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(Ms. Rebecca L Thorell - Sweden)
Dear Sir,
Referring to our recent trip to Kerala I'd like to provide you with some feed back.
We are a family of well experienced travellers who have been longing to go to India for many years. My husband was there for a few months 25 years ago and I myself have wanted to go for roughly as many years.
In March 2011 we finally bought tickets to Mumbai having nothing but a rough idea of where we wanted to go (Kerala) and what we wanted to see. We have three children aged 9, 11 and 12 and so wanted to squeeze in a bit of lying around on the beach as well as making a round trip to experience something else than just another beach resort.
Came July, my husband submitted a request for guidance via Incredibleindia.com. Within short, Philip was on the line together with three other agents. We dropped two of them within days and continued our planning with Oriana Holidays and one more agent.
Throughout the whole planning process Philip was very attentive and did his utmost to accommodate and balance our requests. He has a way of calmly and respectfully expressing himself which in the end makes him a very credible person with good judgement whose suggestions you tend to go with. Many and long e-mails went between him and us and always with a pleasant tone of voice.
Throughout the trip Philip kept in constant touch assuring everything was in order. This was nothing we had expected or experienced before but was ever so appreciated. The trip was very much in line with what we had expected and at times even better. A few things are worth commenting:
1.Accomodation:
- Travancore Heritage-an absolutely ideal place for us to start. Beautiful setting, lovely staff, nice food and good rooms. Although the beds wish for something else (incredibly hard!) we had the best of start at the Travancore and would love to return.
- House boat - deal way to continue. Great value to have Krishna (the cook) on board. He was an excellent cook and could also explain a bit of this and that as we chugged along.
- Backwater Ripples - perfectly ok but maybe not a place we would return to. Ok estate, good rooms and lovely kitchen staff but after having visited Travancore and considering there's not much to do around Backwater Ripples we would probably skip this venue if we were to recommend friends to go there. Rather than add one extra day to the Travancore, the house boat or spend a day in Trivandrum.
- Grand Thekkady - served us very well although not a fancy place. Considering our short and intense stay it was price worthy.
- Tea Valley Estate - probably one of the most beautifully situated hotels we've ever stayed in but also the only place where we (three children) got sick. The staff is not overly friendly or overly clean looking and you have a distinct feeling the kitchen is not very clean (to say the least). A place where you didn't feel like ordering much but possibly noodles or fried rice. We had a good time despite this due to the beauty that surrounds you.
Keys Hotel Mumbai - clean, comfortable and perfect for us given the limited amount of time we had in Mumbai and given the fact that we had to leave at 2 in the morning to catch a 4 o´clock flight. We were a bit reluctant to stay in this part of Mumbai but again we trusted Philip and he proved to be right.
2. Our driver, Annil. He drove well and kept the car clean at all times which is hard work with three children and two adults :) He's also a very pleasant person which is important when spending so much time together in a confined space. He chose good quaint places to eat which we liked. At one point he broke one of our bags, which can happen, but was very eager to pay for it when we bought a new one. Nice gesture that we kindly turned down but that was much appreciated.
3. Philip's showing up at the airport - what a great way to say goodbye to India!
To summarize: We all had a wonderful time in Kerala (I myself to such a degree I considered staying for the rest of my life but was dragged back to reality by the rest of the family). Philip facilitated our journey by doing an excellent job coaching us both before, during and even after our trip and not just up until payment had been done. I would recommend his work without hesitation to anyone wanting to go to Kerala and in fact have already done so.
Kind regards,
//Rebecca L Thorell
Fam. Thorell
Mårdgränd 6
131 50 Saltsjö Duvnäs,Sweden.
Dt.22nd Jan 2012
Best regards,
.
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