Commendations

Mark Poppenwimer,cpoppenwimer@cs.com

Dear Shweta,

 Well, how can we ever thank you for all you did to make our holiday to India so very special and unique??  Our holiday was fantastic.  Our hotels and travels were so smooth.  We had nothing to worry about.  And this was all because of you.  Thank you..  You did a brilliant job in planning our holiday.. 

 Each area we visited was so special and unique.  Each COMPASS INDIA representative met us upon our arrival at each destination.  It was comforting to know someone was looking out for us.  The COMPASS INDIA representative in Ranthambhore was by far the best representative we met.  He took great care in organizing our game drives into Ranthambhore.  He also arranged for us to do a bit of shopping while in Ranthambhore.  He came to Sher Bagh several times to met with us and to insure everything was fine. 

Each tour guide we had was very informative.  And each tour guide worked with us to decide what was best to do at what time given the hot temperatures.  We were able to see almost everything we had listed on our itinerary.  However, because of time constraints, we had to eliminate a few items.  Of course we were saddened by this.  We gained so much knowledge from our tour guides.  Again, there was one outstanding tour guide, Sham in Jaipur.  He was very professional and very knowledgeable.  He also went above and beyond during our time in Jaipur.  He walked us around the market area for us to see how life truly is in for Indians.  We had such a fabulous time in Jaipur not only because it is a fabulous city but because Sham was fabulous. 

 Lastly, Mr. Ajay Yadav, our tour driver, was absolutely wonderful!  He is very professional and is a great ambassador for COMPASS INDIA.  Not only is he an exceptional driver, he is an exceptional person; he was always very pleasant and happy.  His heart seemed to be so pure and kind. 

 During the long days of driving, Ajay would just smile and talk a bit with us.  We don’t know how he could drive so long under such conditions and continue to be so pleasant..  There were times when we had to close our eyes because of the other drivers and the chaos on the road.  Ajay would just smile and laugh with us after we made it through the chaos.  He was such a pleasure to be with. 

 Ajay was also very accommodating to us.  He would stop the vehicle so we could take pictures when we wanted to take pictures.  He was certainly available to our every need.  He drove the vehicle so gingerly when there were bumps on the road to insure we had the most pleasant ride possible.

 Also, Ajay kept the vehicle clean and took great pride in this.  It seemed every time we left the vehicle, when we returned, the vehicle was cleaner then what it was before and it smelled very nice.  How spoiled we were..  Ajay also took great care in his appearance also.  His dress was so sharp.  Everyday, his shirts were crisply ironed.  Sometimes we felt underdressed for how well his appearance looked..  

 Words can not express our feelings for Ajay.  It was a pleasure to be greeted by him every morning.  And it was sad to say good-bye to him.  As we returned from our holiday, we realized that we miss Ajay.  Please give our best to him.  (And also to his new born son!)  Ajay is a valuable asset to COMPASS INDIA.

 With all our planning, working and traveling, we are saddened our holiday to India is over.  We have many fond memories of India and of the persons we met while traveling in India.  Without COMPASS INDIA our memories would not be as enjoyable.  Thank you for all your help for planning this wonderful holiday.  Also, please pass our thanks to all of COMPASS INDIA for providing us with an exceptional holiday to an exceptional country.  We give all the best to you Shweta and also to Ajay. 
 
If you could please send us the e-mail address of your management, we would like to write him a letter indicating what a great service Ajay and you did for us. We feel we must share what a great experience we had because of COMPASS INDIA.  We did forget to give our feedback form to the COMPASS INDIA Delhi representative.  Sorry about that.  We hope this e-mail will compensate for our forgetfulness.

 Thank you for everything you have did for us – we truly had an absolutely wonderful holiday to India.  Again, THANK YOU.

 Mark, Connie and Tyler Poppenwimer

Charanjeet Rai,CKRai@scif.com

Dear Varsha,

We got back from India Sunday Feb 18th.  We had a wonderful time in Kerala, thank you very much for arranging our tour.  We had an excellent, very knowledgeable driver and we felt very comfortable with him.  The only issue we had was when we got to Lake Palace they told us that we didn't have reservations.  They happened to have two rooms available so we got them based on the fact that if they didn't get the payment from you, we would cover the charges and we had agreed to do that.  It all got sorted out later and everything worked out fine.  Lake Palace was an excellent choice, we loved it.  

