Europe is one of the favourite destinations of Singaporeans due to the diversity of its people and cultures. There is something for everyone -- the foodie, the shopping queen, the culture buff, the adventure seeker. In this post, I review my second trip to the continent which covers four countries: Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and London.
1. Group Package Tour
I chose a group package tour for the opportunity to visit more countries efficiently. However, this is a trade-off with the flexibility to customise the duration of visits according to your preferences.
2. Travel Agency
I decided to travel with Dynasty Travel. They are located opposite Central at Clarke Quay MRT station. This is my third time travelling with them. From past experiences, their tour packages are priced much higher than their peers, about 20% to 25% more. The hotels and meals included in the packages are touted to be of a higher quality than the others in the market. For me, it has been a hit-and-miss affair. Their tipping policy this time also included compulsory porterage of
£20 (SGD$40) per person. For those who are unused to package tours, tips are a compulsory part of the package for the staff who may include the tour leader, coach driver. In this case, the tipping extended to the hotel porters as well.
The booking staff that handled my booking was not specialised in Europe tours and could not tell me very much beyond what was already on the itinerary. It so happened that her colleagues who could tell me more were also not at work. To her credit, she did offer to get another colleague to explain the details to me if I were to visit the office again. As a tour briefing would be provided before the departure, I did not take up the offer. Payment was swift (as always) and I was given the travel bags. This time, Dynasty Travel has innovated its travel bags to look like Longchamp carry-ons but printed with its company logo. The thing that irked me was that I was only given two luggage tags, one for each of us. From experience, the tags are susceptible to destruction due to the frequent loading and unloading throughout the trip and so I asked for more. The booking staff, who had been quite professional before my request, gave me two more grudgingly, but not before saying curtly, "Actually, one customer only gets one tag." I do not know if this change in attitude was because I had just paid in full for the trip, but it left an unpleasant aftertaste. To me, the luggage tags are part of the whole package and no company has ever mentioned such a restriction to me. I could use my own but won't it be difficult for your staff to identify my luggage?
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| The Longchamp lookalike |
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| The luggage tag that was so 'precious' |
Rating: 3/5
3. Logistics -- Weather, Flight Time, Insurance
The trip was in the first half of June, which is the start of summer.
However, summer in Europe is starkly different from the tropical weather we experience in Singapore all year round. In Europe, temperatures can dip and rise throughout the day. During my trip we experienced lows of 13°C on certain days, The average was 15°C to 18°C on most days in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. In London, temperatures were more comfortable, hovering around 20°C. Hence it is important to pack a warm sweater or good windbreaker, or even scarves. A poncho or umbrella is absolutely essential, especially in London.
The flight was a red-eye flight lasting 12h 35min and due to the 7-hour time difference (London is 7 hours behind), it was morning when we landed in London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. Immediately, we transferred to our connecting flight to Dublin Airport which took another 1h 25min. The flight home was a direct flight home from London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 back to Singapore Changi Airport.
Insurance is a must for me when I go overseas. This time, I bought it online as I had narrowly missed the discount at the travel fair by three days. I managed to find a deal that bettered the 30% discount so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that I had not bought it earlier.
4. Airline
The airline was British Airways and the baggage allowance was one piece of luggage not exceeding 23kg for economy passengers. If you are a big shopper like some of my tour mates, then perhaps it is not enough. Two meals were served on the flight, dinner and breakfast. I did not understand why despite the long duration of the trip, that breakfast was served only an hour before landing. There was barely enough time to scoff down the meal before having to prepare for landing. Compared to Singapore Airlines, there were fewer refreshment options. When I travelled to Italy on another European airline three years ago, the service was more efficient and being a long-haul flight, the flight attendants walked the aisles more frequently with beverages to quench our thirst. I only experienced this once on the return flight this time round. Both trips were made in the Airbus A380s but my the experience this time was more bumpy. I am not sure if it is because I was seated on the upper deck this time.
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| Airbus A380 was not so swell this time |
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| Flight path |
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| London Heathrow Airport T5 |
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| On board domestic flight to Dublin |
Rating: 3/5
5. Transport
One of the affordances of going on a packaged tour is having the use of a coach. The convenience of alighting and boarding near to the places of attractions and the security of being able to leave your belongings on the coach without lugging them around the entire day cannot be disputed. The three drivers who were assigned to us were experienced and skillful and our journeys were mainly smooth except for a minor skirmish with another vehicle which made many of us thankful for the seat belts.
Rating: 4/5
6. Itinerary
Below were the places we visited.
Dublin - Belfast - Stranraer - Glasgow - Glencole - Isle of Skye - Loch Ness - Scottish Highlands - Edinburgh - Lake District - Greater Manchester - Stratford-Upon-Avon - London
Mostly, we stayed a night at each place, except for Belfast, Edinburgh and London where we stayed for two nights.
We had city tours at the following cities: Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Isle of Skye, Edinburgh and London. Personally, I would have preferred to walk around at some of the places rather than look at them from afar in the coach. At each of these tours, there was a different guide. Not all were interesting and we had to pay £2 each for their services.
