Private Best of New Delhi Full-Day City Tour (All Inclusive)

Perfect days of touring! I am writing a review under full-day private tour of New Delhi, but we actually took 6 different days of touring. We are retired and wanted to take a slower pace. Each day was perfectly planned by the owner Shakul Garg, and then adjusted to our physical needs each day by the guides Mahesh and Dilip. I cannot say enough how much we loved this visit to this city. By having the best driver in the world - B.K. Sharma, we started off feeling safe and cared about as a tourist. The restaurants we stopped at for lunch were vetted by the company as using bottled water and cooking techniques to ensure no stomach illness as one can get with lower quality food. We also booked the hotel through this company. It was excellent in every way. Again the hotel staff at Hotel Crowne Plaza also took good care of us. The tour package was very reasonably priced, and certainly worth it. We were able to choose our sites to see and among the best, I recommend the Red Fort, Safdarjung Tomb, Gandhi cremation memorial, Humayun's Tomb, Sikander Lodi's tomb in an incredible park setting. Also Swaminarayan Akshardham Hindu temple, and Purana Qila. All together, I would say these parks in these main tourist areas are all together larger than the largest botanical gardens in North America. Larger than any in the state of Florida (the vegetation is the same as in Miami) or Longwood Gardens. I highly recommend booking your tour through this company.

To set the stage for how incredible Mahesh (our guide) and DK (our driver) were: our day started with a medical emergency before the tour started. Upon contacting them, Mahesh and DK not only offered to help, but took us to the hospital and waited 2 hours with us helping to navigate the process. They took us directly to a pharmacy after when the hospital didn't have one of the needed medications in stock. They not only offered to rebook the trip for a later time, but entirely switched the itinerary to accommodate for the start of the day's change in plans. Well beyond good service - that genuine kindness - would be five stars alone. And that's before the tour even started! On to the tour. Having seen Jama Masjid Mosque and parts of Old Delhi the day before without a guide, we had a point of comparison for just how much Mahesh's guiding enriched the experience. From details of Indo-Islamic architecture to historic contextualization of Mughal monuments, Mahesh animated the sights of Delhi with a vibrant richness. Because the Lotus Temple was closed the day of our trip, he substituted a Sikh temple. At every stage he invited us to participate in cultural traditions: from eating at the temple, to helping make the bread served in the kitchens, to touching the holy water at the temple pool. Beyond his guiding, Mahesh was an excellent photographer taking our favorite photos of the trip! When we parted ways, he left us with a recommendation to see the light & water show at Akshardham Temple after sunset--his personal favorite must-see activity whenever he is in Delhi. The temple was magnificent; we were surprised to find that such a grand jewel of Delhi had few to no other foreigners. We cannot thank Mahesh and DK enough for making our time in Delhi so memorable. DKs expert shepherding through the busy traffic of Delhi deserves a special mention. The logistical simplicity and time saved by travelling with guides who knows the daily runnings of the city in and out can't be overstated. Ask for Mahesh and DK. In short: Book. This. Trip.

The guide Ranjan turned up promptly at the hotel to collect us. We had a whole day tour booked as we had limited time in Delhi. We visit a number of locations but felt that the guild was not interested in us as a group, The tour was not conducted in the order stated and we had finished the tour early and were told that the event we were to go to later was not of much interest. We did however ask Ranjan to take us to another couple of places as the tour finished early and he did this including a trip to a local station which wa an eye opener. He may just have been having an end of season lack of enthusiasm.