Reviews

It's a week after my wife and I returned from this tour so I have had time to consolidate my views. Laos is a beautiful country, and the people are lovely, but on balance this tour leaves a lot to be desired. It didn't help that the flight option from Pakse to Bangkok which should have ended the tour was withdrawn by the airline. This wasn't Wendy Wu's fault, but it meant that they rescheduled the itinerary, and the resulting schedule just didn't work. We were informed of this exactly one week before the tour started. We ended up having too many one night stays in hotels, and even doubling back on ourselves. We also had to cram a lot of sights in which made the days feel rushed, and even then we had hardly any time to wander out on our own. I should point out that the issues with this tour were such that two people left the tour part way through, and another couple were very close to doing the same.

There were three main problems with this tour. Firstly, for the majority of the tour, our group of eighteen were split between three minivans. This wasn't so much of a problem in Luang Prabang, because the journeys were short, but once we left there, we had long hours on the road with no input from our guide, either because he wasn't on our bus, or if he was, there was no easy way for him to speak to us from the front seat. In the itinerary, we had some days labelled as 'scenic drives' but we didn't know what we were supposed to be looking at.

The second issue was the dreadful state of the roads from Luang Prabang to the Plain of Jars, and then from there to Vientiane. Every few hundred meters, the surface of the road had washed away, leaving deeply rutted stretches of potholes which the drivers had to carefully negotiate. What should have been a drive of seven hours ended up being nearly eleven hours and this happened on fully two days of the trip. It also meant that some of the stops we should have had, such as an hour in a village or arriving somewhere to watch locals fish, simply couldn't happen due to the time pressure - or we arrived too late for the expected activity to be going on. It is no lie to say that these days were pure endurance tests. Of course, the state of the roads is not the fault of Wendy Wu, but the scheduling is, and our itinerary was unworkable given the overoptimistic assessment of the journey times.

Thirdly, the quality and location of the hotels were simply not good enough for what should have been a premium tour - and it's not because better hotels didn't exist. With one exception, the Amari Hotel in Vang Vieng (and possibly the one at the Plain of Jars, where there is not a huge choice anyway), the hotels felt low quality and were located away from where you would want to be if you were looking to walk around. Breakfasts were uniformly poor (again apart from the Amari) with very little which would appeal to Western tastes. Our group mostly resorted to fried eggs, omelettes, or just jam on square, slightly sweet, white bread. One should remember that Laos is known for its superlative bakeries and pastries, a legacy of French colonial times, and everywhere there are coffee shops selling cappuccinos and lattes with delightful croissants. Any yet in our hotels, there was only extraordinarily strong drip coffee on offer and no pastries at all (excepting the Amari, which was also the only one offering bacon!). Of particular note (in a bad way) was the S2 Modern in Vientiane, a so-called boutique hotel. Breakfast here was served in the hotel's coffee shop, which could not accommodate everyone if they wanted breakfast at the same time, which didn't offer cereals, and which wanted to charge extra for any coffee other than the slow-drip sludge. I would describe the breakfast here as the worst of the tour. Our room here happened to have floodlights outside facing in to the windows and as the curtains were ill-fitting, the room couldn't be darkened until the floods were turned off sometime around midnight. This hotel was located a good 25 minute walk out of town, along a very busy and unpleasant main road. I am at a loss as to why this hotel was chosen, when Vientiane has an Amari located on the river, right next to the night market, and would have been far more acceptable. We stayed at the hotel for one night before leaving Vientiane for two nights and then returning for the last night. I cannot stress how little we as a group were looking forward to renewing our acquaintance with the S2!

So on balance, this was a tour that was more befitting of an Intrepid 'Basic' style trip, and if it had been, it would have been half the price. I feel it is high time that a Wendy Wu representative did a 'mystery shopping' exercise on this tour so that they can experience its shortcomings for themselves. I would highly recommend anyone to visit Laos, but definitely not with Wendy Wu,

First rate

Holiday was great, flight times not so good. Arrived in Bangkok at 06.00, hotel at 08.15, room not available until 14.00. First of the group to arrive and last to leave. Flight back even worse, left Chiang Mia at 21.05 arrived Heathrow 06.15

Alexis was very helpful and clarified a few things to my wife and I. She explained some options with the PO rod and cons of each

I very much enjoyed all aspects of this trip. The varied landscape of the Bangkok area and the North was great. The mirad of temples never cease to amaze. Our tour guide, York, was superb. He introduced to the country and immersed us in its culture. He went out of his way to make everyone's trip special from being informative, pointing out sights, encouraging us to try local produce and ensuring all were comfortable.

I really enjoyed the tours but the solo tour was amalgamated with the classic one without notice. The first and last days were spent hanging around waiting for our rooms and our return flight - due to flight times. So no guide on those days. Not good. Had I realised I could have flown home with some other people much earlier. The guide was fabulous - very informative, efficient and caring. When we got to Chiang Mai we were split into 4 mini buses so the cohesion of the group faltered a bit after that and information on itineraries wasn't passed on to all. Our return flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was delayed an hour so we only had one hour to find our flight to LHR - very stressful. However we covered everything I expected to do on the tour and more. Hotels were fine. Drivers were great - and they kept us topped up with water. Just needs more thought on organisation.

