Clients Feedback

What Our Clients Have To Say :

Volendo organizzare un viaggio nel Nord dell'India, ho ritenuto opportuno affidarmi ad un'Agenzia di viaggi locale, nella speranza che il percorso e la logistica fossero diversi dal solito tran tran proposto dalle Agenzie italiane. Ho così avuto modo di conoscere la Trinetra Tours ed il suo cortesissimo Manager. Al termine del viaggio ho ritenuto doveroso esprimere a Tapas ed ai suoi collaboratori il sentito ringraziamento per l'assistenza, la scelta del percorso proposto, l'elevato livello delle prestazioni che mi sono state fornite e, sopratutto, per la qualità del servizio in generale che ha permesso, fra l'altro, la conoscenza di un'India diversa da quella solitamente presentata negli opuscoli, un pò meno convenzionale, quindi, ma di indimenticabile bellezza."
Giorgio Cesari, Italy

 Dear Tapas  

Grettings from London!  

We arrived safely home last night. We wish to thank you and your team - in particular Pal for a very efficient , professional, courteous and understanding way in which you  handled our trip.  

We have had the most memorable holiday. It is a pity that we did not have the opportunity to tell you about the trip  and have dinner at your house!. Never mind next time I promise! We did try to call you from Cochin but had problems with the telephones.  

 I thought I should provide you individual feedback fro our trip for Bangalore and kerala.    

Bangalore - Transport pick up and guide - excellent. One minor comment. The driver could not communicate well and had the guide not been there at the airport pick up we would have problems communicating!     

St Marks  hotel which we booked directly  should certainly be on top of your list! Very professional, helpful and courteous staff. I met the general manager and the M.D. Very Professional, courteous and helpful people.  I am sure they will be able to offer you a corporate rate.  Talk to  J. P.MENON GENERAL MANAGER - you can say I have recommended them to you!  

Munnar - Excellent overall. Club Mahindra was very good. we were looked after very well as J. P. Menon had called them! The Kerala Travels and the Driver - John were excellent. John was very knowledgeable and become one of the family  member by the time we finished the trip!   

Coconut Lagoon - Excellent, breathtaking and a very memorable experience!    

Travanacore Heritage- lovely property, good food. However not all the staff were of satisfactory standard in comparison to Club Mahindra or Coconut Lagoon.  

Hilton Trident - Cochin -  Excellent. Should go on top of your recommendations!  

Overall - Excellent, memorable and most enjoyable trip. Any travel agent can organise the trip but it is people like yourself who make the difference! The manner in which our trip was handled  from the beginning to end is a great credit to you.You have earned our name being used as a reference! You are true to your every word and this is very important. Any trip is about trust and relationship.  You may wish to recommend our itenary to others!   

We will certainly recommending you to our professional colleagues, friends and family -     

Take care and keep up the good work. Our best wishes are with you and your team and long may you continue to serve others as you have served us.   

Ramila Manek, Nikhil and Nishma wish to convey you and your team their deepest appreciation for a most memorable trip.

Regards
D. Manek
dilip@dial.pipex.com

Tapas and team at Trinetra,

Please excuse my late response.  I have been traveling extensively on business since my return from India.  I have filled in your questionnaire below, and I offer the following feedback for your use as you wish and I would be happy to serve as a reference for you.

We want to thank you for the wonderful trip that exceeded our expectations.  My wife, twelve-year old daughter, and I have traveled extensively throughout Asia, but this was our first trip to India.  We appreciate all you did to make our trip one of the best and most meaningful vacations we have ever taken.

Trinetra arranged all reservations except our flights back and forth to our home in Seoul.  We negotiated and paid one price that covered everything on the tour but dinners, tips, and monument entrance fees.  We were very satisfied that we received good value for the price paid.  Trinetra did not require a deposit or full payment until you had finalized all the reservations and ensured that we had rooms and guides.  Although you list several itineraries on the website, I had a specific itinerary in mind that included first-class travel, private guides and private car, and five star or better hotels.  You were very flexible and developed a package that reflected what we wanted to see and where we wanted to stay.  We visited the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur), and we also went to Udaipur and a small princely state called Shahpura. 