The second comment I have is about Taj Malabar in Cochin, this was a hotel we had picked based on what we had seen on the internet.  It is an excellent hotel, with very good front desk service but I felt that their restaurants were not very accommodating.  It is a hotel where most of the Europeans stay and I got the feeling the restaurants mostly catered to them.  They had a barbeque outside for dinner and we were told it was full and we didn't have reservations, there was plenty of room but no effort was made to add more seating.  We tried another restaurant in the hotel and were told the same thing so we had to go to our third and last choice.  Here we were told that we could get food from outside but would have to sit inside to eat it.  It looked like the barbeque outside was mainly for the Europeans.  I just want to give you my feedback in case it would be of help.   
Other than this, all the hotels and the house boat were very good and we thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  Again, thank you very much for arranging it for us.

Warm Regards,

Charanjeet Rai

Graham and Debi Evans,gdonce@emirates.net.ae

Dear Varsha

Thank you so much for all your efforts to make our family holiday such a huge success. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed our visit to India and our only disappointment was not seeing any tigers at Ranthambhore but at least we have an excuse to return!
The hotels and tours all worked out very well indeed....We particularly enjoyed our stay at the Meridien in Jaipur with its Gala Dinner for New Year's Eve, and enjoyed the peace and quiet and beautiful setting of Dev Villas, and good home cooking. The Nikko in Delhi was fine, but the Trident Hilton in Agra was a bit disappointing - it was a nice hotel but the food and the service there was not very good. Our driver and his companion was superb and our guides were very good. We will not hesitate to recommend Compass Tours to our friends who wish to visit India.
 
Many thanks again for your efforts on our behalf.

 Best regards

Graham and Debi Evans

Keith Cockett

Hi Durjay,

 My girlfriend and I just wanted to send you an email to thank you for organising the best holiday that we have ever had! We loved India and were fascinated by it's sights, sounds and history. I cannot fault the service we received from Compass, we were met at every stage and were very well looked after. I would particularly like to thank Sanjay, he was always polite and extremely helpful. Would you be able to tell me the name of our driver, he was superb! His driving was excellent and we looked forward to our journeys with him. The guides were also excellent and very informative, particularly the guide we had at Agra. The hotels were amazing and surpassed even our expectations.

 It really was the holiday of a lifetime and we are planning to return in the next couple of years.

 Again thank you to you and all your staff!

 Keith Cockett

Caulat@ashridge.org.uk

Dear Durjay,

We have now got back home and before work takes all my attention back again I would like, also in the name of my partner Francis, to thank you and your team for one of the most fascinating and wonderful trips that we have done so far.   India, or at least the north of it as we have seen it, is a wonderful country and discovering it has been for us in turn wonderful, upsetting, touching, overwhelming... It has definitely been an intense and stretching experience with good learning for us... You and your team have contributed to this experience.  The programme was excellent: it has enabled us to learn about the past of India as well as to get to know the India of today with its culture and its people at the same time.  The pace of the programme also worked very well for us. The guides that you have selected have all been nice and very professional people. We have particularly appreciated Aman in Varanasi (a passionate and kind person keen to convey so much about his country, a real wealth of knowledge with excellent pedagogical skills), Raghu (?) in Jodpur (a real fine man, very knowledgeable and handling his guests very well), Man Singh in Jaipur (very efficient, straightforward, always finding a good balance between the level of details to communicate and the number of things to show) and Netin in Delhi (very knowledgeable, personable and full of humour) .  Francis has also appreciated Satender (?) in Bikaner who did the tour in very good French! Most hotels that your team has selected for us have been excellent. Udaivillas was a real dream!  Deogarh was a pleasure, as was Devi Garh (a fantastic hotel).   Mandawa Castle was maybe less convincing (not as well taken care of as the Laxmi Niwas Palace in Bikaner fo example). The only real shadow though was the Rajwada Hotel in Jaisalmer, which we thought was very poor, a real shock after the wonderful Umaid Palace in Jodpur.  I gave some verbal feedback about the hotel to Wickram and also completed a feedback form for the hotel. They wanted us to sign the voucher at our arrival so I could not write any feedback on it.  We were grateful that your team accepted to give us a suite in the hotel (after I contacted them to inform about the situation), which made things a bit better... Still we were relieved when we left the place... A  less serious flaw was the selection of the last hotel (The Grand) in Delhi, which compared with the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi, was disappointing in terms of location (so close to the airport) as well as in terms of atmosphere...  While I understand the logic of putting us in a hotel close to the airport on the last day, we would have much more preferred to finish our trip on a nicer note, in a place like the Taj Mahal for example. We would not have minded to get up a bit earlier for the airport.... I would like to thank very much your agents in the different places.  We have very much appreciated Piyush's help in Varanasi when I got concerned about several mosquito bites that I got on one day: he has been highly responsive, caring and professional.  Also Raj Singh in Udaipur was very responsive and efficient when he organised for some clothes that I forgot in Deogarh to be delivered in Udaipur: thank you!   Thank you also to John in Agra and to Ajay in Jodpur for taking the time to come to the hotel and welcome us: a kind gesture.  Obviously thank you also to Wickram for his friendly and professional services. Last but not least I wanted to thank the drivers: Ram in Varanasi was a very good and pleasant driver who showed us very interesting aspects of the Indian day-to-day life on the second day: we have appreciated this a lot.   In particular we would also like to thank Narendra, our "long distance" driver. He has been an excellent driver. He was discrete while at the same time very attentive to our needs. A very kind man who has been a very good company for us! In terms of the trip as a whole, as mentioned before, we are very satisfied with all destinations that you put on the programme  although, in retrospect, we think that we could have skipped Jaisalmer, not only because of the hotel but also because we found the place too full of tourists, with no particular soul in spite of being the oldest fort in the world... but of course we can only say this in retrospect and we fully understand why you put it on the programme.
 
