "hares" on the train, some of them bought tickets in Chop, and the families and those who ordered separate compartments for three were divided, placed in 4 people and mixed at random. As a result, there were conflicts in the carriages, up to fights and police intervention. And the conductor kept trying to find out why dead souls were traveling on nominal tickets and counting the children.
There is only one advice for you - if you cannot organize your trip yourself - then contact trusted tour operators, and not "dummies" in tourism. In Slovak, POZOR means attention with a forbidding connotation. This applies in full to AquaYuna.