This is a down memory lane trip. No new country to add to the World Countdown unfortunately. If only the trip covers Liechtenstein or Luxembourg then I can add one or two more countries to the list. Alas, that is not so. Never mind. Good excuse to go visit Europe again in the future :P
My first trip to Western Europe covering all these countries was back in 2004. We went there during the early spring as well. Fifteen years ago! How time flies. If I'm not mistaken, that trip was the first time I touched snow. We did not experience snowing but there are some leftover snow on the ground and Mount Titlis was never without snow I think even tough the snow was more like ice. So hard! We had a great time taking photos with tulips as well but my first encounter with tulips was not in the Netherlands but in Beijing, China.
My mom always wanted to repeat this tour so this year seemed as good a time as any. This time round we followed Via Vacation. What I like about this tour company is they provided full board tour with halal meals. Not all our meals will be at hotels or restaurants and most of our dinners will be packed dinner but so long as they are hot delicious meals, I have no problem. Will write a review later after I'm back at home.
The tour price is RM7.2k per person inclusive of tipping but exclude travel insurance. We already have annual travel insurance so that is not an issue. But if you don't, the travel insurance will cost you an extra RM80 per person. This trip is 10 days 8 nights covering 6 countries. We will spend our nights at 3 star hotels in Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Zurich. Hotels in London and Frankfurt will be 4 stars. Our tour group size is 33 inclusive of 1 tour leader from Via Vacation.
The itinerary is as follows:
30 March 2019 Kuala Lumpur - Muscat - London
31 March 2019 London - Windsor - Bicester Village - London
1 April 2019 London - Paris
2 April 2019 Paris
3 April 2019 Paris - Brussels - Antwerp
4 April 2019 Antwerp - Zaanse Schans - Giethoorn - Amsterdam
5 April 2019 Amsterdam - Cologne - Frankfurt
6 April 2019 Frankfurt - Titisee - Rhinefalls - Zurich
7 April 2019 Zurich - Engleberg - Mt Titlis - Lucerne - Zurich
8 April 2019 Muscat - Kuala Lumpur
We will be flying via Oman Air so there will be a short transit in Muscat. The timing also coincides with the Brexit deadline. Since the deal is almost sure not to be concluded by the deadline, I hope there will not be any demonstration or strike on April's Fool Day. We are scheduled to visit London city centre and and later take a Eurostar to Paris at 7 pm on that day.
Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2019WesternEurope #mks2019England #mks2019France #mks2019Belgium #mks2019Netherlands #mks2019Germany #mks2019Switzerland
My World Countdown:
No new countries to add unfortunately!
Njoy !!
POST MORTEM (updated 17 April 2019)
I am making a great effort to write this post mortem early to justify the purchase of my bluetooth keyboard :P
Tour Company: Easy to deal with. All done online via Whatsapp and online banking. I like that they gave us each Sambal Che Nor which they distributed at the airport. Very useful product to eat with all the packed food given to us throughout the trip. Daily bottled water was also given generously.
Itinerary: The original itinerary was good, if only they adhered to it. I think I will have to introduce a new sub section to list down all the deviations from the original itinerary. I found out that for Muslim tour companies in Malaysia, it is a norm rather than an exception to deviate from what was promised in the itinerary.
Deviations From The Itinerary: There are two types of deviations. The first one was a deviation from the original itinerary that was used to entice people to join this tour to a new revised one which was distributed the day before we start the tour. Needless to say the revised itinerary is less sexy than the original :P The second deviation will be what actually happened versus the revised itinerary.
When I came back from the tour and first did the audit I honestly did not expect it to be so many. Frankly I am quite shocked when confronted with the fact.
ORIGINAL VERSUS REVISED ITINERARY:
1. We were supposed to drive through the tunnel from London to Paris but at the last minute they changed it to Eurostar. This is actually a loss loss situation for both the company and the participants. Loss to the company because Eurostar tickets are so expensive and a loss to the participants because they have to push their heavy luggage from the bus to the station vice versa
for quite a long distance. They also have to hoist all their big luggage through the scanner and later carry it on board the train. Since this tour is made up of mostly senior citizens, I am fairly thankful that nobody were injured during the process. By the time we reached the Paris hotel (almost midnight), everybody was so tired.
