Trivandrum Family Packages

Hotel Exp: Hotel exp was decent,food was good ,could do better in keeping some more options of North Indian food Had a payment issue at Hotel Adrak at Trivandrum where the payment was not marked as paid by the hotel agency we have to wait for checkout because of that,took a lot of time to resolve it. We could have missed the sighting of the last day due to the payment issue. Cab Exp: The driver was cooperative and helped in sight seeing for the first 3 days. He started showing tantrums for the sightseeing of Trivandrum and was not ready to cover the places in our itinerary. There was a lot of miscommunication between Back2Holidays and the driver regarding the payment and itinerary discussion. When we called the agent to clarify he was not happy and we had a lot of arguments with him. Agency Exp: I would like to thank Nikita from Back2Holidays for helping us cover all the places in our itinerary. She was following up with us throughout our trip. Everything was planned according to our needs, hotels were nearby the sightseeing places. We had issues with driver and at one of the hotels,we reached out to her and she made sure our trip went according to our plan coordinated with the driver and at hotel and overall our trip was a memorable one. There can be improvements done to avoid miscommunication between the agency,driver and hotels.It creates a lot of stressful situations for the guests. Our last 2 days were a bit stressful due to that.

The services were good overall...Travel agent was reachable to me for any queries or issues. Cab driver was good as well. The only problem we faced was there was no restaurant near hotel in Trivandrum. Stay was comfortable though.

It was a great Experience to explore Kerala.Our tour was most enjoyable.All hotels were very good beyond our imagination.Cab driver was well behaved and very punctual.He was our tour guide also.We enjoyed a lot in all sightseeing places. But our tour could be customised upto Kanyakumari within this period of program.During journey from Alleppey to Kovalam both jatayu earth centre and Padmanav Swami temple could be covered.We could not customise it.The last date we felt bored in Trivandrum after darshan of Padmanav Swami temple. Anyhow the journey was memorable and we are very grateful to the travel unbounded for a good tour program .

I recently had my south india trip to rameshwaram kanyakumari and trivandrum.. Everything i booked with blissful journey is worthy and in budget.. Gangan from blissful has fully helped and coordinted during whole trip ... Also Driver named Muthu is superb guide helping in nature ...Overall i assure everyone if you book with blissful u surely will not face any kind of challenge during your journey.

We had a great trip to Kerala. The hotels had been booked properly. The hotels were nice in general. The Kochi hotel could do with some minor but very important maintenance. Gave us the feeling that it is mostly unoccupied. Alleppy UDS was really nice. UDS hotels in Trivandrum and Kovlam were also nice even though the Kovlam hotel rooms were of lower than expected category. Buying the entrance tickets for most places were a somewhat painful experience because of long queues despite paying high or fast queue prices. 4 hour Houseboat experience in Alleppy was a bit disappointing . It was probably much better than a full day houseboat experience. I believe a Shikara boat for a few hours could have been a better experience. The Travel agent did not book the Pariyar Tiger Reserve tickets for boat ride in advance as per the deal. Finally we decided to give it a miss. The agent did however offer us the refund of the cost for that. Munnar gave us a real hill station feeling. The Aranyaka resort was very nice. Our room had great views. We could have spent some more days there.

Mr Robin helped to arrange this trip almost without any flaw. He replied to all the queries in no time right from the planning till we returned back from the trip. Had a pleasant stay in Travancore Heritage Resort. Hotel in Trivandrum was average.

Rahul from Explore Travels was very helpful. There were few issues with the hotels but he resolved it immediately. Driver Praveen was very rude and was not informative at all. In Munnar, my kids were having nausea due to mountain roads and he made us clean his car by water and tissues multiple times and he was not ready to open the windows saying that I am a full time AC driver and we should have selected non AC driver. In Kanyakumari he just left us at one place and said to ask the local people to guide us the places to visit. He did not guide us anything about Kerela as it was our first trip to Kerela. Due to kids we skipped many places, instead asked him to take us to market for shopping but he denied in Munnar as well as in Trivandrum. However we enjoyed our trip. Alleppy houseboat experience was very good. Apart from Driver every thing was amazing. Recommend Explore travels for future trips. Rahul from Explore Travels was very helpful. There were few issues with the hotels but he resolved it immediately. Munnar was beautiful. Alleppy houseboat experience was very good. Kovalam beaches were amazing. Apart from Driver every thing was amazing. Recommend Explore travels for future trips. We enjoyed our Kerela trip.

