Five reasons not to book your Bali trip with “Craft Your Stories” via Travel Triangle
Five reasons not to book your Bali trip with Craft Your Stories via Travel Triangle
We (me & my life) recently completed a trip to Bali which I booked with Craft Your Stories via Travel Triangle. I had initially planned to do the Bali trip booking & itinerary by myself, but due to the fact that we did our Vietnam trip through Travel Triangle (via a local agency from Vietnam), I thought of booking through Travel Triangle again.
However, this time all quotes we received were through Indian agencies and not the Indonesian ones as I would have liked. But Bali being a quite commercial tourist destination for a while now, I could not see any issue in organising a trip there without any issue. Thus, I went ahead with discussion with these agencies and booked with Craft Your Stories based on the discussions with Akansha.
Little did I know that it would turn into one the worst trip I booked till now. Below are some of the reasons
1) Poor Customer Service
Akanksha was thoroughly following up till the first instalment of the booking was made by me. But thereafter, whenever I had any doubts regarding any detail of the trip, I would only get a reply after a day or two. This pattern became more apparent towards the end when I had paid all the instalments and asked for vouchers.
At first, she said that I will get the vouchers in 2 days but it never arrived. So, on the 3rd day I tried messaging and calling her, but no reply came. Finally, at the end of the 3rd day after multiple messaging, I finally got a reply saying to reach out to Rajat.
When the communication really began with Rajat, I noticed that the itinerary which was discussed with Akanksha (regarding some modification) was still the same. When I asked him about the modification, he was not aware of it, actually no one in the company was aware of it.
I asked him to make the change right away as it was requested two months back and the itinerary currently designed was impractical. He requested me to confirm if the modification was possible with the onground team within a day or two. However, even after 3 days there was no update from. It was only after a little rant from my side, he got back to me with apologies.
By this time I was truly worried about my trip to Bali. I was just hoping now that the trip goes without any further hiccups.
2) Poor Property booking
Kuta Central Park
The hotel in Kuta was selected by us from the three options given to us. Based on photographs on the various platforms, we chose Kuta Central Park as our hotel. However, when we checked into our room, there were no windows in the whole room due to which I was a little disappointed. As the room was booked through the agency who has good relations with the hotel, I had expected a better room with at least a window for any view.
However, I let it go as I was excited for a better staying experience from the properties of Nusa Penida and Ubud. But, I didn’t know I was about to get super disappointed and the Kuta property was the only decent staying experience we were about to get.
Semabu Hill Resort
The property we stayed in Nusa Penida was Semabu Hill Resort which seemed like a good option by looking at the photos & reviews from Booking.com. The one thing I liked about the property was the view of the ocean and Mt Agung from the view. Apart from that, there isn’t much positive to say about this place.
First of all, the room was not at all spacious and the lights present in the room were super dim. But the worst part of the stay experience here was the flush of the toilet. It was simply of no use as we had to flush the shit at least 4–5 times along with the jet to make the toilet clean. Apart from that, there was a shortage of water in the property.
On the first night at the property after all the touring, by the time I was about to take a bath, there was no water in the shower. I contacted the reception and they told me that their engineer is working on it. After almost an hour, there still was no water and when I called reception again, the first engineer couldn’t fix the issue and thus the next engineer was on the way.
I lost all hope and fell asleep without any washup after all the beach visiting with all the dirt still intact with my body. The next morning when I decided to take the much delayed bath, little did I know that water was unavailable again. Finally, after more than half an hour, I finally succeeded in taking the bath.
Ubud Villa Mandi
All these problems were making me lose hope on Craft Your Stories, however I still had a hope that the Ubud property will be a kind of redemption for the tour organised by this team. However, this property turned out to be the worst till now. The bathroom was dirty and they had hardly any toiletries there. Even a mini fridge was not available here. Additionally the swimming pool of the property was not clean indicating that the property is poorly managed.
In addition to that, even the services were not up to the mark. Even after requesting room service, the towels were not changed. It seemed that the property was a scam in the name of a 3 Star Villa. Checking the price of this property in Booking.com, it was coming around just 1800 per night. It further increased my doubt if the property was really a 3 star property or not and was more like Craft Your Stories just made a huge profit off our trip.