Trinetra was probably the best travel agent with whom we have ever had the privilege of dealing.  All the reservations were perfect, and we never had a problem at any hotel or on our internal flight from Delhi to Udaipur.  Your hotel choices and restaurant recommendations were flawless, with only one exception that was beyond your control (see below).  One of your representatives called us every day to get our feedback and deal with any issues.  In each city, you retained a local guide who met us in the city and gave a full tour.  Every guide spoke clear English and was interesting, flexible, pleasant, and fully knowledgeable about the history of the various sites.  All the guides also knew the best shortcuts and the most legitimate and fair merchants for purchasing crafts.  We found that good guides are critical in India.  Unpleasant or unqualified guides, or guides who took us to low-end rip-off artists or bad restaurants, would have ruined the trip.  As we toured the monuments, it was obvious which tourists had good guides and which did not.

We had one minor issue with Trinetra.  One of our days (in Udaipur) fell on the Holi Festival, or the festival of color.  All the monuments were closed.  We ended up having to pack the Udaipur sights in the next day.  It worked out fine because we spent the lost day bumming around at the Oberoi Udaivilas, which we are told was recently reviewed as the best hotel in the world.  Trinetra had assumed that the monuments would be open in the afternoon of Holi, but we found out that a week or two before we arrived, the provincial government ordered them closed the whole day.  Trinetra did not catch the change and inform us about it or adjust our itinerary.  You understood the problem and committed to us that the mistake would not happen again.  On balance, I was more worried about ensuring that all the reservations were perfect and that the guides were excellent.  Trinetra scored perfectly on both counts.  I cannot imagine using anyone else when we return to India.

Our hotels were spectacular.  In New Delhi, we stayed at the Imperial, which is a colonial hotel with the old-style British experience.  The hotel had great service and large rooms with marble floors.  We absolutely loved it.  The hotel’s premiere restaurant, Spice Route, has been reviewed as one of the top ten restaurants in the world.  We agree.  As I noted above, we stayed at the Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur.  The hotel must be seen to be believed.  The rooms, service, food, hotel design, and scenic beauty are all unreal.  We had a lake view room with swim-in, swim-out access to a private pool for just a few suites.  In Shahpura, we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast on the estate of the local royalty.  There were no televisions or pool, but our time here was serene and a nice, relaxing break from bustle of tourist sites.  The estate sits in a wetland that is prime bird-watching territory, and we had a peaceful walk along the lakeshore as we watched eagles and flocks of egrets.  All guests for the night have a fascinating and lively dinner and drinks with the royal family and other guests.  In Jaipur, we stayed at the Jai Mahal Palace, which is a 250-year old palace converted to a hotel.  Although pretty from the exterior, the hotel has seen better days.  The facilities were run-down and the restaurant was mediocre to bad.  We would not stay there again.  Trinetra had tried to get a reservation at the Oberoi Rajvilas, but it was booked.  Finally, in Agra, we stayed at the Oberoi Amarvilas.  The Amarvilas is another spectacular hotel that is only 600 meters from the Taj Mahal, with every room overlooking the Taj.  Watching the sunset over the Taj Mahal from our hotel room was an unforgettable experience.  The service and facilities were as good as Udaivilas, and we thought the food was even better.   

In hindsight, we might have spent less time on the road.  We do wish Trinetra had been a bit more clear regarding the amount of driving involved.  We flew from Delhi to Udaipur, then worked our way back to Delhi on the ground through Shahpura, Jaipur, and Agra.  Each leg was a four-hour drive, which we would not have guessed by looking at the map.  We had one driver the entire week, and our minivan was comfortable, but we probably should have flown from Udaipur to Jaipur and skipped Shahpura.  It would have saved us eight hours on the road, and we perhaps could have fit in a night in Jaisalmer or an extra night in Udaipur or Agra.  The one very positive thing about all the driving and about the night in Shahpura, of course, is that we got to see the “real” India rather than just the tourist sites.  My wife, daughter, and I all felt that this was important and a big plus for the trip.     

On our way from Agra to the Delhi airport, we stopped and had a wonderful dinner with the Tapas Banerjee, your managing director, with his family in his home.  You told us that he feels it is valuable for his guests to have a regular meal with a middle-class Indian family.  He was right.  The dinner was one of the highlights of the trip, and was just as interesting as our dinner at Shahpura with the local royalty. 

