[Resolved]  SOTC — BAD SERVICE/ INCORRECT INFORMATION

This letter is to bring to your notice the inconvenience brought to us during our trip to Singapore & Malaysia organized by esteemed company M/S SOTC.

We would like to mention the following points, which have caused us the inconvenience and made this trip a huge disappointment.

1) We had made it very clear to M/S SOTC that our two daughters; an eight year old and the other an infant will accompany us and so we do not wish to have a stopover journey. We were therefore promised a direct journey with Singapore airlines for which we made additional payment. We made the booking two months in advance so that M/s SOTC will feel comfortable to fulfill all our needs and every thing will be as per decided and immediately paid the advance against the booking as well. There was no follow up for the final payment from M/s Sotc Office. We had to call them for often for the status and payment.
2) We received our documents ((tickets /insurance/itenary) then a week before our trip. It was then that we noticed that we were booked on Srilankan Airlines and it was a break journey. We were informed that there is break of two hours between the flight . Unfortunately, for us, since we received the documents too late we did not check the details carefully and relied on your representative’s assurance.
3) At Indian airport, we were shocked to hear that there was a stopover of 24 hours at Colombo. Fortunately, Mr. Vaz of M/s SOTC helped us there; he was very helpful on his personal level. It was on his and our request that the Srilankan Airlines officer arranged our baggage at Colombo airport going against rules (since we were supposed to get the baggage directly at Malaysia airport.). We had reached Colombo at around 3 am. When we went to transit for hotel stay, we were informed that our agent M/s SOTC had not informed them about our stay so they were not in the position to do the arrangement, it was at our request and of the officer at Colombo Srilankan Airlines that the stay was arranged for us in transit. Our issue here is that the agent for M/s SOTC should have intimated them in advance regarding the situation or else at least given us a heads up of what we were supposed to expect at the Colombo airport.
4) Due to tension in the said country no taxi was available and we would have had to wait for a long time for transport and since our child was not well we arranged for a vehicle on our own, for which we paid $100 (US DOLAR) for a distance of hardly 10 - 20 min. (as we did not have local currency. We also had to make some ISD calls/sms from Srilanka regarding this issue for which we had pay hefty cell phone bills, which we want M/s SOTC to compensate as promised to us when we called them.
5) The sight of Commandos at a distance of every 100 mt scared my family as we were not aware of any tension, political or otherwise going on in that country.
6) We appreciate the fact that the hotel was good and they arranged a bus back to airport for us and some other members.
7) When we reached Malaysia, we realized that we need to take a train to go to the immigration counter. There was no one to guide us; an M/s Cox and Kings’ tour guide helped us by giving us the guidelines. Such experience is very distressing for people who cannot communicate in English.
8) We have already mentioned our tour experience in your feedback form.
9) The air conditioner in the bus was not working properly throughout the journey from Malaysia to Singapore. I did not know that your idea of ‘feel at home in Singapore’ involved making us travel in a wreck.
10) We are very disappointed with your company and your false claims. We shall never recommend SOTC to any of our friends or relatives. Unfortunately, for us, we got to see the Article about your firm (Times of India dated 30th Apr2009) after our trip or we would have had second thoughts about our trip and saved us the trouble.
11) About the Twin Towers, we were told by the local guide that it’s a commercial bldg there is lot of security and tourist are not allowed in, and the interesting thing is we went to the twin towers the previous night and there was no tight security there.
12) Again, while coming back home there was a stopover journey and the time gap between the two flights was 6 hours. It was very stressful and difficult to spend the time at the airport, especially with our infant child.
13) The only thing we would like to appreciate here is the fact that the hotels were nice and the local guides were nice and helpful.

This trip was supposed to me a relaxing and fun outing for my family and me. However, it turned out to be more stressful and taxing experience of our life. Unfortunately, we were able to neither enjoy the trip nor take any good memories back from our trip. SAY NO TO SOTC

Mr.Amod.M.Nakhawa.
Tour code: 1804 (Oriental Magic)
Destination : Malasia/Singapore.
No of days: 8 Days.
Booking Office Branch : Thane (Panchpakadi)