My experience using 'Inspire Kerala' tour operator - the good and the bad! Long ...

Bazzieb · Mar 3rd, 2009, 02:35

I went to Rajasthan and Kerala in January for a major birthday, let's just say it wasn't my 21st

I arranged all of the Rajasthan part of it myself but thought I would use a travel agent to sort out Kerala's hotels and a driver so I could just get there and relax knowing someone else was responsible. I read a fair bit on this board and Murugesan at Inspire Kerala seemed to have a good reputation. I got a quote from him, he was fast, courteous and reasonable.

As the date of travel got closer I realised that he hadn't come back to me on a couple of questions. One was that the room type he'd quoted for our beach hotel (The Leela at Kovalam) wasn't what we'd asked for and I'd asked him to confirm back to me that he had booked the correct room. The other was whether I could pay him the balance by credit card when we got there - I'd paid him the deposit as a bank transfer. He kept telling me he would get back to me 'this very day' about the hotel room but it took a long time, this went on for over a month actually - eventually he told me that he hadn't booked the correct room and the Leela were saying all of these rooms were now booked up. I was cool about it as I was just happy that we were staying there anyway as it had been busy. To Murugesan's credit he did keep asking and managed to have us put into the type of room we wanted in the end. He also eventually told me that I could pay by credit card through a partner hotel if I was comfortable with this, I said I was.

We arrived at Cochin, happy and excited to be starting the next, more chilled out part of our holiday. We looked out for our 'professional, multi-lingual guide and driver' who was due to greet us 'with cold drinks' as outlined in our documentation from Inspire Kerala. Eventually we saw someone holding up a sign with my name on it. He was in dirty clothes and spoke virtually no English at all. I presumed he was just there to get us to the car or to our first hotel but we managed to ascertain that he was due to be our driver for the entire 10 days we were in Kerala. He leered at women throughout the journey and kept telling us how lovely Kerala women were - probably thinking that was appropriate behaviour to use with two guys - it really wasn't! The car was old with grubby pink towels tied to the seats and newspapers on the floor. He made us pay for the tariffs even though we'd been told that all tariffs, petrol etc were included. He then announced that we were going to some hotel which certainly didn't sound like The Old Harbour that we'd booked. I told him we were due to stay in the Old Harbour and he said 'no'. I started to get angry and said that we definitely were and that was where he was going to take us. He eventually got Murugesan on the phone who told us there'd been a terrible mistake and we weren't staying at the hotel I had requested and he had confirmed in September 08 but were instead staying at Le Meridian. I told him it WAS a terrible mistake and that I wanted the driver to take me immediately to the Old Harbour. The driver did this and I spoke to reception - they said they had no booking under my name or Inspire Kerala at any point and they were fully booked. I think they felt sorry for me and double checked and said someone had checked out early and they could fit me in for one night only which is all we had planned on anyway. Murugesan called them and it transpired that he had booked the room under a name with my first name but a completely different surname and had left no contact details. The hotel had cancelled it as it had been there for a long time and they had no means to confirm it. Murugesan had known this for a while and had been calling daily to try to get us a room but they were booked - why on earth didn't he tell us instead of just booking another hotel and relying on a driver with no English to just take us there without explanation??? I was starting to see a trend here - Murugesan clearly doesn't like to be the bearer of bad news so he'd rather just not tell you at all!! I spoke to him that night and told him that despite the bad start we knew the situation and trusted him but could he change the driver - he asked us to just try him out for the next day.

The next day the 'professional multi-lingual guide and driver' who wasn't took us on a tour of Cochin. We were standing outside a building with a sign saying it was the Museum (closed) with him telling me it was the Synagogue. Now, Ive never been to Cochin but I can read a sign so I said 'No, this is the Museum', he said 'No, Synagogue' - another tour guide went by and told him 'No, this is the museum' so he turned to me smiling and announced 'This is the museum' as if the previous conversation hadn't taken place.

