Testimonials
To: Shweta Seth
Cc: Rebecca Sloan
Subject: RE: Greetings from Compass India!!!
Shweta,
I’ve been meaning to write to thank you for all to did to make our trip possible, but have gotten distracted with away from it each time I sat down to type out a note. We are happy to supply a comment for Compass as we truly could not have managed the trip without you.
“Although we have traveled as a family internationally several times, planning our trip to India quickly became an intimidating exercise. Once we found Compass India, however, the stress and uncertainty associated travel in India quickly dissipated. They allowed us to customize our itinerary and select options from their informed selections of stops, sightseeing and hotels. It was very comforting knowing that we would find things as represented once our trip got underway. Two things were especially rewarding in our dealings with Compass. One, the car, driver and tour guides were all beyond expectations. While planning, we felt like this was really extravagant, but once we got there it proved to be a necessity. We learned so much and were able to focus on all the beauty and fascination of India and not how to get to the next stop. Secondly, when faced with a 12+ hour train delay, which turned out to be a canceled train altogether, the Compass Team went to work and found a solution that resulted in virtually no delay and more importantly no missed stops on our itinerary. Had we been on our own, I’m sure we would have blown two of our 16 days in country, not to mention the likely divorce proceedings that would have followed from all the stress and venting! Joking aside, having Compass and their team looking out for us, allowed us to enjoy being together as a family in one of the most enriching environments possible, creating memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.”
“Compass was great! Just the right level of assistance and care…there when you need them, close at hand when you don’t. They made our trip to India more than we could have hoped for”
I hope those comments help. Not for your web site or marketing efforts, but I want to make special mention of the driver and tour guide we had for 12 of the 16 days. Meenu, our drive, was more than we could have ever hoped. He was focused, attentive, and skilled. We never doubted his ability to negotiate every possible object on the road way, animate or inanimate! He was also just a wonderful person with a great personality and sense of humor that we enjoyed throughout the trip. Surendra, our guide, was so far beyond belief, we must say thank you to whoever assigned him to us. He was so well informed, so helpful, so unobtrusive and such a wonderful person that we felt as though he was and is a member of family. We witnessed so many other guides that just didn’t seem to be of the same caliber and could not have imagined spending 12 days with them. With Surendra, and Meenu, the 12 days flew by and we never once grew tired of their company. Please pass these comments on to the person at Compass that coordinates the drivers and guides so they know how special each of them are.
Well, we only saw a small part of India, so hope to find time to return. We’ll certainly be in touch if/when we do.
Regards,
Charlie Sloan & Family
Dear Sirs,
herewith I really want to thank you for the unforgettable sightseeing tour I've had over there!
Rarely in my life ( and trust me, I've travelled quite a lot! ) I have seen such fascinating places! India is truly a magic land, worth to be visited!
As far as our own tour is concerned, I'm really satisfied with your services and I'd like to underline that your efficiency has been fully appreciated!
The hotels you have provided have met my expectations: excellent food, kind and courteous staff, nice bedrooms with reasonable range of facilities ( even though it has been hard to get a hairdrier at the Rajdarshan hotel in Udaipur!!! ). Moreover, I'd like to point out that the Ratan Vilas of Jodpuhr was absolutely the best regarding cleanliness!!
All the guides have been cooperative and helpful ( some also very patient when we went shopping! ) but I must admit that the Indian accent is sometimes difficult to understand when people speak English! My personal sincere congratulations to Mr Mahendra Sharma, our local guide in Jaipur: the best guide of all! and with a real excellent English!!
To conclude, I'd like to make you notice that our tour would not have been the same without the help of our precious driver, Mr Shammi Rajput, so caring, patient, efficient and punctual! I had rarely met such an intuitive person, especially abroad where customs and traditions are so different from European ones! I would recommend him to any of your best customers!
My hope is to come back to India as soon as possible, maybe in another part of your wonderful country and... who knows.. I could also be interested in finding a temporary job as a teacher there!!
Looking forward to hearing from you, please accept my best regards,
Grazia Rosso
Varsha
We have returned from our trip and I just wanted to thank you and Compass for providing service and experience far above and beyond anything I could have hoped for. We were met at every stop by one of your representatives, and our driver Murare was incredibly professional and helpful. We enjoyed ourselves immensly, and above all there was never a time when we felt insecure. Thank you and your company for a trip we won't soon forget.
