Hi Mai!
Please find attached my feedback. Am sure Mr & Mrs Platz will add to it if there is anythign else the Taylors did not cover.
Thank you very much for your service in making it a memorable trip to Vietnam for us!
Thank you & best regards!
Jamie Taylor
- Guide (s):
Ms. Thao (Guide in the South): Knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. We did miss the huge coffins workshop unique to the Mekong Delta.
Mr. Vinh (Guide in the Centre) : The best of all the tour guides we had on this trip. Mr Vinh is very professional, helpful and constantly offers information without our questioning.
Mr. Khanh (Guide in the North) : We will have to rank Mr Khanh third out of the 3 tour guides in the South, Central and North. Although also very knowledgable, Mr Khanh was not forthcoming with information and as we had to keep asking questions. Our time with Mr Khanh did not cover – the streets by walking tour of the Ancient Quarter of 36 streets District. This densely populated corner of the city was once a centre of commerce where goods were sold under the street name of a particular guild. Still a thriving community of sellers today, you’ll see streets name such as Sugar Street, Tin Street and Paper Street. Ancient homes and temples are interspersed with stores in this souvenir hunter’s paradise. As we were staying in the Old Quarters at Hotel Elegance 3, we walked through the streets ourselves. No fault of Mr Khanh, the itinerary planned for Day 8 with galleries and paintings were disorganised as guide was provided wrong address, painter was away on an exhibition and artist unfortunately passed away prior to our visit.
Mr. Loi (Guide on the boat in Ha Long Bay) : Very disappointed with Mr. Loi. He seems to be on holiday with us on the junk boat!!! Am sure he had a good time himself.
- Accommodation:
Caravelle Hotel (In Ho Chi Minh City): Great hotel and location! Highly recommend to anyone looking for hotel in that category. Rooms, service and restaurants were fantastic.
Furama Hotel and Resort (in Danang): Again a great choice. We recommend others to use Danang as a base for Hue and Hoi An. With the beach and swimming pools, Furama Hotel is ideal for families. The nearby strip of restaurants by the ocean is also very handy with lots of choices.
Elegance 3 Hotel (In Hanoi): Again a great choice. We recommend anyone staying in Hanoi to stay there. Service and rooms were good for such a small hotel. Best of all is its close proximity to the shops, lake and all other attractions.
Victory Boat (in Ha Long Bay): Thank you for the upgrade from Victory 1 to Victory 4!!! It made the last leg of our trip even more memorable with personalised service on a boat to ourselves! Crew was very friendly and professional. We were taken by surprise when a ‘crew’ who tried hard to sell us pearl jewellery (we did buy some!) was actually not a crew …. she left the boat next morning after her sales! Talking to other locals, we may have missed out on some sight seeing as the guide did not recommend to take us.
- Transport (Land, water and air):
DRIVERS – We would like to compliment all 3 drivers for their professionalism and experience. None of them were in a hurry at the expense of safety. We are all very impressed.
AIR – No problem at all with pick up and drop off for flights and check ins. All went smoothly.
- Restaurants:
Some variations of the set meals for dinner and lunch would have been good instead of the same dishes at every restaurant. Generally all dishes were well prepared and food was sufficient except for one lunch in HCMC. Sorry, can’t remember which restaurant other than the restaurant had no power that afternoon when we were there. We did enjoy Cha Ca very much.
- Places you visited:
All good although by the end of it we felt that we have had enough of temples and museums! Ha! Ha! Ha! We did enjoy the extra day (DAY 12) of tours in Hanoi visiting villages outside the city. We enjoyed seeing how the locals live and drives outside of towns where we saw a lot of things we would not normally see in cities…. Eg. Motorcycles carrying pigs, rice harvest, etc
- Design and management of your tour:
Mai has done a great job! We appreciate your patience with numerous changes. Even when we were close to having to postpone our holiday at one stage, you were still very polite and nice about it.
We are glad that we had some free time of our own in between the whole itinerary. It allowed us to just relax, do nothing, go shopping, etc.
- Are there any recommendations or criticisms of services, restaurants, shops, visit sites and so on that you’ve visited on your own?
Everything went well as we wished. 14 days to cover the itinerary was just right for us!
THANK YOU again from all of us!!!
