This tour is organised by Wan Vacation Sdn Bhd a.k.a selamatbercuti.com. Our first trip with this company. This company seems to be employing a lot of young people. Let's hope they are more energetic and well trained. The price for this 12 days 9 nights half board tour is RM8k per person. The hotels are suppose to be 4 star and the tour is inclusive of breakfasts and dinners. Lunches are on our own. We are flying Qatar Airways. Love their inflight meals :)
The itinerary is as follows:
18 October 2018 Kuala Lumpur - Doha
19 October 2018 Doha - Rome
20 October 2018 Rome - Pisa - Florence
21 October 2018 Florence - Modena - Venice
22 October 2018 Venice
23 October 2018 Venice - Bergamo - Milan
24 October 2018 Milan - Serravalle - Eze Village - Nice
25 October 2018 Nice - Cannes - Monaco - Nice
26 October 2018 Nice - Barcelona
27 October 2018 Barcelona
28 October 2018 Barcelona - Doha
29 October 2018 Doha - Kuala Lumpur
I am so looking forward to take pictures with the Leaning Tower of Pisa again. I'm going to bring a tripod and will try to take picture while "pushing" the tower this time round. I also just bought a 360 camera. Quite excited to see what I can do with it. I hope the weather will cooperate :P
I will upload the videos and photos as and when possible during the trip. You can find them here:
https://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels
The 360 photos will be uploaded here:
https://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.photography
Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2018SouthernEurope #mks2018Qatar #mks2018Italy #mks2018Monaco #mks2018France #mks2018Spain
My World Countdown:
Monaco#63
My mom's would be #52
Njoy !!
POST MORTEM (updated 14 November 2018)
As promised, a more timely post mortem. I was thinking of the best format to do it so that it is more organised and easier for me to write :)
Tour Company: Quite professional and easy to deal with. Responded well to queries. The write up of information and reminders prior to departure was very well done. For this tour however they did not provide us with a daily bottled water, which I find to be a bit stingy.
Itinerary: On paper it looks good but in practice it was very tiring for the group members. On the first day after 18 hours journey from KL to Rome, we continued with another 12 hours of tour plus dinner. We only checked in the hotel after dinner at around 9 pm. For the rest of the tour, my personal opinion is too much time given for shopping and too little time allocated for sightseeing. I don't think we spent even an hour at Park Guell and yet on the same day, hours were given to shop at La Rambla and later at the football stadium. Visit to Colosseum was also super short.
Airlines: We flew via Qatar Airways, my favourite airline. It has been awhile since I flew with them so I can see that they did some cost cutting measure. The vanity set container was now plastic and the inflight meals and snacks size have shrunked. Luckily they still tasted good :P We had a fabulously short transit time in Doha and the flights were all on time. Excellent!
Tour Leader: Our Malaysian tour leader (Rozana) was polite and capable but a bit laidback. You can tell that she is an experienced tour leader but during this tour she merely did the bare necessity. She didn't bother monitoring the loading or unloading of our luggage, didn't wait/assist until tax refund process was completed for all tour members and didn't even explain the history of the places that we visited (those without local tour guide). One good extra thing that she did was she bought us a bit of salad during one dinner when we complained that the meals provided during this tour lacked vegetables.
Local Tour Guide: This tour did not have a dedicated local tour guide who follows us throughout the tour. We did have city tour guides in Rome, Florence, Venice and Barcelona. The ones in Rome (Irene) and Venice (Monique) were nice and helpful. Florence's was ok but the Barcelona's was a bit impatient.
Bus: Big, new and very comfortable. No WiFi provided at the bus. The bus was not cleaned everyday though unlike some other good tour companies.
Bus Driver: Our bus driver Jorges (from Croatia) was polite and drove well. He just fullfilled the minimum requirement of his job. Didn't even bother to find a drop off place that is nearer so that the tour members who are mostly senior citizen don't have to walk so far. In almost all hotels in Italy we have to push our luggage very far from the bus to the hotel lobby. At one hotel he even dropped us off outside the hotel compound!
Hotels: Acceptable. Some quite good, some a bit dated. All with good WiFi in the rooms.
Hotel Breakfasts: Mostly good breakfast spread with wonderful coffee machines. No complain!
Dinners: Stingy with a capital S! Of my two decades of travels, I think this is the most stingy dinners ever provided by a tour company. No dessert, no after meal coffee/tea. In fact during one dinner, they served us only plain white rice and lamb curry. Not even a vegetable dish!! We went to Europe but funnily throughout the trip (except in Barcelona) we were served Indian food! In Barcelona we were given Malaysian food. The tour company chose the cheapest in the menu and the portion given was also very small to be shared by so many. Fortunately the food were mostly tasty. Do check out my instagram #mksHolidayFood for photo evidence :P
Rapport With Fellow Travellers: Excellent rapport. This group clicked from the very first day even though we didn't know one another prior to the tour. All are world travellers so no issue with punctuality. Everybody was on time every time. They truly love shopping. They shopped every time we stopped from street vendors to luxury outlets. None are safe :P Lovely and fun group!
Timing: We had a great weather. Not so hot and not so cold. The sun was shining bright except for in Barcelona, it was raining for one whole day! By the end of the day my hair looked like I was having a shower and my poor 360 camera lens, so wet! It was such a challenging time to take 360 photos :P
Overall: Except for the stingy dinners, non delivery of some of the places in the itinerary and the long distance between the loading/unloading luggage area to the hotel lobby, this tour was quite wonderful mostly due to the rapport with our fellow travellers. We had a great time and went home somewhat happy with the whole experience :)
FURTHER UPDATES (on 30 December 2018)
I have uploaded 168 posts in my instagram account mkhasha.n.travels (#mks2018SouthernEurope). This time round the videos have no voice commentary whatsoever. I think my voice spoiled the videos :P Do check it out! I haven't uploaded any 360 photos yet. Still mulling over what kind of photos I wish to upload there and the format.
I don't go around checking the itinerary during any trip. I trust the tour leader will deliver whatever written in the itinerary. Thus, I will normally only find out this unethical practice of not delivering on their promise after I'm back in Malaysia, while cross referencing my photos with the itinerary. For this trip, while in Rome, they did not bring us to the Roman Forum, Altar of the Fatherland, Trojan's Column and Trojan's Market. Even the visit to the Spanish Steps were not scheduled until I personally requested to go since it was a walking distance from the Trevi Fountain. In Monaco, the tour leader did not bring us to the Prince's Palace of Monaco. How unforgiveable!
