WE LEARN FROM CRITIZISM TO THE TOTAL IMPROVEMENT........

MR. ROGER CLARKE (17 - 28 November 2011)
Good Morning Peter,
It was a pity we could not meet up at the end of our holiday but here is some feedback which I hope you will find helpful. The first thing to say is that we all very much enjoyed the trip.

The boat to Rinca and Komodo was terrific.
Great scenery and great crew. The food on board was amazing considering the limited facilities – the best we had all holiday. We saw dragons in the wild besides around the hut which was very exiting. Our guide, Marcel, was excellent.
One observation, the dragons were the highlight, but the rangers should discourage them from lying under their building. People don’t travel half way round the world to see dragons asleep under the ranger’s office. We went into the jungle and were rewarded with a fantastic sighting of a dragon which circled us twice, but without that we would have been very disappointed.

The scenery and coastline on Flores was beautiful. Yoakhim was an excellent guide, knowledgeable and helpful and Peter a good driver in what was sometimes difficult conditions. One point to consider is that the vehicle did not have seat belts. I appreciate that they are not mandatory in Indonesia and even when fitted, many people do not use them.
However, in Europe, they are mandatory both back and front and everyone uses them.
This may be an issue for you in later trips

The accommodation deteriorated as the tour progressed. The Mission and Happy Hotel were great. However, the 2 night we spent in Riung and Moni were not. The rooms themselves were OK but the bathrooms left a lot to be desired.. Taps and showers did not work or were intermittent. In Riung, the grounds around the hotel were very scruffy and in Moni, the dining area was dirty and depressing. We had no issues with the hotel in Maumere.

I do appreciate that the choice of hotels is limited and that we were probably in the best places available. However, if more overseas visitors are to be attracted, this needs to be addressed.

The highlights for us on Flores were the terrific snorkelling, particularly on Pink Beach and the fruit bats. The scenery was also beautiful and varied. At times it did feel like a lot of driving but this was inevitable considering the distances. Yoakhim was very good at arranging stretch breaks as we went along. The crater lakes were spectacular but the colours not as dramatic as we had imagined.

Confusion reigned when we got back to DPS. In the event, the boat went and returned from Gili Meno. While we had reservations about the Gazebo based on Trip Advisor reviews, your recommendation was spot on. The bungalows were clean and comfortable and the location was good with excellent snorkelling right outside.

Finally, as a suggestion, you might want to consider doing the trip the other way round i.e. starting in Maumere. As I said, the dragons were the highlight and it would also have the advantage of the hotels getting better rather than worse.

Kind regards, Roger.

message from Hayashi Shohei
Hi Peter.
I safely finished my travel in Indonesia. I made a lot of friends and memories. Thank you for your hard work. Keep in touch, please. Shohei - Japan

Hi Peter, These are our comments on the 6 day tour of Flores Komodo that we did last August. € The mute captain of the boat to Komodo and Rinca was particularly friendly and welcoming and I recommend him (and his his two young mates) for other trips. € The Hilltop hotel in Labuan Bajo was excellent, the sunset view from our room was breathtaking. € The first part from Labuan Bajo-Ruteng-Bajawa is too long, 12 hour drive. Therefore we arrived in Bajawa late after 8 pm and we got a rather unconfortable and noisy room near the front of the hotel. € The hotels for the rest of the tour were good as expected. € On the last day at Kelimutu lakes, it would be nice to offer your customers to go down back to the hotel on foot through the jungle. Especially since the trip to Maumere is short. € In Maumere we did not find the coral reef snorkeling beach that are mentioned in guide books. If your guides knew where to go it would be a nice plus for future tourists.

"Komodo tours delivers. We did the 6-day tour of Flores and Komodo, the driver was safe and the guide very friendly and knowledgeable of the fauna and flora of the island. We were even invited to the driver¹s home for a taste of a local dish with his family. As often happens in Indonesia with the small airlines, 2 planes were unexpectedly out of commission for repairs.
This created havoc for the 80 tourists stranded on Flores. Having anticipated such an event we had booked through Komodo tours and Peter found us another route back to Bali via Sulawesi (at no extra costs). While waiting at the airport we talked with a couple that had been backpacking independently and they had been delayed 1.5 days by this mishap, we only "lost" half a day on our schedule. " And finally we would like to thank you again for taking care of us both on the departure and the arrival in Bali.

Claire and Jean-Philippe Letullier

Sammy - Hongkong (Wholesale Tour Operator)
I would like to present great thank you for your co-operation for the Bali & Flores Tours for our VIP guests. They enjoyed the trip very much for our good arrangements, everything were in good order though we had a hard time to manage. I believe you understand that's our duty & liability to provide best service to our guests, no matter in every minor part of the arrangements. May I say thank you again to you and your team mates and it really strengthen our faith for forth coming bookings

new comment received from Mr. Werner and family .... 11/18 August 2011

Flores is an amazing and beautiful place.! would love to come back. Good condition of the boat enough space, very nice variety of food, on time, friendly and attentive crew on board, with land transportation good condition, safe and friendly driver. Hotel are according to our expectation and very nice in Maumere. Good food at local restaurant. Our guide very friendly and informative, flexible to change according to our wishes.

Hi Peter,

I just wanted to say thank you for helping me arrange everything on our trip to Komodo. I had a wonderful time and I will definitely go back with your tour group again. Everything was really great. Thank you.

Can you help me get the email address to my guide on the tour? His name is Arman and I would like to send him some photos that we took together on the trip. I promised him I would send him some photos, but I lost his email so it's really important to me to be able to send him the photos.

Thank you again,
Robert

Hello Peter ! - My wife and I had a wonderful tour of the Komodo Islands (Rinca island) actually thanks to you and Gonsa (our guide) last June!! We were able to video many dragons feeding on the recently killed water buffallo ... a very rare sight..!!

I promised to send Gonza a copy of the video but I seemed to have lost his mailing address. Can you contact Gonsa and relay his address to me?

I can send two copies if you like - one for Gonsa and one for Komodotours.com (may be good advertising for future tours). Regards - Lindsay Crawford

We liked the hike up the volcano and appreciate Mr. Meus for making it special for us by helping us to see the birds. And the Liang Bua care was very impressive. Our driver Mr.Ardi was excellent.

Many thanks for all your care. And will be sure to tell our friends and family to use Komodotours.com when they come here. Sincerely, Audre & Roger Newman

I am writing to thank you for your efforts with our booking on the Sea Safari cruise.  Although the room was very noisy and all our clothes smelt of engine diesel when we left the boat and we suffered sea sickness we enjoyed the trip very much and shall remember it for a long time.

Thankyou for the free diving as Mr Cummings and Mr Hill enjoyed it very much.  We have returned to a cold and rainy England but have wonderful memories of our 3 weeks in Bali and no doubt shall return at some point

Peter wanted to thank you for arranging everything.  We had a wonderful time and all the guides/people involved were wonderful.  I will keep the Bali/Borneo/Sumatra/Java trip you told me about in mind for next year or 2005.

Really, really enjoyed Bali and will tell everyone your name if they go to Bali. We made it home Sunday night with no problems.  After almost 24 hrs flying and 18 plus sitting in airports but worth it.

Judy - Born to Travel Forced to Work (USA)