2. Due to the change mentioned above, we were required to stay in Paris for two nights instead of one night in Paris and the other in Brussels. Some people may say that staying is Paris is better than staying in Brussels but this one tiny detail will have a bad repercussion to our tour in Amsterdam.
3. We were supposed to have a seafood dinner at Volendam. Volendam is a Dutch town on the Markermeer Lake, northwest of Amsterdam. It's known for its colourful wooden houses and the old fishing boats in its harbour, which is lined with seafood vendors. This was omitted in the revised itinerary.
4. Lunch at Panorama Restaurant on Mount Titlis was changed to an Indian fast food joint in Engleberg instead. What a downgrade!
REVISED ITINERARY VERSUS ACTUAL:
1. In the itinerary it was mentioned that we will be having fish & chips lunch at Bicester Village. In anticipation of that I brought some chilli sauce from home. We ended up eating Lebanese Kebab. When asked, the tour leader said he cannot find fish & chips in Bicester. I thought fish & chips are to the Brits like nasi lemak to us Malaysians? If you cannot deliver a simple promise like this, why on earth did you bother to put it at all in the itinerary? It makes me wonder, did the tour leader actually read the itinerary?
2. Shopping at La Valle was in the itinerary but was conveniently forgotten by the organiser.
3. We did not go to Trocadero Square for a nice photo opportunity with the Eiffel Tower but instead brought to a place with a construction in progress for a picture with Eiffel Tower.
4. Paris Mosque was omitted. Hours were given instead to shop at Champ Elysees and for some participants to go to Hard Rock Cafe Paris.
5. We were given such a short time at Zaans Schaans. Initially the time allocated was only 1 hour for us to have our lunch AND visit the place. After a major objection, we were given 1 hour to visit the place. No time was allocated to visit the Bakery Museum, Clog Workshop and Cheese Factory as per the itinerary.
6. In the itinerary there was a visit to Giethoorn, a mostly car-free village known for its boat-filled waterways, footpaths, bicycle trails and centuries old thatched roof house. There was no Amsterdam city tour scheduled. Since we are going to stay overnight in Amsterdam, it was more convenient logistic wise to visit Amsterdam instead of going to Giethoorn and come back. The tour leader then convinced the majority to forego the visit to Giethoorn and instead to spend 3 hours in Amsterdam city for shopping at Primark and Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam.
7. We did not do any visit in Frankfurt even though in the itinerary there was a visit to Romerberg Square. We just went to Frankfurt to sleep at an outskirts hotel.
8. We were not brought to visit a cuckoo clock making demonstration at Titisee Lake.
9. In Lucerne, we did not make any visit to the Lion Monument or the Chapel Bridge. No explanation was given by the tour guide. The tour leader was more interested to bring the group for souvenirs shopping.
Shocking right? I think this is the first time that I encountered so many deviations in a trip!
Airlines: We flew via Oman Air. From Kuala Lumpur to Muscat the seating arrangement was 2-4-2 which was superb. The flight from Muscat to London the seating arrangement was 3-3. It was terrible and the flight was full so there was no chance of getting a better seats. Our flights home were a lot better. Both the planes from Zurich to Muscat and Muscat to Kuala Lumpur had 2-4-2 seating arrangements. The inflight meals and entertainments were average. I like the hot snacks that they served instead of the cold sandwiches that was previously a norm.
Tour Leader: Our tour leader name is Saiful. A capable and experienced person but not very helpful. He will just watch my 70 yo mom struggling with her bag and will not assist unless asked to assist. He is also the only tour leader in my two decades of travel that ensured the participants get to go to all the Hard Rock Cafes in all the cities that we visited during the trip sometimes at the expense of scheduled places of interest.
Note: HRC is not in the itinerary.
Due to the bad organisation between the tour leader and the tour guide, we ended up having to pay each RM45 (€10) for a small box of nasi lemak in Amsterdam. The reason why the order cannot be cancelled? The seller already bought the ingredients. I found that a bit silly, don't tell me we are the seller's only customers?