We then set off for Munnar with him driving up the narrow roads like a Hellion, whenever I asked him what anything was he answered 'Church' without even looking - if I believed him I'd now be swearing that they have churches with swimming pools in India! He took us to some hell hole for lunch where he promptly put his lunch on our bill without asking despite being given an allowance from Inspire Kerala and there was also a curious charge for Roast Beef!!!! Clearly a thinly disguised tourist tax for his friends running the restaurant.

When we got to the Sienna Village hotel (which we had requested) in Munnar the grounds were lovely and we were looking forward to staying in this simple location for a couple of nights. However, when we got into the room it looked rather unloved - the furniture was worn and dirty, I wouldn't have sat on the sofa in pale clothes. The floor boards were all worn with the stain rubbed off. The mat in the bathroom was FILTHY and hadn't been changed. I pulled the bedding back and, although clean, the pillow cases had holes in them from wear and the bed cover was the same. This place wasn't dirt cheap - it had cost about £70 per night and I expected a bit more. We went out looking at some other hotels and decided to say 'to hell with it' and checked into the nearby Club Mahindra which was very nice - well, it was my birthday. We called Murugesan and told him, we said we would obviously pay for the Sienna Village for that night but wondered if he could get us a refund for the second night. He said he couldn't as he had transferred the money. We hadn't paid him the balance but decided that we would just swallow it rather than give him a hard time but I knew that if I had booked direct I would have been paying be credit card and sure as hell wouldn't have been paying Sienna Village anything for dirty and worn rooms! We asked him to change the driver at least - he said he would call in the morning. Half an hour before our driver was due to turn up we hadn't heard from him so I had to call him to see if we had a change or not. We did - we got a wonderful guy called Dilip who seemed to have been seconded to Inspire Kerala from a company called Divine Tours (I know nothing about them but I would recommend Dilip the driver they sent). He was a real gentleman, not brilliant English but enough to give us information - he was super clean, his car was spotless and he didn't charge us for tolls or his lunch which I offered to pay for. He was exactly what we should have had from the start. Now we were back on track.

Our next stop was the House Boat. However, we got a call from Murugesan telling us that now we couldn't pay the balance by credit card and needed to pay him cash!!! I tried to get out the £1000 that we owed him for the balance and of course all my card companies shut down the cards incase of fraud so I had to call all of them and get it sorted and that had us running late for the house boat. We had originally been told to give the money to the driver but some confusion ensued over this as apparently that only applied in Munnar where the office was and we were now in Allepey. No one could get hold of Murugesan. The guy who said he ran the house boat company came on board and asked me to give the money to him. I told him that with all due respect I had no idea who he was and was giving him nothing. He then went off and came back with his mobile phone saying it was Murugesan on the line and I was asked to give the money to him. I wasn't even sure if it was Murugesan at the time considering I'd spoken to him for a total of about fifteen minutes in my life to date. I reluctantly gave the guy the money and all turned out to be fine but it left me feeling nervous and worried at the start of the house boat experience. The boat set off and I went to get some bits and pieces from my bag which had been put into the bedroom. It was then that I got the full horror of the 'Premium' houseboat. This was a floating flea pit! We saw some beautiful houseboats out there which was what I had expected when told it was premium. I wouldn't let my dog sleep in this place. The bathroom was thick, but THICK with dirt. The cabinet actually had thick black grime and dead insects half eaten caught in webs on it. The bed wasn't made, we had to do that ourselves and the mattress was filthy. There was one pillow each and they were flat as chapatis - I made the mistake of looking inside the pillow case and the pillow was filthy. We flicked the light switches with our elbows or with something as they were too dirty to touch. I have attached some pictures incase you think I'm exaggerating.
the bathroom floor when we arrived:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3292.jpg
bathroom cabinet
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3298.jpg
top of bathroom cabinet
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3299.jpg
light switch
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3301.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3337.jpg
pillow
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3347.jpg
I tried to tell myself that it was just for one night and it was the beautiful scenery outside that was important not what was inside. However, when it came to bed time we both just lay there wide awake, fully dressed, cross and upset, thinking about the beautiful boats we'd seen with big fluffy white quilts, willing the morning to arrive. I sent an SMS to Murugesan with a picture but he didn't reply - I have since emailed him the pictures asking for his thoughts. He passed no judgement, he simply emailed back saying he would check out the house boat and get back to us - we've heard nothing. We were so ready for our five night stay at the Leela after this - and that was FABULOUS! lol
So, to sum up - I believe Murugesan is trustworthy but not good at dealing with difficult situations or telling the customer that what they want isn't happening. Would I recommend them? Probably not - having now been to India I don't think I'd use any tour operator as I would have had much more control over situations if I was handling it all directly. I would say to anyone - just book it yourself and perhaps use a company to arrange a driver for you, that's all you need.
If you have reached the end - congratulations on your staying power and thanks for your endurance!