Mr. Vipin your cab driver was amazing and so professional. Without any hesitation he showed all the places and explained where ever possible. Since it was raining today, we could not visit beach in the evening, instead he suggested to spend some time at looloo mall and my kid enjoyed there. He understood that we are from Chennai and he put tamil songs in his FM set. We are thrilled with his approach. Convey my spl thanks to him. Thanks to Mr.Alan ji for arranging the great trip to trivandrum. Spl thanks to him for allowing me to customize the sight seeing plan. I appreciate his coordination and clear follow up at each and every stage. Our family really enjoyed the trip. We enjoyed events at Magic plant.

*Pros:* - Quick on call support at any point - Handling with patience while tweaking the itinerary multiple times - Budget friendly planning - Customization as per requirement - e.g break journey - Provided Hotel with good locations Cons: A: No idea of exact location & impacting events on the journey dates. e.g.1 We landed to Madurai on the day of Year's biggest festival of Minakshi Temple. Impacted our schedule. e.g.2 We were first timer to Tirupati. Being Travel planner - the team should have ensured that we have proper provision for Tirupati Darshan. Rather - the team took advance from us without confirming if we have ensured darshan tickets, - and then started our struggle with surprise - as we were not able to get Darshan Tickets. Somehow, we ourselves managed to get Darshan tickets at almost 6 times actual price, which is big amount - also impacting our budget & complete itinerary. We had to hire local vendor to solve this. Don't know if it is intentional by the Travel Planner, they just ensured that advance is received then let the travelers struggle with surprises. - how can Travel planner miss such important factors. Based on our request - additional discount was added by the travel agent- as we had to suffer extra cost to manage darshan tickets. e.g.3 We landed Trivandrum on day of election, due to which couple of our major destinations were not open on that day (Being Government Properties) This was also surfaced on the day - and no one from the travel agent team could anticipate this till last moment. This could have been better managed & well informed. B: Violation in the committed itineraries. e.g. 1 We supposed to land at Madurai at 5 am, which was well informed in advance. Still we found challenge to convince the team to arrange early morning pick-up, which was denied even after pre-agreements. Thanks to WhatsApp messages as proof - it saved us. e.g. 2 Based on early landing at Madurai - we specifically asked for ensuring early check-in at Madurai Hotel. Which was to our utter surprise,- this was completely missed by the team - and they denied for this & asked use to wait from 6 am to 12 pm for Check-in. We were in state of panic. Here also - Thanks to WhatsApp messages as proof - it saved us - which was having clear mention of the agreement for this requirement. But still - Team could not full-fill the agreement - and we had to adjust with make-shift arrangement for 1st half - 2 rooms instead of committed 4 rooms. e.g. 3 At Trivandrum, the checked-in hotel refused to give us Buffet Breakfast (CP plan), which was committed. Guess - this also happens. The hotel was under renovation and smelling paint at reception - this was not even known to the travel agents - that's what they say. So, the committed buffet they converted to “à la carte” and told us that it will be delivered to room. & they were not sure of Menu. This all information was given to us after interrogating the hotel staff at Check-in. Otherwise, it was left as Morning surprise. We had to argue & fight lot - to make sure they deliver Buffet - at least in limited way at their small available cafe. We got this done with Fight and involving travel agent. C: Driver's proficiency Make sure for south journey you ask for proper Driver who atleast understands Hindi. Else it will be like under-control of bot which is having it's own agenda. Our Driver - had limited agenda as per given list - that too was not followed - or we had to enforced. We managed somehow through Hinglish and could convey what sequence to be followed and made sure it is done. D: Hotel Categories - was committed to be 3-4 star atleast. 2 out of 5 provided hotels were way below 3 star category - atleast as experience. One of the hotel was so bad that - had to click photos to share bad experience with the agent. *Summarization:* - Agent should have proper understanding of location & other impacting factors (eg. Darshan Tickets, Larger events on the day, Hotel under renovation...) - Properties To be provided with proper check (e.g below committed star ratings, Breakfast facilities...)

