prakriti

Grasshoppers

Adyar ,Chennai

For our first anniversary celebration we decided to do a 3 day trip to Alleppey and Kumarakom in Kerala. After talking to several houseboat operators and tour operators we unfortunately decided to take services of Indues outback who connected us to Grasshopper India, a travel agency in Bangalore, After having several discussions and confirmation of the itinerary, inclusion , exclusions etc we booked our Premium house boat cruise with upperdeck, Anniversary special cake, candle light dinner and flower decoration from Alleppey to Kumarakom inclusive of one hour of canoe ride + transfer from Kottayam to Allepey. with Grasshopper India. Mr Alex Thomas, from Grasshopper India, took our card details for the advance payment. We told him we're not comfortable with paying in advance until we see the house boat and are okay with the arrangement. He asked us to get down at Ernakulum instead of Kottayam as its similar distance and he said the car will take us sightseeing in Kochi before dropping us to Alleppey. I told him to remove the kochi sighseeing in itinerary and give us a better rate as we're not interested in sightseeing. He said the sightseeing will not affect car charges instead to reduce some cost he converted our car from Ac Logan to AC indica. 1) He gave us logan. when we asked him about it he said he has upgraded our car in the same amount 2) we hardly had 1 hour for sightseeing in kochi after our pick-up and breakfast which we did without much interest to kill the time. 3) When we reached the destination, we saw a very ordinary houseboat with the no upperdeck. They tried convincing us that the roof on top of the boat is the upperdeck. we told them that if there is no shade how do you suppose that we sit and enjoy the upperdeck. 4) then they tried to give us another boat which was poorly maintained and dirty. For upperdeck it had a glass enclosed hall. 5) when we refused, they took us to the jetty and showed us boats from other boat owners which totally defeated the idea of hiring a travel agent to arrange everything so you don't have to get into the nitty grittys. 6) then Mr Alex sent us to another boat company half an hour away, which had only deluxe boat, while we had specifically requested and paid for a premium boat and service. 7) Then Mr Alex suggested a refund of the difference from Premium to Delux service which according to him was only 500 RS. 8) We were appalled and spoke directly the the boat company who told us that they charge only 7.5 K for the delux service from Alleppey to Kumarakom while Mr Alex was asking for 12.5! 9) When we tried to discuss it with Mr Alex he asked us to book it directly and pay him 2.5 for transfer to alleppey. 10) We were aghast as the charges for 2 hours transfers should not have been more than approx a 1000+ Rs in an ac indica as I later inquired. 11) On this Mr Alex said since he gave us the Logan and sightseeing the charges would be 2.5K 12) We told him to deduct 1,500Rs for this and without our consent he charged 2,200/- on our card In all this we lost precious 2.5 hours, energy and the day which was to be very special was totally ruined. And to top this, when we wrote an email to Mr Alex Thomas complaining about our experience he was busy defending his car charges and not even a hint of apology for the error on his part. As if that part did not even exist! Beware!