Travel agency review Алголь Туроператор (Lviv)

This time they screwed up!

Author:
Date of purchase: 02 july 2018
Written: 09 august 2018
4.0
Travel agency: Алголь Туроператор (Lviv)
Service type: экскурсионный тур

Tour "Weekend of desires" from 08/02/18 to 08/06/18.

This is the sixth time we have traveled with this company. And they were always happy with everything. We wrote a lot of laudatory reviews, which, I'm sure, attracted more than one client to the company. The daughter was sent to the last round of "Blitz Venice" from 06/22/18. Apart from praise, there is nothing more to add: a great program, a great Volvo bus, a good escort.

Of course, sometimes there were minor shortcomings, but everything was covered by good buses and experienced escorts.

Tour "Weekend of desires" studied in the winter. Long read, analyzed. The date was chosen on July 19, 2018. They planned to go with a company (2 couples), with their friends.

But all of a sudden it went awry.

Firstly, we booked a trip for 07/19/18, and 2 weeks before departure, Algol moved the date to 08/02/18, which led to the return of train tickets, with the loss of money and fuss with a new purchase of tickets for other dates. This has never happened before with promotional tours.

Secondly, as compensation, we were seated (or rather, 4 people were shoved into different ends: 1st-2nd and 14th-15th places) in the first half of the bus, which are sold to those who wish for an additional 15 euros per person. How and who had the audacity to sell such places?! Have you even seen them yourself? 1st and 2nd places are located immediately behind the driver, they are limited from him by a partition. The knees do not fit, so you can only sit sideways. The seat backs are hard, it is impossible to relax your back.

When moving 300-400 km, the legs swell, even the hands go numb, the back is “stake”. After such a vacation, the whole body is covered in bruises, burst blood vessels and swelling. How did the greed of the Algol management defeat common sense and a reputation built up over the years?

The bus "Carpathian Express" license plate AT 8020 AC used to be a SCHEDULE bus that went to Prague, and not a TOURIST bus. It's like a UIA plane, the more people you squeeze in, the more uncomfortable it is to sit. By rescheduling the date of the tour for us, Algol combined two groups of tourists, one of which was 35 people. There were 50 people on the bus (not double decker)! Apparently, for a very long time they were looking for just such a “good” bus. You can only imagine these inconveniences! All other seats in this bus were right next to each other, the seatbacks could not be folded back, and they did not recline, they were not provided. The bus is over 20 years old! If it were not for two excellent, experienced drivers, it is not known whether this transport miracle would have traveled at all. The first breakdowns began at the exit, exactly near the border. And when, on the autobahn near the city of Miskolc in Hungary, a bus tire burst at speed, none of those traveling, probably, were even surprised. Although, maybe he was surprised that this happened only at the end of the tour.

While the drivers were changing the wheel, accompanying Roman Matusec promptly contacted his colleagues, whose tourist group was already in Miskolc, and they sent their bus to us to take us to the remaining 10 km to the baths. And so, when that bus arrived, our group immediately felt the difference: their bus had comfortable ergonomic seats, the backs were laid back, and did not fall on the knees of the neighbors. For some 15 minutes of the journey, our backs finally relaxed. So, couldn't you save your reputation and give our group an equally good bus? Or did someone decide that “it will do?” Or, perhaps, a group of comrades from Pokrovsk did something wrong with Algol, and everyone else was punished along with them? In civilized countries, the company would be sued for bullying people. Alas, we are still very far from a civilized country.

I would like to express my gratitude to the drivers and accompanying Roman. They did their job excellently.

And I would like to remind the Algol company that it is very difficult to develop a reputation, it takes years, and you can lose it in “one moment”. Look what happened to your colleagues from Accord Tour. With the current visa-free regime, a large number of tour operators and new low-cost routes, it is possible, with this approach, to soon be left without customers at all.




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