edwardseco · Mar 3rd, 2009, 03:42

Your end conclusion just about sums it up

..

CliveG · Mar 3rd, 2009, 15:42

Wow - that is a sorry catalogue of events. I hope it doesn't put you off visiting Kerala and India again. You are right in that we book everything ourselves and feel in control. If anything goes wrong we sort it out and learn from the experience next time we visit.

Nick-H · Mar 3rd, 2009, 16:04

Paragraphs are a really nice idea. I just cannot face that big block of text, and suspect I'm not alone.

Your pictures, though, speak for themselves.

vandy · Mar 4th, 2009, 06:38

Good day,

Thanks for your report.

Sorry to hear your holiday in Kerala was not up to
scratch.

On the houseboat experience, I would have Demanded
another boat.

After reading your report I will be very hesitant
in reccomending Inspire Kerala holidays, sounds like a very Unproffessional bunch.

Also unfortunately in India, there are still many
Tourism Orientated Accomodations which have varying degrees of cleanliness, this also includes
the higher end of the market.

rgds

vandy

Hal · Mar 4th, 2009, 09:04

I am not inspired to use this tour operator.

Bradwellboy · Mar 5th, 2009, 03:49

Hi
Thanks for taking the time to post.
I received a quote from that very man yesterday as me and the wife are in Cochin in 4 weeks. the quote reads really well and the hotels he quotes also look ok and at 25000 for 6 nights/7days I was going to go with it, but now will take a good look about and will give major thought to booking homestays and a car
myself.

Any places you visited that stand out I would appreciate your comments.

I would be interested in what Snonymous would comment as she used Inspire and also stayed at The Seina Village without apparently any problem {report My Kerala Holiday May 2008)

Once again many thanks
Paul

Nick-H · Mar 5th, 2009, 15:00

Bazzieb, thank you for splitting your report up into paragraphs. I do appreciate it. I hope my previosu post didn't seem rude, trip reports are always welcome, especially when such a lot of work has been put into them.

<later>

And what a sad tale. There is so much competition in Kerala, I do not know how people can get away with such treatment.

Such treatment deserves all the bad publicity it can get.

Inspire: it's an easy name to remember, so I can be sure that I will certainly never use them.

Aishah · Mar 5th, 2009, 15:25

Thanks for posting this report, bazzieb - I have changed your large pics into links. We normally don't allow large photos within the threads, however if you like, you might replace the links with thumbnails.

