Travel Review: Southeast Asia Tour, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Local Culture & Cuisine, Elephant Experience, Rice Field Tour, Temples

While overall we had a great trip, we felt that our travel company dropped the ball on several fronts. First of all, we are very well traveled having used high end tour groups on many trips throughout the world. This travel company was the most expensive of our options provided by Zicasso and, for this, they promised a much more personalized, high-end experience. Unfortunately, in many respects, that was not our experience. We had 4 different guides in the 3 countries we visited of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I would rate 2 of the guides as average, one above average, and the third as below average. This was disappointing as they sold us on their guides being exceptional. When we had some issues that needed to be discussed with our travel company, one of our guides didn't seem to know who they were or who he should contact. We also indicated to our agent twice prior to the trip that we do not drink alcohol. One of the 3 guides was apprised of this but the other two had not been told anything about this. In fact, in Cambodia, our guide presented us with a bottle of wine telling us it was a gift from our travel company. As you can imagine, this made us feel like just a number to them.

There was some miscommunication on the itinerary once we were on the trip. I can understand that this could have been as much our fault as theirs. The disappoint came in the owner's response to our concerns and in trying to rearrange the schedule. I found his responses to our questions as vague and dismissive. When I kept requesting a more thorough response, I felt his responses actually became rude - certainly not handled in a way you would expect a high-end or even a lower-end agency to respond. This really put a damper on our experience with this agency. 

The positive was that they did arrange several visits to very interesting people especially within Vietnam. We did have great hotel accommodations in every country and we always felt that transfers between countries were handled very well. The agent was good to work with prior to the trip in arranging our schedule.