10-Day Sri Lanka Classic Tour

Ingrid_F

07 Feb, 2017

Tour was mostly good, though there were a few hiccups along the way and a few disappointments. I would give a 3.5 for this specific tour and company Total Travel Solutions if possible.
Our tour guide, Seduth, was wonderful. He was very polite, knowledgable, and interested in accommodating our preferences. However, I would have expected a bit more at this price point as far as accommodation our first hotel had no hot water, several of them no wifi, and the last one had several electric issues and no lock on our door, tours included they should specify what is already included in the price, and what is not - we paid about 200 each extra in tours, and especially with customer service of the tour manager of Total Travel Solutions tour operator named Thilina Perera. He was extremely rude with us when we expressed concern over not being given a specific itinerary/dates ahead of our arrival. Thus we stayed an extra night in Sri Lanka. I had sent the company my flights 2 months ahead of time and they initially expressed no concern. After yelling with us on the phone, Mr Perera later sent us an email saying that he would help to accommodate us, however he also stated in the email message, yes in capital letters, that the issue of scheduling was NOT HIS FAULT! and that he expected a great review for his 'services' - he consistently acted as if he were going out of his way to do his job when we had simple questions about how to work out the extra day, and we of course assumed we would pay the extra night. He was a real downer to the trip, but overall it was quite good and we loved seeing such a beautiful country.
I would certainly recommend Sri Lanka and its people, nature, and wilflife as a whole, but I do hope that this company and its manager make the improvements necessary to make this tour worth the price.

Zvi G

10 Jan, 2017

1. We had no guide, just a driver. Nice guy, but his English was very limited. Explanations we get were no more than this is a lake,
this is a big lake, this is a rice field.Alsow, he did not undersand the questions but answers yes.
He was late to meet us in airport 20 min and in Unawatuna 30 mun.
When we asked him to talk with the office, the answer was impossible.

2. We had to pay 50 for the safari in addition to the service fee. Safari tour is a part of the tour and not listed as an optional one.

3. According to the program we were supposed to visit the golf course, Victoria Park and Gregory Lake. We didn't - just saw from
the distance through the car's windows without stopping at least.

4. In Unawatuna, instead of being in the beach hotel, we fet another cheaper, some 15 minutes from the sea. The driver even
didn't told us about the change - we learned it only in the hotel.

We came to Sri Lanka to learn about the country - people, culture, way of life. In every tour we had the opportunities visit village,
stroll through the local markets etc. Not this time.

We are very disappointed...

Holly_K

03 Jul, 2016

I was pleased with our tour for the most part. All our hotels were very nice the one in Kandy was the one we liked the least - the bathroom was gross- old, with blacken caulk, there were hardly any electrical outlets, and their service was not the greatest Our guides were good - but for the one at the Temple of the Tooth. This whole night was a very bad experience - One thing with some the guides is that they want you to go with them for the tour and than walk back to do pictures ? Some of these areas are huge, crowded and its hot there, so walking back through is not really an option . All the places we saw were WONDERFUL and the people here are very NICE - We loved the Food and the History of the country - I'm very glad we did this location for vacation. Our driver was a very nice man - he did extra things like taking us to the post office to send out our boxes of souvenirs - His English was okay but there were times where we did have difficulties communicating with him. He was very skilled at driving and we made excellent time getting from place to place. I think he did a very good job for us. Sri Lanka has a lot to offer and this tour hits it all. I was sad that we didn't get to see much in Moonstones and I thought what they had to offer were not the greatest quality all small and not much color - very few stones were actually set in jewelry and they were way toooo expensive. Our Whale watching tour was kind of a miserable day - uncomfortable seats, on a crowded boat- icky food - HOT HOT HOT - we saw one sperm whale for about 2 minutes after being out there for over 6 hours - I know you can't control nature and that's the beauty of it - but was still disappointing and uncomfortable. The dock area was disgusting filthy - there were dogs eat trash, a guy threw a rock at one of them and this poor dog cried for 5 minutes. I'm sure he broke a bone, made me sick. It didn't set the day out on a positive note. I personally would not recommend this tour.