As Nick said, the photos say it all!

ak916 · Mar 5th, 2009, 20:49

Bazzieb - I am sorry you had a bad time with the tour operator. I just feel sorry for people paying extra money to the operator for a service, and getting a raw deal after that. In my opinion, It is always better to plan and book your hotels yourself. That is what I do after a similar thing happened to me at ooty.

santos_g15 · Mar 6th, 2009, 00:05

Bazzieb -My experience with inspire kerala was okay.Not that great.The same thing happened .we were asked to check into different hotel as the hotel we booked was full .i could'nt bloody understand how they could say it .And as rightly pointed out by you we spoke immediately to Murugesan who spoke with Manager only to tell us we had no other option.but the hotels were good.

houseboat was ok.not as bad as yours.

we went in off season and it could have made a difference.we could get best things with a small price.

talking about driver,i doubt my driver could speak english.thank god all of us spoke tamil.travelling with family it could have been embarassment if we had to communicate with signs.

delhi6 · Mar 6th, 2009, 00:29

Thanks for your useful post .I was in the process of using a travel operator(Maria Heritage/Bin Moosa holidays) to plan my holidays in July end , but now I will think again

.Has anybody heard of these operators?They are Allepy based.

Nick-H · Mar 6th, 2009, 00:57

It is a shame when one bad apple causes other businesses to loose out.

For the offending agency, it is a risk they should be aware of --- that they are only as good as the latest trip of theirs that gets any publicity.

chackmatha · Mar 8th, 2009, 13:47

Why do not use providers than agents or operators .

Kerala is still a place you can book directly and take taxis to places .

It also helps the local business

Aishah · Mar 8th, 2009, 14:04

I'm with you on that thought, chackmatha. Agents or operators make a lot of money out of you - direct booking IMHO is always the best, and that extra money can be directed to 'treats' like lunch at a fabulous Heritage hotel which you can't afford to stay at, but can enjoy the surroundings and architecture in this way!