Regards
Paul and Laura
Well--we are finally home and almost caught up on everything. this is our 1st chance to catch a breath. we wanted to thank you so much for planning and executing our tour as well as you did. you were really wonderful!!
Henry A. Singer
Morrison Cohen LLP
Dear Sukriti,
I want to thank you for arranging a wonderful trip for us of Rajasthan. We enjoyed very bit of it. Your arrangements were superb.
Your company executives in every city were very professional, friendly and on time. They were prompt in their response. Raj in Udaipur was superb. My daughter got sick there and he was very responsive and prompt to our requests.
Guides were good. Raghu in Jodhpur was superb.
Hotels were excellent and we loved staying in all of them. We enjoyed our last night at the Lake Palace Hotel.
In summary, I want to say that it was a very well organized trip. Every detail was taken care of. I really enjoyed meeting you personally. We definitely will contact you again for our next holiday and will highly recommend you to all our friends.
Best of luck in your profession
Surinder Kallar
Hi Shweta,
Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you. The trip to India was amazing. All guides, tour operators, etc., were terrific and we made it through Delhi traffic in one piece. We really appreciate all your efforts and how accessible everybody at Compass was.
Thanks again,
Julie Cudmore
Dear Geetha,
It would be my pleasure to provide a reference for your company. I recently received an e-mail from a lady named Patricia who had been given my name by your company as a reference. I copied my reply below-please feel free to use any portion of it. I would also be happy to have future guest contact me. I would ask that you give them my personal e-mail address (peggy7781@hotmail.com) as I check it regularly and only check other one periodically.
Peggy
Sorry it has taken me so long to reply. Shweta gave you my work e-mail which I have not been checking regularly as I am not working at the moment.
You will have a wonderful time in India. I loved it! I cannot tell you enough good things about Shweta and her company. Everything, and I mean every last detail, was exactly as Shweta told me it would be. She was a pleasure to work with, very knowledgeable, informative and responsive. I had never traveled to India before and relied on her advice for some of our destinations and she directed us to some I would never have considered. The trip we planned with Shweta lasted 12 nights. My husband and daughter went to India in Jan 07 and Shweta planned their 5 night trip and everything was exactly as expected. We are already looking forward to going again next year and there is no question but that Shweta will help me plan it.
We were met at the airport in Delhi by a very friendly guide, introduced to our driver and delivered to our hotel, where a Compass agent checked us in. It was the same at each destination. We never, ever had to worry about where we were going, how were we going to get there, etc. We were able to relax and enjoy our trip. We had a different guide in each city, but only changed drivers when we would fly to a new city. The driver is such a help in knowing what you are seeing. For example, there were food vendors on the street and I was fascinated by what they were selling. He would explain to me what the food was and offer to stop so I could sample if I wanted.
I am looking back over this e-mail and I sound like a raving fan, which is exactly what I am. Rarely have I found a company that provided the level of service that Compass and Shweta did. I would be happy to answer any specific questions you may have and would do so more promptly if you were to send them to peggy7781@hotmail.com.
Enjoy your trip,
Peggy
Hi Ms. Shweta,
Thanks for your mail. Nice to hear from you. The whole arrangement from the pick up at the airport until the drop off at the airport was perfect! Nice driver and very good tour guides. At arrival and check out from the Hotel was always one of your representatives looking if everything was OK. Really a perfect organization and we have plenty of nice memories from India!
We definitely will come again and of course by then shall get in touch with you.
With kind regards
Franz Christen
Hi Anchal,
Ben and I would like to thank you and the entire compass India team for planning and executing such a wonderful tour for us. The service was nothing short of fantastic. Mr Suresh Yadu very extremely nice and helpful. The driver in Delhi Mr Karan Singh was great. He really made our trip exciting with his lovely manner and light-hearted nature. I would also like to personally thank you for organising this trip at short notice. We are thrilled that everything went as planned and we got to see all that we wanted. So great planning on your part.
On a different note, I was wondering if you would please be able to send me an invoice for the credit card payment that I made for the remaining amount with the exact amount in rupees paid. Thank you again so much for your help in making this trip a truly memorable one.
Take care
With regards
Sneha Narayan
Dear Varsha,
Thank you for arranging such a wonderful trip for us. your staff were wonderful.
The guides in Varanasi and Jaipur were our favourite , so wonderful and looked after us.
