Intrepid Travel
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Vietnam - great itinerary but tour lacked energy
The content of the tour was great but we felt disappointed by the lack of effort to bring the group together and some poor planning throughout. The tour leader provided good information about culture and society but often at the wrong times, for example we were told about the food differences between the north and south only when we’d arrived in the north and left the south so didn’t have the opportunity to compare. We weren’t told about local food specialties and spent a lot of our spare time researching our own activities and restaurants as the recommendations were either poor quality or not value for money. The tour didn’t have the group dynamic and vibrancy that we expected - it’s within the ‘explorer’ category with physical rating of 3 out of 5 yet we had someone in the group with a walking stick. I mean not offence and of course have nothing against those that need support, but this tour was not appropriate for older people with limited mobility when they are so heavily dependent on the tour leader and other group members to carry luggage, get on and off transport. We were often waiting for people to catch up when walking around towns/cities, the tour felt very slow paced and low energy. I think Intrepid should have encouraged an alternative more suitable, slower paced tour. At the homestay we waited 2 hours to start a bike ride that was a total of 20 minutes long and weren’t informed about a swimming pool being available so some of the group didn’t have swimwear prepared and missed an opportunity. The craft workshop was also not available during the homestay visit which we found out last minute, seems like poor planning and felt like we wasted a lot of time. The tour leader made no effort to give us any alternative activities and instead stayed in her room the whole afternoon.