This was my second trip to Kerala and I booked a package for 5N 6D with Postcard travels which costed me around 62K for 4 adults and 1 child. 1.My trip started from Munnar and we were booked at a hotel Atwood which was at Pottankadu which is atleast 15 kms from main attractions at Munnar which is I think OK as in the main city of Munnar we don't have pretty good hotels. But the room provided to us at first was horrible as it didnt even have any window. which after a few discussions with the manager at the hotel, they were kind to change it to 2 suite rooms for 2 nights which I am very thankful for. but the food there was very BAD. you get only 2 options in breakfast, either idli-sambhar or set dosa and bread(not toasted)and butter which tasted sweet. at dinner on first night , we ordered dal fry, phulka and some chilly dish(i dont remember), the phulkas were like the size of a puri and the dal fry was not good at all. so the second night, we preferred to get our dinner from outside. 2. On our 3rd day, we went to Allepey where we reached our houseboat where the only the captain of the houseboat knew some english and was able to understand but the cooks weren't able to understand us. the lunch was seved right away and it was OK-ish as we were pretty hungry at 3 Pm and had our food without any issues. but the houseboat has a policy that the ACs will only work from 9 PM to 6 AM which I understand because the boats work on generators and hence they won't be able to provide that much electric supply. but there wasn't even a good table fan or wall fan to sit and relax. there was only one stand fan available at the common sitting area which was almost broken and didnt work properly to cover the range of 5 people sitting in front of it on 2 sofas. at night, we were provided chicken curry in dinner which was so spicy that the adults in our group had a hard time having it, let alone there was a 5 years old child in our group. I informed about this to the cook but he just made a face(probably didnt understand what I meant, I dont know). the AC worked at night but it constantly made noises all the time like a cricket insect. 3. on our 4th day, we checked out of our houseboat at around 9:15 AM and unfortuntely, our driver's car got some issues in its brakes and we had to wait for almost 40 mins at a garage until the car got fixed, which I understand is nobody's fault as these mechanical issues can always happen. we reached Kovalam and after taking the turn from the main road at Kovalam it took almost 20-25 mins to reach our hotel, that bad was the hotel's location. Though the hotel staffs were very polite and helpful, they didnt understand much english so we had a hard time ordering food from restaurant which also didnt have much options even if they said they had so many items in their menu card. Though their was a walking path that directly went into the Lighthouse beach and it just took 5 mins walking to reach there, but by car, the hotel is pretty interior to reach. 4. on our 4 th day, we had out Kanyakumari trip scheduled and driver said we need to leave by 10 AM but as were not well after the long drive from Allepey to Kovalam the day before, we left at 11 AM but asked the driver if we could skip waiting at Poovar and directly go to Kanyakumari but he said there's a 1.5-2hours waiting time to get the permit at Tamilnadu border and so we had out boatride at Poovar during that time and then we stopped for lunch midway to Kanyakumari. Throughout all this time, driver didn't mention once that the ticket window for the ferry to Vivekananda Rock closes at 4 PM and so when we reached the gates at 4:15 PM, we found the window closed and weren't able to visit Vivekakanada rock and instead watched it from the shores itself. 5. After the Kanyakumari disaster, we planned to get ready on time and asked the driver when do we need to leave from Kovalam to visit the Padmanabhaswamy temple at Trivandrum, so he mentioned that the temple closes at 12 PM and we need to checkout from hotel and leave Kovalam by 10 AM the next day. So we were ready in time, checked out from our hotel and reached the parking(which was around 200 m from the hotel reception) at 10 :15 AM but the driver had already texted me on Whatsapp at 5:40 AM that he is leaving for his home due to an emergency and he arranged for a separate cab for airport drop after temple visit, but the new cab somehow arrived at the parking where we were standing at around 10:50 AM and this new cab's driver didnt understand a single word of english except 'OK'. we somehow reached the temple at 11:40 AM , entered the temple with our dhotis on but the queue was long that the temple closed its main gate where we do darshan at 12 AM and we weren't able to do our darshan. we left from the temple after looking around for sometime at 12:15 PM and went to have lunch at a hotel midway and asked the driver to drop us at airport at around 3 PM.