Hoi was a highly professional guide who went above and beyond to make sure everyone enjoyed themselves. He had a very sociable personality. On these tours the guide can be the key to a successful holiday and Hoi deserves great credit for achieving this. Our guide in Bangkok (Ling) was equally professional and considerate as my wife wasn't feeling well.

Excellent tour and brilliant guides. Only downsides, the hotel in Bangkok was too far away from any tourist sites and the atmospheric pollution there was dreadful. Any one with any respiratory issues would have real problems. I think that you should advise potential customers with these issues not to travel at the end at the end of the dry season when the farmers burn stubble in the dried out paddy fields. Otherwise, very enjoyable.

We really loved Thailand and Laos, the accommodation was great and the trips excellent as were both our guides the only reason for not giving 5 stars is because when we arrived in Bangkok early morning after a sleepless flight we were told our room would not be ready till 2pm. We were exhausted but had to wait in the reception for 4-5 hrs even though the hotel was half empty due to coronavirus. The boat journey down the Mekong seemed to go on forever, in the itinerary it suggests the second day will be just to visit Pak Ou caves and then check into hotel but in reality we were on the boat longer than day one. Everyone on board agreed they had had enough cruising by then. Unfortunately because of the pandemic we were stuck for an extra 3 days but I would just like to say that our guide Ken was exceptional and would not leave us until we were at the airport with tickets in hand, I really do hope that you recognise his dedication and professionalism.

Overall the tour was near excellent with a great itinery, good hotels and restaurants, and with both guides ('Joe' in Thailand and 'Ken' in Laos) providing a very creditable service, especially Joe who looked after us as best he could when a few 'cracks' appeared in the arrangements in Thailand.

The problems in Thailand were as follows:

1. Seven of the group, including my wife and I, had an overnight flight from London and arrived at the hotel in Bangkok at 07:00 to be told our rooms would not be ready until 14:00. The itinery states we would 'transfer...to your hotel and check-in to your room.' This largely wasted our first day in Thailand although, to our guide's credit, he remained with us and helped fill some of the time.

2. On our third day in Bangkok half of our group, including my wife and I, had to check out of the hotel room by 10:00 (the others in the group managed to arrange a room extension) although we were scheduled to travel by overnight train starting at 22:00 and not checking in to the next hotel until after lunch the next day. Fortunately our guide again stepped up to help by getting the first hotel to allow us to shower at the sauna in the afternoon.

For both the above situations, had we been aware of these before booking we would have been happy to pre-book room extensions to allow us to shower and catch some sleep rather than just killing time in some rather sweaty clothes.

3. The information in the suppled Wendy Wu Travel Guide concerning the Overnight Train is wrong or out-of-date in many respects including luggage arrangements, what can be taken on board (e.g. drinks), sleeping berths, etc. As it happened, the arrangements and facilities were better or more convenient than expected and nearly all of us in the group enjoyed the train.


Putting aside the above, my wife and I really enjoyed the tour and expect to book more tours with Wendy Wu in the future.

This holiday was packed with a huge variety of visits and excursions which were all excellent.
There are some other comments though:
1.Wendy Wu must allow at least 2 hours transfer at Bangkok Airport..
2.The number of visits to street markets could be reduced.
3.A free afternoon would be appreciated now and again
4.More time to be allowed for shopping and taking photographs
5.The level of difficulty for the tour should be increased to 2 since a number of our group had trouble walking the distances involved

Very well organised.
Good, varied program.
Guide for Cambodia & Vietnam very knowledgeable and helpful.

Guide in Bangkok could of been better.
Trip to Bridge over the to River Kwai/Hellfire Pass was ty far to travel (7hrs) particularly as a large part of Hellfire Pass was closed off due to a ? Landslide.

Although very interesting I Would of preferred to of done more sightseeing in Bangkok.

Service rating :

The organisation of the main trip, Grand Tour of Indochina was very good but nobody was expecting me in Bangkok for the extension Bangkok Short Stay.
Buffalo Tours were not to blame as they had no details. In the end I emailed Wendy Tours in UK and a hotel was booked, I had to make my own way from the airport to the hotel, guarantee the cost of the hotel booking with my credit card but by the following morning all was arranged. I have since received a hamper for the mess up (not really my type of food) and received £15 (at current rate 400bht) for the 500bht taxi fare)

Product :

Enjoyed the trip; guides were good, excursions were interesting and informative, some long drives but we did cover a lot of ground during the tour. If I was nit-picking, the trip to the Ban Khoang village was very forgettable. We left the coach well before reaching the village and then walked through the whole village and back again with little to see. We did visit a house and had rice wine there but the trip was 2-3 hours long. On the other hand the Cat Cat village trip the next day was excellent with lots to see.

Service rating :

The tour of Myanmar was wonderful only one blip was the delayed flight from Heathrow four hour delay , after arriving in Bangkok had a two hour wait trying to get another flight to Yangon and nobody informed the guide that there was a delay so had nobody to meet us ended up getting a taxi to the hotel

Product :

The tour in Myanmar was one one of the best I have experienced with an excelant guide with good food and very friendly people ten out of ten