Mar 3rd, 2009, 02:35	#1
Bazzieb Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: London, UK Posts: 7	My experience using 'Inspire Kerala' tour operator - the good and the bad! Long ... I went to Rajasthan and Kerala in January for a major birthday, let's just say it wasn't my 21st I arranged all of the Rajasthan part of it myself but thought I would use a travel agent to sort out Kerala's hotels and a driver so I could just get there and relax knowing someone else was responsible. I read a fair bit on this board and Murugesan at Inspire Kerala seemed to have a good reputation. I got a quote from him, he was fast, courteous and reasonable. As the date of travel got closer I realised that he hadn't come back to me on a couple of questions. One was that the room type he'd quoted for our beach hotel (The Leela at Kovalam) wasn't what we'd asked for and I'd asked him to confirm back to me that he had booked the correct room. The other was whether I could pay him the balance by credit card when we got there - I'd paid him the deposit as a bank transfer. He kept telling me he would get back to me 'this very day' about the hotel room but it took a long time, this went on for over a month actually - eventually he told me that he hadn't booked the correct room and the Leela were saying all of these rooms were now booked up. I was cool about it as I was just happy that we were staying there anyway as it had been busy. To Murugesan's credit he did keep asking and managed to have us put into the type of room we wanted in the end. He also eventually told me that I could pay by credit card through a partner hotel if I was comfortable with this, I said I was. We arrived at Cochin, happy and excited to be starting the next, more chilled out part of our holiday. We looked out for our 'professional, multi-lingual guide and driver' who was due to greet us 'with cold drinks' as outlined in our documentation from Inspire Kerala. Eventually we saw someone holding up a sign with my name on it. He was in dirty clothes and spoke virtually no English at all. I presumed he was just there to get us to the car or to our first hotel but we managed to ascertain that he was due to be our driver for the entire 10 days we were in Kerala. He leered at women throughout the journey and kept telling us how lovely Kerala women were - probably thinking that was appropriate behaviour to use with two guys - it really wasn't! The car was old with grubby pink towels tied to the seats and newspapers on the floor. He made us pay for the tariffs even though we'd been told that all tariffs, petrol etc were included. He then announced that we were going to some hotel which certainly didn't sound like The Old Harbour that we'd booked. I told him we were due to stay in the Old Harbour and he said 'no'. I started to get angry and said that we definitely were and that was where he was going to take us. He eventually got Murugesan on the phone who told us there'd been a terrible mistake and we weren't staying at the hotel I had requested and he had confirmed in September 08 but were instead staying at Le Meridian. I told him it WAS a terrible mistake and that I wanted the driver to take me immediately to the Old Harbour. The driver did this and I spoke to reception - they said they had no booking under my name or Inspire Kerala at any point and they were fully booked. I think they felt sorry for me and double checked and said someone had checked out early and they could fit me in for one night only which is all we had planned on anyway. Murugesan called them and it transpired that he had booked the room under a name with my first name but a completely different surname and had left no contact details. The hotel had cancelled it as it had been there for a long time and they had no means to confirm it. Murugesan had known this for a while and had been calling daily to try to get us a room but they were booked - why on earth didn't he tell us instead of just booking another hotel and relying on a driver with no English to just take us there without explanation??? I was starting to see a trend here - Murugesan clearly doesn't like to be the bearer of bad news so he'd rather just not tell you at all!! I spoke to him that night and told him that despite the bad start we knew the situation and trusted him but could he change the driver - he asked us to just try him out for the next day. The next day the 'professional multi-lingual guide and driver' who wasn't took us on a tour of Cochin. We were standing outside a building with a sign saying it was the Museum (closed) with him telling me it was the Synagogue. Now, Ive never been to Cochin but I can read a sign so I said 'No, this is the Museum', he said 'No, Synagogue' - another tour guide went by and told him 'No, this is the museum' so he turned to me smiling and announced 'This is the museum' as if the previous conversation hadn't taken place. We then set off for Munnar with him driving up the narrow roads like a Hellion, whenever I asked him what anything was he answered 'Church' without even looking - if I believed him I'd now be swearing that they have churches with swimming pools in India! He took us to some hell hole for lunch where he promptly put his lunch on our bill without asking despite being given an allowance from Inspire Kerala and there was also a curious charge for Roast Beef!!!! Clearly a thinly disguised tourist tax for his friends running the restaurant. When we got to the Sienna Village hotel (which we had requested) in Munnar the grounds were lovely and we were looking forward to staying in this simple location for a couple of nights. However, when we got into the room it looked rather unloved - the furniture was worn and dirty, I wouldn't have sat on the sofa in pale clothes. The floor boards were all worn with the stain rubbed off. The mat in the bathroom was FILTHY and hadn't been changed. I pulled the bedding back and, although clean, the pillow cases had holes in them from wear and the bed cover was the same. This place wasn't dirt cheap - it had cost about £70 per night and I expected a bit more. We went out looking at some other hotels and decided to say 'to hell with it' and checked into the nearby Club Mahindra which was very nice - well, it was my birthday. We called Murugesan and told him, we said we would obviously pay for the Sienna Village for that night but wondered if he could get us a refund for the second night. He said he couldn't as he had transferred the money. We hadn't paid him the balance but decided that we would just swallow it rather than give him a hard time but I knew that if I had booked direct I would have been paying be credit card and sure as hell wouldn't have been paying Sienna Village anything for dirty and worn rooms! We asked him to change the driver at least - he said he would call in the morning. Half an hour before our driver was due to turn up we hadn't heard from him so I had to call him to see if we had a change or not. We did - we got a wonderful guy called Dilip who seemed to have been seconded to Inspire Kerala from a company called Divine Tours (I know nothing about them but I would recommend Dilip the driver they sent). He was a real gentleman, not brilliant English but enough to give us information - he was super clean, his car was spotless and he didn't charge us for tolls or his lunch which I offered to pay for. He was exactly what we should have had from the start. Now we were back on track. Our next stop was the House Boat. However, we got a call from Murugesan telling us that now we couldn't pay the balance by credit card and needed to pay him cash!!! I tried to get out the £1000 that we owed him for the balance and of course all my card companies shut down the cards incase of fraud so I had to call all of them and get it sorted and that had us running late for the house boat. We had originally been told to give the money to the driver but some confusion ensued over this as apparently that only applied in Munnar where the office was and we were now in Allepey. No one could get hold of Murugesan. The guy who said he ran the house boat company came on board and asked me to give the money to him. I told him that with all due respect I had no idea who he was and was giving him nothing. He then went off and came back with his mobile phone saying it was Murugesan on the line and I was asked to give the money to him. I wasn't even sure if it was Murugesan at the time considering I'd spoken to him for a total of about fifteen minutes in my life to date. I reluctantly gave the guy the money and all turned out to be fine but it left me feeling nervous and worried at the start of the house boat experience. The boat set off and I went to get some bits and pieces from my bag which had been put into the bedroom. It was then that I got the full horror of the 'Premium' houseboat. This was a floating flea pit! We saw some beautiful houseboats out there which was what I had expected when told it was premium. I wouldn't let my dog sleep in this place. The bathroom was thick, but THICK with dirt. The cabinet actually had thick black grime and dead insects half eaten caught in webs on it. The bed wasn't made, we had to do that ourselves and the mattress was filthy. There was one pillow each and they were flat as chapatis - I made the mistake of looking inside the pillow case and the pillow was filthy. We flicked the light switches with our elbows or with something as they were too dirty to touch. I have attached some pictures incase you think I'm exaggerating. the bathroom floor when we arrived: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3292.jpg bathroom cabinet http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3298.jpg top of bathroom cabinet http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3299.jpg light switch http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3301.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3337.jpg pillow http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...b/IMG_3347.jpg I tried to tell myself that it was just for one night and it was the beautiful scenery outside that was important not what was inside. However, when it came to bed time we both just lay there wide awake, fully dressed, cross and upset, thinking about the beautiful boats we'd seen with big fluffy white quilts, willing the morning to arrive. I sent an SMS to Murugesan with a picture but he didn't reply - I have since emailed him the pictures asking for his thoughts. He passed no judgement, he simply emailed back saying he would check out the house boat and get back to us - we've heard nothing. We were so ready for our five night stay at the Leela after this - and that was FABULOUS! lol So, to sum up - I believe Murugesan is trustworthy but not good at dealing with difficult situations or telling the customer that what they want isn't happening. Would I recommend them? Probably not - having now been to India I don't think I'd use any tour operator as I would have had much more control over situations if I was handling it all directly. I would say to anyone - just book it yourself and perhaps use a company to arrange a driver for you, that's all you need. If you have reached the end - congratulations on your staying power and thanks for your endurance! Last edited by Aishah : Mar 5th, 2009 at 15:22.

