Tours in Ukraine: a divorce on a grandma worse than European

Good day to all!

I have been traveling with the Accord Tour since 2013.

From the point of view of the quality of hotels, breakfasts, the organization of the route, everything suited me, in European tours so for sure. Then I began to travel to Europe on my own, and in Ukraine (on active tours), in addition to personal trips, with Accord (since 2015).

At some point, prices for Ukrainian tours rose sharply (like in the summer of 2016), for example, when ordering a 10-day tour per month with single occupancy (why should I live with some unfamiliar character, or even with two what is written in the contract?) Accord took about 6500 hryvnia. This is without the front seat surcharge and optional tour package. In general, I want to tell you in detail about the latter, in fact, because of which, having gone on the tour "Vacation colorful like dreams" in August 2017 and counting my actual expenses / losses at the end of the trip, I decided never to participate in these divorces for grandmas again and warn everyone who is going to drive with the Accord even in Ukraine.

Next are the numbers.

6500 UAH is worth a 10-day tour of Ukraine.

In reality, this amount includes travel, accommodation, breakfasts (terrible in most hotels, except for the hotel in Ivano-Frankivsk).

For optional excursions on the tour, plus the rental of special vehicles for driving into the mountains, you will pay about 2000 more.

Plus, lunches and dinners every day are at least another 100 hryvnias.

In total, it took me 10 days of the tour, despite the fact that I didn’t buy any souvenirs at all and didn’t go to expensive restaurants: 9300 hryvnias.

Somehow expensive for a 10-day tour of Ukraine, agree? After all, this tour is really 8-day (on the first day you just go to Frankivsk from Lviv and stop by, see all sorts of ordinary, nothing of themselves churches on the way to where everything is free), and the last day is already going from Rakhiv back to Lviv half a day.

Why is it so expensive? Because the guide needs to earn. Of course, he will be sorry that in Accord the guides are not rich, they receive little, but if you look at their mountain clothes for a thousand or two thousand a thing, you begin to doubt low salaries.

I roughly calculated how much the guide receives personally in his pocket for each optional excursion on this tour.

For example, a trip to the lake Nesamovite (violent). You are charged 280 hryvnia per trip. Usually a group is 20-25 people, well, let's take 20 people. 20X280 = 5600 hryvnia, minus the order of buses to the starting point to the lake and back - this is 3000 hryvnia for two sprinters, and entrance tickets to the reserve - 400 hryvnia for 20 people. And then, a sprinter is rented only if the group is large, because a large bus will not call at the starting point. Total: for one tour, the guide has a profit of 2200 hryvnia! And there are 5 more such excursions in the tour, for a minute! and this is without any additional payments for special vehicles, etc. That is, for 10 days of the tour, the guide earns 10-11 thousand hryvnias. Okay, it’s all right, it’s not my business to climb into their wallet, but something else is outrageous: why does the Accord tour put such prices on ordinary excursions in Ukraine ?? If you come to live in Yaremche on your own and take excursions from local travel agencies, for some reason they will be cheaper by 100-150 hryvnia per excursion, and the quality will be even better. Accord-tour has become so insolent that in some of its Ukrainian tours it takes 160-180 UAH for a transfer from Yaremche to Bukovel, where you are allowed to ride in the winter only from 11:00 to 16:00, while you can go there on your own on a good by regular bus and for travel in two directions to pay 50 hryvnia.

The organization of Ukrainian tours is generally a ridiculous topic, given the trains. Why do tourists from large cities have to wind circles going to Lviv, where the tour starts, if they have direct trains not only to Frankivsk, but to Yaremche and Rakhiv? Why can't you start the tour from Yaremche? Anyone can get there perfectly either by direct train / bus, or by minibus from Frankivsk / Lviv! No, Accord-tour prefers to wind up empty and useless days, increasing the duration of the tour, so that in each tour of the Ukrainian direction, the first or even the second days of the tour are absolutely useless and unnecessary, something interesting begins only from the third day. But you can’t come from the third day and join the tour, you still have to pay the full amount of the tour cost. There are travel agencies that give you the opportunity to join them in the middle of the tour for half the price, but Accord stubbornly imposes unnecessary repetitive excursions on its tourists, for example, in every Ukrainian tour there is a tour of Ivano-Frankivsk or a stop at the bazaar in Yaremche ("this is very important and much needed!").

What else was outrageous, the guides of Accord, especially Comrade S. Kopansky, consider their point of view to be the only true one, and when you start offering them other options for routes to the mountains, hotels, replacement excursions, you see dissatisfaction on their part. Take an excursion to the same lake Nesamovite, where the mileage is 9 km, despite the fact that there is a path where to go 6.5 km, that is, the economy of forces is good, but no, we will go that road, which is 9 km, let all the tourists die , but I decided so and so it will be.

And, the apotheosis of divorces, tasting of liqueurs from a local resident of Yaremche, Pan Roman. I have absolutely nothing against Roman and his liqueurs, but since this autumn, Accord has been charging 130 hryvnia for tasting, despite the fact that in Vorokhta in one of the restaurants such a tasting costs 50 hryvnia with snacks! It's not about money, but about impudence - if Accord wants to do as much as possible with tourists suckers everywhere, then it will do it, for the time being. I hope that people who read my review will not fall for the tempting Ukrainian tours of Accord, because if you come to Yaremche on your own, live there, eat there and take excursions from local travel agencies, it will turn out even cheaper than traveling with a group. Paradox, right? After all, a group tour seems to be more economical, because it is a group, but no. Accord has never heard of such a thing.

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