The drive in Gwailor was excellent he even came to the magic show with us on our request !! we were very pleased!
We didn't manage to do our tour on the last day in Jaipur as it was going to be too far for us to travel in a day and then back to catch our flight so we went shopping which we wee very happy to do.
All the very best
Tammy Mitchell and family
Hi Varsha
You can post our comments on your website - as I wrote - everything went easily - and India is a fabulous destination for people who love to see and understand other cultures, history and food -as well as India's changing society. Thanks for explaining the difference about the conversion to me.
Glad you liked the gifts - maybe one day we'll meet.
Thanks again,
Linda
Dear Anupama,
I hope you had a great Holi holiday.
Karin, Peter, Matty and I returned to Australia safely last week-end.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for organising an excellent tour for us in North India. We enjoyed the experience very much. India was all we expected and more. The history, culture, architecture, art and people were all wonderful.
Some aspect of life in India and the infrastructure does need improvements. We have high hopes that this will get sorted out in the next decade or two!
We are very impressed with the organisation and professionalism of Compass India Inc. We had your representative meet at every destination and very promptly.
Their friendliness and professionalism in general was exemplary. We also found the guides very professional and very knowledgeable.
Special comment on Ram our driver in Rajasthan. Ram is a great driver and took customer service to a new level. We weren't impressed with the Park Hotel charging us Rs. 95.00 for water bottles which cost Rs.12 outside. We are happy to pay some premium, however for something that is a necessarily, an 800% premium is a bit too much. Thus we started to buy water outside with Ram's help!!
Ajay at Jodpur was also very helpful and we spend our second night in a palace room at Balsamand Palace that was very "palatial". Jodpur ended up being one of my favourite places in this trip which had so many highlights. Umesh in Kajaraho also was great in customer service. Peter, Karin and I had a ayurvedic massage at Kajaraho.
My favourites:
Cities:
Jodpur
Jaipur
Architectural marvels
Taj Mahal
Baby Taj
Kajrahoe
Ranakpur Jain temple
Forts:
Mehranghe Fort
Palace:
Balsamand Palace (gardens were beautiful)
Umaid Bhavan (looked beautiful only saw the museum section!)
Hotels:
Trident Hilton (mentioned first because of the service and breakfast choice was great)
Balsamand Palace (ambience and heritage value was great breakfast was so so!)
Deogarh Palace (foe a small place the food was good. We had our one and only cappuccino here!
Bikanar Palace (quite nice! food service so so!)
Guides:
Varanasi - Indrajeet
Ashvini - Kajaraho
Vneet - Delhi
Ragunath - Jodpur
Sham - Jaipur (very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the religious tales)
All the guides you recommended were good - but these guys were exceptional.
In the trip my least favourite place was Pushkar - the temple was dirty and I did not feel the spirituality of the place as in some other temples. The quietness and "lack of " priests in some of the other temples actually let you feel the spirituality of these holy places. Pushkar was also the only place I could honestly say lacked the warmth of other places we had associated with in India.
We all had some form of a "Delhi Belly" during our trip. My husband was the first to go down after eating chicken in Mandawa. Peter and Karin had days when things were not quite normal but nothing too serious!! I escaped, until the last day when I just did not feel like having any curry meals.
I will be planning a Ayurvedic holiday with my father in Kerala as soon as I can fit the time and a South Indian Holiday in 2010 and will be consulting you on this. Next year is France and seeing family in England.
All in all a very lovely holiday. Thank you very much for organising this. I will recommend your company to my friends, colleagues and relatives. Feel free to keep in touch.
Kind Regards
Ranji
Dear Varsha
We are back home after our extraordinary trip to your beautiful country... we had an amazing time over there and my wife and I would like to extent to all your staff our sincere appreciation for all the kindness, politeness, and professionalism that anyone of them showed to us and made us feel at home.....
Sincerely,
Kyra & Gilberto
Dear Shweta,
I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending COMPASS to friends and family because of their professionalism and attention to detail and the help given by them when experiencing difficulties with our credit cards and booking problems with air travel.Your hard work allowed for a trouble free and delightful Golden Triangle Tour.Your Representatives who met us are to be congratulated on their helpfullness and courtesy particularly Dillip on the Agra leg. The tour guides were highly knowledgeable and friendly, again I would like to praise one guide in particular Sudhir Tiwari in Agra for his total enthusiasm of his subject. Finally I would like to thank the driver Grish for taking great care for us during our trip.
