Review of the tour 'The Greatness of Rome' with Algol

I traveled with Algol several times, and this year I decided to go with my family again on the "Greatness of Rome" tour - from August 15 to 24. To say the trip was terrible is an understatement. Algol decided, firstly, to save money, and secondly, to earn the maximum amount of money. The desire is understandable, but why should there be no service on the tour because of this?

Algol scored 2 buses of tourists for the tour, and when we booked the tour, we were not warned about this. Of course, we were on the second bus. We crossed paths with the "residents" of the first bus on excursions and shared our impressions. They had a normal bus, a good leader and drivers. They had better hotels (in terms of quality of hotels and breakfasts). Therefore, their opinions about the same tour and at the same time, most likely, will be different.

What we had for the same price:

1. A very old bus, in which part of the armrests was broken, the air conditioner worked only on and off, and when it turned on, it blew from all the cracks. Therefore, half of the group was sneezing and coughing by the end of the trip. In addition, on the third day of the journey, the air conditioner broke down and we were without it for 2 days.

2. The leader of the group said only that his name was Yura. His last name - Vanivsky - we learned only from the papers that he handed out on the bus. He did not introduce the group to each other - we - my wife and I - only know the names of our closest bus neighbors - all the members of the group walked on their own and did not communicate. Last year we went on a trip from the Accord company - our leader had something to tell us about all the way, he introduced himself normally. I introduced the group to each other and to the drivers, and in general, last year's trip was remembered as an endless holiday.

The head of Algol was silent all the way - no stories about countries and cities - neither in Italy nor in Hungary. He said that his education is vocational school and that's it. The DVD on the bus practically did not work either - the driver said that Yura had "rusty discs". As a result, for all the rather long trips around Italy, we watched half the film "Tourist", one boring documentary about Hungary and the entire cycle - 8 episodes - of the stupid Russian TV series "Cruise". Everything. The rest of the time on the bus we entertained ourselves.

In addition, during the check-in at the hotel, our Yura did not wait until the whole group got off the bus. If we were the last to arrive, his explanations were already finished - he handed out the keys and disappeared. In what room he lives - he never said, therefore, when we had problems a couple of times after settling, we solved them on our own, explaining ourselves at the reception with gestures. If suddenly we had questions, Yura answered as if he was doing a huge favor, And in general, he immediately said on the bus that he should not have gone on this trip, he had just returned from the previous one and was very tired and really wants to he was not touched.

3. Drivers - we don't know their names. They practically did not help women put and take bags out of the bus - there were several times, of course, but this was not the norm. They drove gloomy all the way, and when situations arose several times related to the dissatisfaction of passengers, they are drivers !!! allowed themselves to yell at the passengers. Luckily, we weren't yelled at - and I wouldn't have allowed that, but it was very unpleasant.

4. Hotels were almost all very tense three-star. We had places for a refrigerator in our room, but there were no refrigerators in hotels (except for the last two) - Algol saved on this as well. In Rome, where we spent 3 nights, the hotel was located literally 20 meters from the gas station and the highway - it was very noisy. We were fed in the standard way, but when after Rome we met in San Marino with the passengers of the 1st bus (who lived in another hotel), they shared their impressions of what fruits and cheeses and sausages they were given in Rome for breakfast. Fruit?!!! We didn’t have anything like that, and varieties too - thank God, there was at least one variety of cheese and sausage. We would have survived it, but we paid the same price for the tour. Then why such a different placement?

5. At the end of the tour, we were promised to give away CDs - gifts from Algol. They said that there are no tours around Lviv now, but there will be discs. When we arrived at the station, we took our bags out of the bus and left. No one gave the group any CDs. Again, we would have managed without discs, but Algol included their cost in the cost of the tour))))

On the positive side of the tour, there were the cities of Italy and Hungary themselves and the acquaintances that we made with our neighbors on the bus. Everything. I can say that Algol has lost forever three more of its potential customers.

Comments (1) leave a comment

1 comment

Show other comments …