I note that our internal flight from Delhi to Udaipur was on Jet Airways, one of those relatively new Asian airlines that has not yet learned to nickel and dime customers.  We highly recommend the airline.  The flight stopped briefly in Jaipur, but we were not required to disembark.  In first class, we were offered a full breakfast on both legs of a flight that lasted just over an hour in total.

The trip itself was everything we could have hoped.  We were afraid that our expectations were too high, and we were setting ourselves up to be disappointed.  We were not.  It is hard to believe, but the Taj Mahal is even more impressive that we expected.  I would return today if I could.  Other highlights included the Amber Fort and City Palace museum in Jaipur and the Gandhi memorial in Delhi.  Each city and attraction was unique, and we never suffered from temple/cathedral fatigue you get in some parts of world after seeing the same type of monument over and over on the same trip. 

Thank you again for a wonderful vacation.  We intend to visit India again soon, and we will be sure to book our trip through Trinetra when we do.
Best regards,
John McFarland
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
MagnaChip Semiconductor, Ltd.
891 Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu
Seoul 135-738 Korea
Tel. 82-2-6903-3073
Fax 82-2-6903-3898
jmcfarland@magnachip.com

Dear Tapas,

Thank you so much for the warm welcome to your home, it was so kind of you and Krishna to have invited us.  It was nice to spend time with you all, and your son is so cute and smart, a true blessing for you both.

Also, thank you for organizing a wonderful ‘short and sweet’ trip to India.   Joe was pleasantly surprised about it all.  He loved Delhi and Jodpur, things went a bit wrong in Jaipur, and usually when one thing goes wrong it all seems to follow.  But we soon corrected it, by returning to Delhi for the last day, and Joe left India wanting to return............I always feel that way.   

I think you and your team are wonderful, and I would  recommend you to anyone who wants a personalized trip to India.   Put us on your list for any sort of A1 trips you may organize, so we can return soon.

Best wishes to you all, and a special good wish for Krishna, we are waiting for you both in Paris.

Joe & Ruth Levy, France
ruthlevy@free.fr

Dear Ms Gagandeep Kaur, Thanks for your message.  To reply to your questions - my date of birth is 25/01/46 and I would like to be put on your reference list.

We did enjoy our holiday with you and appreciated your excellent care and organisation. I would particularly like to mention Ramon our Delhi representative would was extremely helpful and efficient.  Also our driver Roshan who was always punctual, polite, caring and an excellent driver steering his way successfully through the usual hazards on India's roads.  I remember in particular the wild camels sauntering down the middle of the road on a dark early morning in Rajastan and thinking they should have lights!

The only general comment I can make is that some rough estimate of time for journeys on our itinerary would have useful as we would have built in more rest days (for example at the desert resort of Manvar and at Rohet) and perhaps an overnight stop at the bird sanctuary at Bhararpur which in the end we did not have the time to see in our busy schedule.

I would certainly recommend your company to friend and in fact have already done so!

Best wishes Sally Moy, U.K.

sally.moy@talktalk.net

Dear Tapas,
We are now home and gradually getting back to normal, but the beauty of our India trip remains foremost in the minds and hearts of each of us.

The trip was very special in so many ways. Your organization was excellent. At every city we were met by one of your representatives and taken to our hotel. The guides were specialists who provided extensive background history of the various sites, and the drivers were skilled in maneuvering the sometimes treacherous traffic both in and out of the cities. We could not have asked for more in terms of organization. Trinetra was there for us at all times. Certainly, I will recommend your organization. Please feel free to use our names as references.

And finally, thank you for the wonderful dinner in your home. It was thoughtful and generous of you and Krishna to provide such a warm introduction to our tour of India. I hope that when you visit us in the USA so that we can extend our hospitality to you.

Wishing you the very best.
Mr. & Mrs. Saltzman. USA
rsaltzman2@comcast.net

Hi Tapas,

Namaste

It was wonderful to meet you, and your lovely wife and family, after the lengthy correspondence we have all had by e-mail - thank you so much for the friendly dinner, and indeed for everything associated with the tour.

You will know by now that the Tour was a stunning success, and all credit to you and your staff for making it so! I will certainly contact you when we start planning our next trip to India.

Best regards – Mr. Patrick Van Hoorn Alkema, U.K
patdoran27@laguna.com.mx