I hope that you will find this feedback helpful.  We are offering it as a sign of gratitude and respect for your very good work.  We will keep excellent memories of our trip.  We will certainly recommend you to our friends and families and, should we consider to visit India again in the future, we will come back to Compass Tours. It was also nice to meet you personally and to see the offices and the people behind the email address that I had contacted.... We wish you and your team all the very best for the future.

With kind regards

Ghislaine & Francis

Larry and Marianne DeMers,thedemers@hotmail.com

Durjay

Larry and I very much appreciate your offer to repay us the amount we spent on Mr. Rajinder. It means a lot to us that you are willing to reimburse us this amount, but we are very satisfied with the prompt manner in which you responded to our concerns and followed up with Mr. Rajinder. That's what we were hoping for in bringing this matter to your attention. While we appreciate your offer to compensate us, we would like to graciously decline the offer as we consider the matter resolved. Rest assured, that we had a wonderful trip and we will definitely travel with Compass should we visit India again. We have also highly recommended Compass to friends and family who have asked us about our trip.

Thank you for your graciousness.

Dear Madam,

Greetings from INDIAN TRAVEL AGENT.!

Hope this finds you in pink of your health. Thank you for your valuable feedback given vide your e-mail dated June 14, 2006. We would like to express our gratitude for the same. This allows us to review the existing processes / services and improve them in order to make your future visits comfortable and delightful.

With reference to your feedback on "money asked by guide during Delhi tour", please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused due to unfortunate and unethical behavior of guide while sightseeing at Delhi. Please allow me to assure you that we have taken up the matter with Mr. Rajinder; the concerned guide. In addition to the above, the guide assigned for your Delhi visit was Mr. Rituraj not Mr. Sudeep; one of the contacts listed for Delhi. Sudeep is the tour manager and not a guide. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused. We highly appreciate your kindness and concern towards Mr. Rajinder though he was not upto your expectations. True to the Compass tradition of placing "Customer Satisfaction' on the top of our priority list, we will surely ensure that the same is not getting repeated at any given time. We look forward to having your visit to India organized by INDIAN TRAVEL AGENT. and assure you of our best services and fullest attention at all times. Please let me know the amount that we owe you and provide me with your parents' account number with bank name and branch so that I can credit the same with the amount. Kindly allow me to do this as I believe it is best to be financially answerable for any mistakes. Have a great week.

Warm regards,

Durjay

Louise Wade,Lwade@havering-college.ac.uk

Hi Varsha

I am sorry it has taken me so long to send this email but I did want to write and thank you and compass tours for arranging our holiday in India. We had a wonderful time, with many photos and memories to bring back with us. A special thank you to our driver, Ragu on the long drives.    

Thank you again Louise Wade

Hitesh,hitesh.pujara@ntlworld.com
Hi Varsha

It was a pleasure to meet you and i need to apologies for not writing to you sooner...

I have had more visitors from USA and Canada.

My sister surprised us all and came over to see my dad as he left for India last Thursday.

I have given him your contact deatils as he may visit Delhi area....but i will let you know in due course.

Anyways we had an excellant trip with you and wish to thak you and your staff for a very memorable and enjoyable, stressless trip.