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| City tour after city tour...sigh |
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| Our guide at Isle of Skye which one of my tour member liked |
Many places listed in the itinerary were mere photo stops. Like at the Titantic museum, where many other tour groups visited, we merely just drove past to view the giant cranes, used the toilets at the place and were given 15 minutes at the gift shop. One tour member commented that the things bought could only be meaningful only if we had visited the museum and I truly agree with her.
Some of the more memorable places where our visit was longer were: Giants Causeway, Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge and Edinburgh Castle.
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| Only a photo stop at the Titanic Belfast Museum |
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| Giants Causeway | | | |
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| Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge |
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| Edinburgh is pronounced as "Edinburrah" by the locals |
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| Edinburgh Castle |
Rating: 3/5
7. Food
I mentioned earlier that this is the third time I have travelled with this agency and I must say that for the price paid, the food served were monotonous, unpalatable and the portions were even stingy. Some of the better meals were the Chinese meals (consistently tasty and the hotel dinner served at Crowne Plaza Manchester Airport. But the service at the Chinese restaurant was bad. Our table had finished our meal first and we were sitting there, waiting for others to be done and the staff actually came over to ask us to leave the table when we were done! So rude! My tour mates were so mad that they went outside to wait even though it was cold.
Not all of the meals served in hotels were good, the meal at Stormont Hotel being a classic example. The beef was so salty it was unpalatable and a tour mate described it as being "dipped in salt". No one could have taken more than two bites without gagging. When the manager came round to get feedback, he just said, "Oh!" and walked away quickly.
In England, I blinked my eyes when the fish and chips were served as I could not believe my eyes. It was literally a piece of fish and some chips! In the U.S., it would have been a kid's portion! Wait, but I paid adult prices! And the hygiene of the restaurant was poor. The tour member next to me found a housefly in her salad while she was halfway through. It was still alive! :(
The better meals were those we had on our own which made us wonder why the food served to us was so yucky since they were curated for our trip and the meals we had on our own were pure random choices?
The good (I didn't take photos of the Chinese meals):
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| Dinner in Manchester |
The nasty:
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| The extremely salty Northern Irish Doube of Beef |
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| Kid's portion served to us who paid adult prices! |
Rating: 1.5/5
8. Accommodation
Those in the know would know that the travel agency we signed up with prides itself on the quality of the hotels it works with. However, throughout my trip, my tour mates and I faced problems with the air-conditioning, the sink and the kettle. If you were lucky, the hotel would offer a room swap but if you were not, the hotel staff might raise their voice at you or simply apologise but not do anything about it. This was consistent throughout our trip. On my second last day, the air-conditioning of the room was not working and I was offered either a room swap or a fan. To avoid the hassle of a move, I took the fan and the one that came was the size of an A4-paper! I kid you not. The breeze reached maybe like 0.2 m away. It was that feeble!
The location of the hotels were also not ideal. In Dublin, the area our hotel was situated in was unsavoury and the locals even told us it was not safe to walk around by ourselves. In Edinburgh, our hotel was 20 to 30 minutes (depending on how fast you walked) from the main shopping belt. In London, our hotel was also situated away from the city centre and to get anywhere, you had to take the Tube which took up time and money.
At the hotel in Isle of Skye, we were talked to in a military style. The server told us that we could only go down for breakfast the next day at 7.15 a.m., "no earlier and no later" as they had many tour groups staying that night. I wonder why it was our issue that they took on more than they could chew?
The worst was at Holyrood Hotel. Hotel breakfasts are usually done buffet style but this hotel only had it buffet style for the cold dishes. For the hot dishes like egg, sausage, bacon, you had to place orders with the waiter. This was not a problem, but the problem was that the kitchen could not keep up with the orders! And we stayed two nights!
On my second day there, I placed my order at about 8.05 a.m. at Table 1 but moved to Table 2 and my my meal was not served until 45 minutes later at 8.50 a.m.! When I asked the manager to pack it in a takeout box since I had to depart at 9 a.m., he had the audacity to tell me, "You could just eat faster!" In the end, they packed it messily into a piece of aluminum foil (see photo below) without any cutlery! I had to ask for the cutlery myself.
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| The hotel where I experienced horrible breakfast service |
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| The cold lumpy breakfast with the unappealing wrap |
Rating: 1.5/5
9. whynotearlier says
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this is the third time I have travelled with this travel agency. While I understand that many unexpected issues can crop up in the course of a holiday, many of the factors were well within the control of the agency, like the food options and the lodging. I no longer see the justification in paying a premium for the package because the whole package is no longer above the other agencies in the industry, unlike the first time I travelled with them. Not all of the places I stayed at and the staff I met were unpleasant, but there were more bad experiences than good experiences throughout. It is disappointing, to say the least, as one has to invest time and effort into a long-haul trip and I do wish it could have turned out better.