Additionally, in both Ubud Villa Mandi & Semabu, there was no Breakfast buffet which I found odd and there were hardly 3–4 items to choose from, making these properties even more disappointing.
3) Poor coordination with onground team
Now coming to the rest of the tour organised, we were greeted by Arim who would be our driver cum guide. However, as the tour progressed in the first two days, we realised that he was just doing wonderfully as a driver but failing miserably as a guide due to language barrier. He was extremely polite and a sweet person, however if we ask anything regarding the itinerary or the sight we were visiting, he would be out of words.
He would drop at our sightseeing point with tickets and sit quietly inside the car. While other tourists were coming in with their guides who were explaining everything to them, we were roaming around all temples and other spots cluelessly. Seeing this we felt that we were being cheated in this scam of a trip organised by Craft Your Stories.
This problem was communicated to Rajat on the first day itself. However, by the time he coordinated with Indo Jaya Travels (their onground partner) and got the driver changed it was already our 4th day and time to leave for Nusa Penida. That being said, the other driver (cum guide) who joined us was much better than the first one, but still he also never went inside any temple or sightseeing stop with us despite the assurance from Rajat.
Another issue which we saw here was that for the last day tour in Ubud, there was a temple written in the itinerary (no name was there, but it was written as the holiest temple), so I was assuming it might be Lempuyag, Besakih or Gajah. However, there was no temple mentioned in the itinerary shared with our driver. I immediately called Mrs Sintya from Indo Jaya Travels and even in their itinerary there was no temple mentioned. Anyway, just to make up for this fuck up, she asked the driver to take us to some local temple there.
Ofcourse, the driver (cum guide) didn’t come with us while the rest of the tourists inside the temple were with their guide.
4) Mismanaged itinerary
One thing I least expect a travel agency to get wrong is the itinerary as they have expertise when compared to any international traveller or tourist who does their own research before coming. However after touring with Craft Your Stories, I think with some research of my own, I could have designed a much better itinerary then them.
The first mistake in the itinerary was for Day 6 where we were scheduled to check out from Nusa Penida after breakfast by 10 AM, and catch the 12 PM ferry to Bali. then travel to Ubud (which could take about an hour from the Sanur Port) and then do a 10 hour full day Ubud tour and then get up by 2 AM for Mt Batur sunrise trek and then keep Day 8 as leisure day.
The schedule for Day 6 is practically impossible and even if it is completed by miracle, then getting up at 2 am for the Day 7 schedule will not be an enjoyable one. If anyone has even a cent of common sense in them, this itinerary should have been rectified even before sharing with a client. In the end, even after my request to modify it, they finally did it after two months and just a week before our trip.
Now coming to the second instance, the full day tour of Ubud was moved from Day 6 to Day 8 after my request. In this tour, it was mentioned that we were going to a Kintamani Volcano as one of the sightseeing stops. I didn’t know that Mt Batur is also known as Kintamani and we are going to the same place again. If I had known that, I would have suggested going to the Mt Batur view point on the day of the trek after hiking.
This could have shortened our tour and we could have enjoyed the rest of the stops with more time on our hands. By the time we were done with this full day Ubud tour, it was post sunset and we really couldn’t do the last 2–3 stops, especially Tegenungan waterfall. Even our driver agreed that the tour planned here was simply too long and it should have been divided to two days.
There are more examples which I can provide, but the article here will become simply too long.
5) Not setting the right expectations
There are certain things which the agency could have better communicated to us which would have managed our expectations or else taken a better informed decision. For eg. If the hotels does not have Breakfast Buffets, they could have simply informed us prior to the booking. We would not have been so disappointed there or advised the agency to book some other hotel.
Similarly on the Day 8 Ubud tour, Tegalalang rice terrace was mentioned. I was aware of the fact that for Bali Swing we had to pay extra and it was not included in our tour. But where the driver took us, even to step into the rice terrace we had to pay an entry fee. If ideally that should be included in our trip or else we should have been informed about the same.
Finally from my experience what I learned is that if you want your travel experience to become little horror stories, feel free to book with craft your stories.