“Never use them again trusted them following sudden death of my wife but Darren very rude called tonight and the company closes down will not talk so sad thought they were 5 star my Iz credit card was compromised and reviewed Darren was clear it was my fault today he and the company he is supposed to promote lost so much repeat business he refused to listen any company with manager that does not listen has no future”
“Terrible experience. Wrong booking of the room, another hotel was so dirty. They forgot every time to organise baby car seat and when we called they didn’t even come back to us.”
“Thanks to the very high score of this travel agency, we organised our honeymoon with them (some friends also suggested us to try them). We both have specific needs:
- One of us is hyperactive and definitely needs to unload his energy with activities and tours.
- food is extremely important for both as one has a very restricted diet
- we both have high standards about food and drink
The agency then offered us a 5-star luxury resort ( Santhiya koh Yao yai in Thailand)
- High standards and structure tested and verified with really good feedback
- 7 restaurants with different cousins
- High standards
- A lot of different Activity during the day and the night
- Possibility to easier visit Phuket
- Resort English speaker
Considering the wonderful description, we trusted them and booked the property.
Upon arrival at the resort, unfortunately, the problems started immediately: it was expected a honeymoon welcoming in the room with decorations and fruit. we received a piece of cake wrapped in plastic wrap and written "happy birthday"
Below of how in reality is a “luxury 5 star hotel” for trailfinder:
- the beach is equipped with about 20 sunbeds and if you are late, you have to settle for the swimming pool. the use of the beach is also poorly maintained and very basic (thin mattress directly on the sand and kitchen towels on top).
- the bar service on the beach is present but in a "do it yourself" style with a QR code and no one nearby to ask for support in case of problems. The resort is unable to prepare drinks and you need to do by yourself. If you want ice, you need to pay
- The two swimming pools are essentially organized in the same way as the beach and to get beach towels you have to fill out a form every day for collection and return as often the staff disappears for hours
- on the beach and on the swimming pools areas there is no form of entertainment (no music, no animation, no games)
- there should have been several tours during the day to discover the local area and culture. a total fiasco: 4 tours are available and all for snorkelling. furthermore, the hotel reserves the right to cancel the tour the night before if there are not enough participants. to my question "but if you cancel it, what can I do?", they laughed on my face and replied "you can spend 10 times more and get a private tour".
- of the famous 7 restaurants sold, there are only 2 and both with Thai cuisine and the IDENTICAL poor MENU. we tried the buffet restaurant but we didn't have the courage to swallow those dishes: food hours old, dry and with the semblance of having been prepared the day before.
- connections with phuket are not guaranteed: first boat available at 10 AM and last boat to return to the hotel at 3:30 PM. therefore impossible to visit the city
- recreational activities in the multifunctional centre: present only 2 times a week 1 hour yoga course
- The general maintenance status is not really good
- At 3-4 PM the resort staff asked to all the customer to leave the beach because they need the space to prepare the tables for private dinners. So no possible to stay on a beach
At the end of the first day we called the canary wharf agency to ask for help and transfer to a structure that was in line with the amount paid and contractually agreed. After 2 days, the trailfinders customer service basically replied that it’s our business (one of the 2 duty managers). The fact they have not respected and honored the contract was not their problem seems. The solution proposed at the phone was "pay us for another hotel at your total expense and then maybe when you come back to England we'll see if we can possibly give you something".
After an official second complaint, a second duty manager of the travel agency decided to give us 500 pound (consider to have a 5 star hotel here for 9 days you need at least 3500 pound).
Desperate, I reviewed in trustpilot my experience with them. After a couple of hours they call me back asking to remove my review because they decided to involve some high managers in order to solve the problem in a couple of days (from our request of help passed now 5 days). After 2 other days the outcome from TRAILFINDERS and Santhiya koh Yao yai was to add on a menu the champagne and that it. They also told us “you decided to take this resort and not another one more expensive so the fault is yours” (probably we are really idiot to think in a 5 star luxury resort, maybe not the most expensive one in the entire world, we should expect fish at dinner, some activities during the day and night, medium level of service., staff able to understand English and just an eatable food. Yes travelfinder, we are idiot)
Please be careful when someone in travel finder is assuring you about how amazing is a place because they don’t check and you are alone, as if you book a structure by your shelf.
Terrible assistance”
“This review refers to the Trailfinders travel agency, not the Safari itself or the company who runs it.
Awful experience. We spent almost 6 days out of a 14 day vacation stuck in airports and crappy airport hotels. A waste of time and money (because they did not cover our extra expenses, of course) that could have been avoided had they booked the flights we asked in first place (we even offered to pay for them ourselves on top of the vacation package) A travel agency who won't even book a flight? What is the point? And, by the way, the seven-day safari in Kenya is actually only five days. Day one is spent stuck in one of the worse hotels we've ever been to, without even an outdoor area! and Day 7 is spent driving back to the airport. I've never dealt with such an incompetent, dismissive, disrespectful and deceiving company. Do not recommend.”
“We had no support in contacting Air France to get our delayed luggage delivered whilst on a Treasures of Cuba tour. We had to endure 11 days without any luggage and personal essentials in a country where you cant buy/source replacements. We also have no support now home in gaining any compensation for loss of enjoyment and pain/suffering. They inform us they have no leverage or influence on luggage problems. When we did manage to get to a phone line always plus 40 in the queue. Email responses were not helpfull in anyway.”
“Been using Traifinders since 2008 never any problems , but in recent years there customer service has gone down hill and long waiting times in phone queue , unfriendly staff , unrelible staff that don't call you back , I basically lost my booking which was primarily booked according to the gentlemen, he did not call me back , so I had to call back then was told it would be a extra £200 .
Never use them again”
“Currently in the USA on a Trailfinders vacation.
Car via Alamo is not as ordered. Contacted “urgent assistance” at Trailfinders UK only to discover its full of untrained, unhelpful, arrogant fools who do nothing to help. And I do mean NOTHING. Once Trailfinders (UK) have your money you don’t exist to them. They’ll try every trick in the book to do nothing. They are 100% untruthworthy.
Got a problem? … expect no help from their helpline.
Want a manager response? … expect to hear nothing.
Like to have a normal conversation with an intelligent person? … forget it.
The UK team are dreadful. DO NOT BOOK WITH TRAILFINDERS. THEY ARE SIMPLY APPALLING.”
“No reserved seats on our £5500 special holiday!?
We booked a celebration holiday in St Lucia in Feb 2017 with TrailFinders who failed to reserve our premium economy seats on Virgin Atlantic both out and back. Consequently we had no confirmed flight bookings until 48 hours before on way out and 2 hours before on return flight. This caused us both high stress and unnecessary time spent trying to resolve especially in St Lucia for return flight. Lots of apologies and a token compensation voucher off next holiday!! ...which we will NOT now be taking with Trailfinders??”