It was my daughter’s first visit and already she wishes to return to India....soon.

We are now booked to goto Canada in summer to attend my niece's WEDDING in August.

She got engaged whilst we were in GOA and surprised us ALL. So our next trip is already in planned.

Overall we had and excellant trip......

I will now just say that whilst everything was great ... it might help you for future travellers...

Our driver was excellent and your services were great (meet and greet), Your reps were great (including guides in Agra/Jaipur).

I will mention that the Hotel in Delhi we felt was a little run down...and not upto scratch- need of renovation etc.

Jaypee was excellant, Clarks was good as well.

Your rep (guide in Delhi was not like the other...)
In CONFIDENCE i state that he tried to pass us as locals at 2 visits and  we were stopped....

I than gave him a STRONG TELLING OFFand told him that i was NOT a local, our dressing was not local and we stood out becuase of our differences (no disrespect) and that i had paid all my fees/entrances and did not want to be embarrased and asked unnecsaary hassle!

I think he tried to save you some monies....by purchasing LOCAL tickets instead of foreign visitor rates.

He succeeded at ONE location where we passed as locals!
but i ensured that he did pay the correct elsewhere.
Also whilst his English was reasonable pronunciations were on times difficult to understand...but never mind.

I feel its only fair to let you know as overall we were very pleased with YOU and your company and i will 110% recommend you to my friends and family who are planning to come there soon...

Please keep my address. When you are in UK we would love to see you and hope that you can visit us in Leicester. Incidentally we are TWINNED to RAJKOT so we are well know..

Me, my wife Panna and daughter Nikita wish to again thank you for your 'gifts', your services and send you our love and best wishes for 2006.

Hitesh

Mahendra Dahya,MDahja@rexel.co.nz

Hello Varsha,

A very happy New Year to you and your Team at INDIAN TRAVEL AGENT. We 've just returned to New Zealand on 2nd January 2005, spent the New year over the Mumbai Airport and watched the fireworks from the Plane. On behalf of my Family members we express our sincere thanks to you and your team for making our tour a pleasurable and memorable experience.  

Comments:
1. The Bus you provided and the Driver and his companion were extremely  pleasant, curtiouse and honest. They looked after us very well. I recommend them highly.

2. Tour Guide -Ravi was extremely familiar with the New Delhi Knowledge and helped us every where possible in his novel way to keep the entry fee low. Please pass our thanks and Regards to him.

3. Tour Guide - for Agra and Jaipur (..... and Mansingh) were also good, however they were little faster than we could keepup with.

4. Your agent in Jaipur  got us on board the Jaipur express on time and farewell us.(very curtiouse fellow).

5. Jaipur express to Mumbai was good choice as we arrived in Mumbai on time.

6. We were disappointed with the "Chokhi dhani" services(no fault of yours as we had ask you to make reservation).

7.Howard Plaza in Agra was the best of all hotels.  

8. We felt  the Comfort Inn in New Delhi was little out of the City centre particularly for evening shopping.  

We then departed for Goa on same evening for 3nights and 4days.  All in all the whole Journey lived up to our expectation and went like clock-work.We were impressed with the attitude and the manner in which were treated all the way. I haven't had a chance to fully check our Visa Statement but I think they have drawn more funds than the amount shown on your Invoice. When I get the final Account. I will send you the email with details. You will probably need to check at your end.  Your Invoice Ref: COM/142/2005-06,3rd. December 2005. Once again many thanks for organising this tour. Finaly it was a pleasurable experience meeting with you and your team. If you ever decide to come to N.Z. please give me a call,I am sure we will be able to assist.

Regards,  

Mahendra Dahya

dawn Taylor,dawn@taylorcotton.plus.com

Dear Varsha

Hope you had a happy Diwali.  It was a shame we missed you when we came into the office because we would have liked to say a big THANK YOU for all your help and for organising such a wonderful tour for us.

The service was excellent and we will certainly recommend your company to any friends planning to visit India.  We would particularly like to praise the services of our main driver and his helper, known to us as Captain and Surinder.  Their competent, safe driving gave us confidence and a comfortable journey always.  The Tempo Traveller was a great success and ensured the children coped with the long journeys very well as there was room to more about and be comfortable.  We really enjoyed our last minute visit to Agra over Diwali – the Taj Mahal is truly majestic.

We were very happy with most of the hotels.  The only exception was the Quality Inn HimDev which was noticeably below the standard of the other hotels and was disappointing. 

Thank you again for your help.

With our best wishes 

Taylor Family