Mar 3rd, 2009, 03:42	#2
edwardseco Maha Guru Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Land that shakes and bakes. Posts: 5,845	Your end conclusion just about sums it up..

Mar 5th, 2009, 15:25	#9
Aishah She-who-must-be-obeyed! Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Jaisalmer Posts: 7,629	Thanks for posting this report, bazzieb - I have changed your large pics into links. We normally don't allow large photos within the threads, however if you like, you might replace the links with thumbnails. As Nick said, the photos say it all! __________________ "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Mar 6th, 2009, 00:29	#12
delhi6 Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: London Posts: 10	concerns about tour operators Thanks for your useful post .I was in the process of using a travel operator(Maria Heritage/Bin Moosa holidays) to plan my holidays in July end , but now I will think again .Has anybody heard of these operators?They are Allepy based.

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Mar 3rd, 2009, 15:42	#3
CliveG Maha Guru Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: PORTSMOUTH U.K. Posts: 932	Wow - that is a sorry catalogue of events. I hope it doesn't put you off visiting Kerala and India again. You are right in that we book everything ourselves and feel in control. If anything goes wrong we sort it out and learn from the experience next time we visit.

Mar 3rd, 2009, 16:04	#4
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,230	Paragraphs are a really nice idea. I just cannot face that big block of text, and suspect I'm not alone. Your pictures, though, speak for themselves.

