Nick Coates

Nick Coates

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Reviews by Nick Coates

RS

RSD Travel

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1 out of 5 stars

Don’t buy the Croatia-Bosnia-Montenegro tour

I go on holiday to relax, see new sights and enjoy myself. Instead on this trip I have never felt so anxious or stressed while on holiday. First there is (unnecessarily) no certainty about hotels or timings for each visit - at least they (W Touristic the local agent) don’t tell you until the last minute each day. This suspense allows the hard selling and manipulative (I am not exaggerating - this was a word used by many of my fellow travellers) main guide to push the extras. It was truly thuggish and bullying. The trips may have been worth doing - but they were not value for money. The full board upgrade for the second week (so called free week) hotel was sold particularly hard - ‘unless you upgrade’ the guide said ‘I cannot guarantee that you will be in this good hotel’. Non-upgraders, even half-boarders, were made to feel guilty, ashamed even. Assumedly he was on a commission. If you don’t go on the trips then the time is yours, but expect to be dumped somewhere while you wait for the coach to pick you. And the trips and upgrades had to be paid in cash, not by card, which upset a lot of people. (No doubt the local tax authorities would be interested in this ruse). What made this worse is the second week hotel didn’t offer bed and breakfast, ‘bed only’ being the only purported upgrade option (an unusual marketing technique). Given the nearest open restaurant in April was over a mile away, this would have constrained many of the older travellers in our group. Personally I always like to visit the local restaurants and mingle with non-tourists when I am away and this proved to be the better option. Yes the food in the hotels was (mostly) good but eating typical buffet food for two weeks even for the diehard fan is just too much. I don’t mind going to the carpet factory, or the jewellery and leather (coat) outlet but we all expected to see and celebrate some local craftspeople making goods. But it was not to be - just the hard sell of manufactured goods brought into a warehouse to entice tourists into buying. We don’t do bartering they say - oh, but they do. I once bought a carpet in a market in Istanbul so I was ready for ratcheting up of the sales spiel. But I was not ready psychologically for when 40 sales people suddenly entered the room and picked you off! I have had more anxiety attacks and sleepless nights on this holiday than I ever got from work. These factory visits help subsidise the holiday but the reason you will go on the trip is that it appears to be good value. Beware. Finally, the aspect that attracted me to this holiday was the variety of UNESCO and similar historic sights that were on offer. But you get to spend so little time at each place that you never really absorb the history in any depth. The guides at each city (who all need tipping) were mostly good but the experience is shallow. Many of us were entranced by Budva and Kotor and were able to return after our token visit as these towns could be accessed from our resort by bus. The desire to travel by bus was not anticipated by our main guide who assumed we would sit in the second hotel with our full upgrade and loads of free drink. We wondered often if the tour was designed around his convenience (and so he can glean Euro20 of tips per person) - he did prefer the hotels with a gym, rather than as an opportunity to delight the visitor. Do not be late for the coach or you will be left behind! On three occasions he would have happily left people behind. On one of these occasions two of us went out on a search party for an elderly and clearly confused woman since the main guide was in a hurry and was not going to wait. We found her but while we were out our partners were pressured into trying to ring us to find out where we were after just five minutes. Disgraceful behaviour! Don’t go with RSD.