30 Mar 2022
Hello. We did this tour last week. We booked directly with the company. Our initial interaction with the company rep was extremely pleasant, he was polite, efficient and kept in touch regarding the arrangements. A big car was promised since we would need to be dropped to the airport with our luggage after the tour, we were assured that the driver had been fully briefed on all sights and arrangements to be covered. So it was with high optimism that we waited for our driver to pick us up on the day.
The driver when he arrived had someone else's name as his pick up; it was only after he couldn't find them and he seemed lost that we approached him again at the hotel reception and this time he confirmed that last evening he had received our names, but this morning someone else's ! In the meantime, I had called up the company rep who promised to look into finding our driver and revert. I never heard back from him since then until now.
The car was a sedan which barely fit our large suitcases and the aircon was sluggish and non-cooling. Not good given the heat and humidity !
The driver was unaware of the fact that he had to pay for our entrance fees and lunch and had to check back with the company. Further, he wasn't aware of the location of some of the sights and thankfully, I had GPS on my phone ( I had taken a local SIM), and that was the only reason we managed to reach some of the locations (the driver did not have a smartphone). Which led us to understand that he had not been briefed well by the company, inspite of their assurances and our high expectations from our initial interactions. A nice lunch was arranged at a Chinese restaurant; however all the items pre-ordered were non-vegetarian, which turned out great for us, but what if one or both of us were vegetarians ! The company did not check our dietary requirements with us beforehand.
Further, the driver was rather uninvolved, unenthusiastic, uncommunicative and showed no real interest in making our experience worthwhile. He blandly informed us that a couple of sights were closed, one on account of it being a Sunday, and another as it was a rainy day. The other sights, he just drove us there and was not too responsive to our efforts at conversation.
All in all, we expected far more from Freshverde Holidays, given that our introduction and early interaction with them was very pleasant and satisfactory. I really don't know what slipped in between the cracks and resulted in a very sub-par experience for us. Lack of proper briefing to the driver, the car itself, and the driver's overall lack of enthusiasm and knowledge certainly contributed to our disappointment !