In all your selection of hotels, guides and driver was exceptional.
Again thank you,
Best wishes
Beverley and Edward Davingoff
Dear Shweta,
The trip was fabulous! Getting to experience India first hand was a trip of a lifetime. There were too many highlights to mention them all. Thank you for making it happen.
Our driver Joshi and his assistant Bhoopi were exceptional. Joshi learned quickly what things we wanted to see in addition to the normal tourist attractions. He would initiate many side trips and events. He would take us walking through small villages, stopping at weddings on the roadside, visiting local farmers, meeting village families and being invited into their homes, and touring local schools. These were among the best things we did during the 32 days in India. During these visits no one was trying to sell us anything. No one was holding out their hand wanting to be paid or tipped. We loved this. Much different than visiting a dhurrie rug factory, or a textile shop, or an inlaid marble store where the guide was looking for his commission and the craftsman wanted us to buy his expensive product. This was even better than seeing the forts and temples. Not that it wasn’t interesting, but nowhere near as fascinating as seeing how real people live and not the people that sell things to foreign tourists. (Just as an aside, you should warn American/European tourists that driving in India is not for the faint of heart. Every day they will face many dangerous situations on the roads in India. Driving in America is quite different – no cows, no goats, no ox-carts, no tractors, no camel-carts, no tuktuks moving at 15 km/hr, etc. and tourists should probably be warned.)
The hotels were excellent value. They were all clean and well maintained. With only two exceptions they more than met our expectations. The hotel in Varanasi – Palace on Ganges – very importantly on the Ganges – but our room didn’t even have a window! Ouch. And the hotel in Pushkar - Pushkar Palace - no longer has a restaurant so we had to have our breakfast in our room and it appears a bit run down. Some were spectacular like the Deogarh Mahal and the Samode Palace.
The details for the trip were well taken care of. With only a few exceptions during the nearly five weeks of travel we were disappointed. The guides were always waiting for us at our hotels. They spoke excellent English and were informative, intelligent, and knowledgeable about the sites. The hotel reservations were almost always in order and the hotel was aware of our needs with only a couple of minor exceptions. We of course needed two rooms, one for us and one for my sister-in-law and her husband - the Zebelmans. For the first couple of hotels there was a discrepancy in quality between the two rooms (they should have been the same level of comfort) and we were always having to remind the hotels that we had reserved king-sized beds.
If I were to take this trip again I would suggest several changes. There was too much driving. We drove approximately 4100 kilometers in 28 days. I would recommend that there be several rest days – like staying at Deogarh and Samode in order to sit by the pool and relax. I would also suggest that we would spend 2 weeks less in Rajasthan. One doesn’t need to see every fort and palace. Perhaps take the train from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and then back to Delhi to save some 4 solid days of driving. Too much time in the van – Tempo Traveler. But the money to take a van instead of a car was money well spent. To be able to spread out in the van was very important in terms of comfort. The two weeks removed from our trip in Rajasthan could have been spent as one week in Kerala and one week in the mountains perhaps Darjeeling . This would add to the expense of the trip, with two more flights, but would greatly change the scenery and we would have experienced more varied parts of the country.
Minor problem. The last nights dinner at the Laseez Faire restaurant on the way to the airport was fine. We were shown a drink menu but there wasn’t any beer on the menu. When we asked about beer they offered several possible choices of imported beer. The meal was included as part of our trip but the two beers with service charge and VAT came to 1100 Rupees. By far the most expensive beer I have ever purchased and we live in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world. We questioned the charge with the waiters and then with the owner but he assured us that they always charge this much for imported beer. Mind you, it isn’t the cost, we could afford it, it was that we felt we were being taken advantage of. We paid for the beer. The Compass Rep, Samesh, was terrific and quite understanding and reimbursed us for the beer. I just thought you should be aware of the situation. It left a bad taste, not of India nor of Compass tours, but for that restaurant and we wanted you to let the restaurant know that they should readjust the price of the beer or at least make the person aware of the cost of this most expensive beer before ordering it.
Again, Thank you for an amazing trip. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Compass Tours to anyone thinking of traveling in India. ***** Five Stars to Compass.
Howie
Howard & Paula Myers
10 Georgia Lane
Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520
USA
914-271-4395
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Compass India Inc.