I personally feel that he failed to deliver his main job description as the agent of Via Vacation by the numbers of deviation from the itinerary.
Local Tour Guide: Our guide name is Rosie. She is a very attractive lady from Bulgaria. We found out later that she just finished a Morocco, Portugal & Spain trip with another group of Via Vacation which was a disaster, so by the time she came to us I think her tank was already half empty.
She was friendly but not helpful and on occasion a bit impatient. But I was quite happy that she made an effort to bring me personally to see the infamous Red Light district of Amsterdam. Nothing so exciting there unfortunately. There were even school kids doing a walk around :P How mundane!
She obviously did not read the itinerary if judged on how many places she didn't bring us. Perhaps she thought this group was only interested in shopping thus there is no need to deliver what was written in the itinerary.
I am particularly unhappy with the 30 minutes allocated to visit Keukenhof (from actual entry time). I personally think it is borderline crazy and very inconsiderate behaviour. We came thousands of miles away, pay expensive entrance ticket and were given half an hour to see the huge garden. Don't say that we didn't have enough time because we were later given 3 hours to shop in Amsterdam!
Bus: We had two buses during this trip. One in London and the other in mainland Europe. Both buses were of good quality, clean and comfortable.
Bus Driver: We had three bus drivers. Two in London and one main driver for the rest of the trip. Our drivers in London were both polite and nice. Our main driver, George was quite grumpy. He keeps on warning us not to eat in the bus.
Similar case with Rosie, he was the driver of the disastrous Morocco, Portugal & Spain trip thus I can understand that he must be very tired, having driven thousands of miles before joining us.
Hotels: Hotels provided were superb. All except Paris were of a good size. Well done!
Hotel Breakfasts: Some were good, some were very good buffet breakfasts. The service in some countries were very good and friendly but in France and Germany they tend to ignore the diners.
Lunches: First and foremost I want to commend Via Vacation for offering a full board trip for their Western Europe tour. They could be the only Muslim tour company that did that in Malaysia. Well done! Keep up the good work!
Having said that, Via must do more to manage their customers' expectation. They must inform beforehand that almost all lunches and dinners are packed meals.
Prior to the trip, we were told by the tour leader that we will be having lunches at the restaurants and only dinners will be packed. The reality was of eight lunches, only three were in a restaurant. Of three, only two were proper lunch. The other one was in an Indian fast food joint where we had a plain vegan fried rice served with plastic cutlery.
Since most of the tour members were senior citizen, Via must ensure that there is a proper place to eat the packed lunches. Expecting the seniors to eat at an open garden or while standing at carpark is not acceptable. More so if the weather is cold.
Another thing is to ensure the type and quality of the packed food. It must be easy to eat and relatively hot. Baguette sandwich is not suitable because it is so hard and the seniors found it troublesome to eat in public.
Dinners: The packed dinners were mostly good except for the one in Amsterdam. The ground operator bought both lunch and dinner at the same restaurant. Instead of sending our dinner later at the hotel, the restaurant sent all the packed food during lunch hour. So by dinner time the food was cold, hard and stale. I think most of us threw them away since it was inedible.
Timing of the dinner can be improved on our third night. Our train to Paris from London was at 7 pm. We arrived at our hotel in Paris around midnight. I suspect most of us had our dinner at 1 am that day. It surely felt like sahur :P By right the packed dinner should be given in London prior to boarding the train, then we can eat our dinner on the train since all our seats are with tables.
Rapport With Fellow Travellers: Relatively good. Some took a bit longer to warm up but overall all were quite friendly. Most loved to shop. They were willing to spend hundreds in taxi fare just so they can shop at Hard Rock Cafe. Frankly in my two decades of travel, I never met a group like this :P
Timing: Perfect timing if you love snow in spring like I do. We had a great time at Mount Titlis playing with soft snow. We also managed to experience cherry blossom in Paris. I love that the weather is cold even when the sun is shining. Love the long daylight hours too.
Overall: The package was value for money. If they adhere to the itinerary and pay a little bit more attention to the timing and quality of the packed meals, then it will be perfect. Despite everything, I did have a great time :)
