WHY NOT TO TRAVEL WITH CANTERBURY TRAVEL LONDON LTD
After hearing tv personalities talking about how great lapland is, reading the web site and related brochures we decided at considerable expense (£2300 for a 1 night trip for 2 adults and 1 child) to book our place on this ONCE in a life time dream experience with Canterbury Travel.
To put it lightly we were less than impressed and wrote a letter of complaint within an hour of getting home (even after 2 days with close to no sleep, it really was that bad an experience!). I will leave it up
to yourselves to decide if it's worth the gamble. There are plenty of other companies offering similar trips! Were we being unreasonable? Here is what another Canterbury Travel customer thought of the exact same trip!
Dear Sirs
Lapland Melody Tour 5 & 6 December 2003
A magical experience was what we had been expecting of our trip to Lapland, this was far from what we received.
After checking in early and receiving our boarding cards for our “pre-allocated seats” we decided not to have breakfast as we assumed that this would be given on our flight. Once boarded there wasn’t anything on the plane to give the suggestion of a magical trip for the children, but the assumption was that the festivities would begin after boarding the Dublin passengers. Once in Dublin, we waited and waited until some passengers from the IOM were told that even though they had boarding passes they should be seated in the seats we were in. Almost everyone from the IOM was reallocated seats and told to mark their boarding passes with their new seat numbers for the flight back. All this disruption led to a delay of approximately an hour. An hour which was precious due to the short time we were staying in Lapland.
Whilst waiting for the Dublin passengers to arrive, we discovered that no festivities were planned for the 3 ½ hour flight. The cabin staff were unaware of any carol sheets we had been given and they were under the impression that they should have been given a pack of goodies to make this a party atmosphere. At this point we were totally dismayed. After take off we assumed that we would now get something to eat. We had had nothing to eat so far and our children were very hungry at this point. We discovered that snacks were to be served, which we had to pay for. The cabin staff were surly and unhelpful and we were told that we had no choice but to pay for these snacks to tide our children over until some hot food was given. When hot food did arrive, no thought had been given to the fact that this was a trip aimed at children and pasta salad in pesto sauce along with cottage pie as the main meal is really not suitable. The drinks offered with the meal were awful, the coffee was very bitter, the tea was stewed and the milk given to my wife had solidified and curdled. No drinks were offered or given to the children with their meals.
On our late arrival we were driven to our accommodation on Olos. The trip only took about an hour but again there was no entertainment on board to keep the children occupied or even build the excitement for their search for Santa.
Whilst en route the children were excited to see one of the elves, Tricky Dicky, who briefly boarded the coach. There was however no build up to his appearance, no real explanation as to who or what he was and nothing to say what he was doing. This was however the only elf out of the ones mentioned we got to see for the entire stay.
On arrival at our accommodation we were told that due to our late arrival we had to be at the clothing area immediately before it closed. This was all very rushed and although we had time to eat at the restaurant and play in some of the snow games the time lost did make a big difference.
The snow games on offer seemed very limited in comparison to what your brochure had promised. There was ice fishing and snowmobiles but no snow soccer, tandem skiing, tug of war or snow shoe races.
The search for Santa the following day did not represent a search as we had envisaged. Firstly the coach drove us to the location of the reindeer rides without any explanation as to what we were going to do or who we were going to see and again there was nothing to build up to the excitement of the possibility of meeting Santa.
The sleigh rides and the lake activities were good and we all quite enjoyed them, but more thought into the build up of the main event would have meant so much more to the children
Our third activity area was the Santa meeting point. Once again there was no build up as to where we were going and who we were going to see and it was left to the parents to try and inject a little anticipation and excitement into the occasion.
The children enjoyed meeting Santa, but here again a little more interaction with the children would have meant so much more. Santa had the letters from the children but did not refer to anything that they had written. We had also typed letters giving details of what the children liked, the activities they enjoyed and who their friends were, none of which were referred to. It may have been the fact that we were the last family in our group to see Santa but we definitely got the impression that although he was very friendly he had a pre planned script to follow. A little more interaction would have made all the difference here.
Finding the dead reindeer in the forest after leaving Santa could have been so much worse had the children seen it, but it seemed to sum up how the holiday had turned from a dream to a nightmare.
On the coach trip back to the airport we stopped in the town of Kittila, unfortunately most of the town was closed, the only shop that seemed to be open could easily have been called “the Land of Tat” and one hour in here seemed a little excessive.
On the return journey we like all the other passengers had retained our important boarding passes with our pre-allocated numbers on. However on arrival at the airport, where only one check in desk was opened initially, we were all given new numbered boarding passes. This whole process of checking everyone in and we believe a subsequent baggage problem resulted in an hours delay before even boarding the plane. Once aboard there was yet another disruption when staff realised that boarding passes had been given to children allocating them seats in the emergency exit and so further seating reallocation ensued to solve this problem.
Again the staff were surly, aggressive and unhelpful, adopting the attitude that it was the fault of the people who had been allocated these seats and they had to move, but they could not offer them alternative seating.
After takeoff the meals again were not child oriented – chicken in mushroom sauce with rice!!! As with the outward journey there were no drinks offered to children to accompany their meals.
The cabin staff had been alerted to the fact that on our outward journey we had not been given any complimentary drinks, so after the main meal a drink was provided, however the passengers on their outward journey had already used a lot of their stock of drinks so the selection was very limited.
Upon arrival in the IOM to add insult to injury our luggage had been unloaded at Dublin.
For the amount of money spent per head on our trip, we expected to have first class treatment and a memorable holiday of a lifetime. What we actually received was service below the standard expected from a budget operator. It is certainly not a holiday we will forget unfortunately it is now for all the wrong reasons. We were totally disappointed by the journeys to and from the resort and annoyed that we could be charged so much for a trip that appeared to be thrown together. To put it into some sort of perspective we could have had a week skiing in an alpine resort or a cruise around the Caribbean for a similar amount.
We were recommended to go on this trip to Lapland and booked it based on other people’s experiences. Our experiences will not lead to any recommendations and we hope that this is taken into consideration when reviewing compensation that we feel must given in view of the problems we encountered .
Yours sincerely
David Isherwood
And this 2 months later...
Dear Sirs
Lapland Melody Tour 5 & 6 December
Further to our letter 9 December, we note that we are still awaiting a full explanation for the conditions we had to endure on our “magical” trip to Lapland.
We thought that we would allow sufficient time for you to investigate our grievances and provide some explanation, but it is now two months since we originally wrote and as with the rest of our experience with yourselves your company has continued to astound us with its complete lack of professionalism.
Should we not get any response, including a reasonable offer of compensation, from yourselves within the next 14 days, we shall have no choice but to take this further by seeking redress through independent arbitration as described in the original contractual conditions.
Please accept this letter as an official request to instigate this process should you fail to respond within the above timescale.
Yours faithfully
David Isherwood
SO FOR YOUR £1000, £2000, £3000+ DO YOU REALLY THINK IT'S WORTH THE GAMBLE? HERE ARE SOME ALTERNATIVES TO CANTERBURY TRAVEL:-
Santa Days
EMagine Travel
Transun
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