Mar 4th, 2009, 06:38	#5
vandy Maha Guru Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: perth-australia Posts: 1,148	Good day, Thanks for your report. Sorry to hear your holiday in Kerala was not up to scratch. On the houseboat experience, I would have Demanded another boat. After reading your report I will be very hesitant in reccomending Inspire Kerala holidays, sounds like a very Unproffessional bunch. Also unfortunately in India, there are still many Tourism Orientated Accomodations which have varying degrees of cleanliness, this also includes the higher end of the market. rgds vandy

Mar 4th, 2009, 09:04	#6
Hal . . . _ _ _ . . . Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Toronto Posts: 2,303	I am not inspired to use this tour operator.

Mar 5th, 2009, 03:49	#7
Bradwellboy Running the only way Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Great Yarmouth Posts: 65	Hi Thanks for taking the time to post. I received a quote from that very man yesterday as me and the wife are in Cochin in 4 weeks. the quote reads really well and the hotels he quotes also look ok and at 25000 for 6 nights/7days I was going to go with it, but now will take a good look about and will give major thought to booking homestays and a car myself. Any places you visited that stand out I would appreciate your comments. I would be interested in what Snonymous would comment as she used Inspire and also stayed at The Seina Village without apparently any problem {report My Kerala Holiday May 2008) Once again many thanks Paul

Mar 5th, 2009, 15:00	#8
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,230	Bazzieb, thank you for splitting your report up into paragraphs. I do appreciate it. I hope my previosu post didn't seem rude, trip reports are always welcome, especially when such a lot of work has been put into them. <later> And what a sad tale. There is so much competition in Kerala, I do not know how people can get away with such treatment. Such treatment deserves all the bad publicity it can get. Inspire: it's an easy name to remember, so I can be sure that I will certainly never use them.

Mar 5th, 2009, 20:49	#10
ak916 Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Cochin/Bangalore/Hyd Posts: 26	Bazzieb - I am sorry you had a bad time with the tour operator. I just feel sorry for people paying extra money to the operator for a service, and getting a raw deal after that. In my opinion, It is always better to plan and book your hotels yourself. That is what I do after a similar thing happened to me at ooty.

Mar 6th, 2009, 00:05	#11
santos_g15 Maha Guru Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: chennai Posts: 738	Bazzieb -My experience with inspire kerala was okay.Not that great.The same thing happened .we were asked to check into different hotel as the hotel we booked was full .i could'nt bloody understand how they could say it .And as rightly pointed out by you we spoke immediately to Murugesan who spoke with Manager only to tell us we had no other option.but the hotels were good. houseboat was ok.not as bad as yours. we went in off season and it could have made a difference.we could get best things with a small price. talking about driver,i doubt my driver could speak english.thank god all of us spoke tamil.travelling with family it could have been embarassment if we had to communicate with signs.

Mar 6th, 2009, 00:57	#13
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,230	It is a shame when one bad apple causes other businesses to loose out. For the offending agency, it is a risk they should be aware of --- that they are only as good as the latest trip of theirs that gets any publicity.

Mar 8th, 2009, 13:47	#14
chackmatha Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: India Posts: 67	Why do not use providers than agents or operators . Kerala is still a place you can book directly and take taxis to places . It also helps the local business

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Tour operator in kerala	santos_g15	Kerala	1	Aug 5th, 2008 01:50
Feed Back on Tour Operator Kerala-	jasim	Kerala	3	Jul 25th, 2008 13:45

Mar 8th, 2009, 14:04	#15
Aishah She-who-must-be-obeyed! Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Jaisalmer Posts: 7,629	I'm with you on that thought, chackmatha. Agents or operators make a lot of money out of you - direct booking IMHO is always the best, and that extra money can be directed to 'treats' like lunch at a fabulous Heritage hotel which you can't afford to stay at, but can enjoy the surroundings and architecture in this way!