Trek North Safaris and Day Tours, 3/87-91 Lake Street, Cairns City

Reviews

• Julie Teng Williams

  02.06.2018
  ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  However the phone receptionist girl Vincy was a nightmare. I called to bump our trip one day up. Took her a while to figure out what we are after. Fine. She found us in her system and said no probs, she'll email us confirmation.
  
  In the email would be instruction on pickup location and further details
  
  Next day, we waited in front of the designated location at 7:10. By 7:25, no bus. So we called and again it was Vincy. Again she couldn't figure out who we are or what we are after, even though I thought it'd be pretty simple to find me by my name and the trip. She keeps thinking I'm someone else , going somewhere else. Finally she found me and said, ah, you're booked for following day.
  
  At this point I'm getting angry because obviously this was not changed in the system even though she had told me she would and had sent me a confirmation email.
  
  She did contact the driver but by then it was too late for them to turn around to get us.
  
  It's also really hard to communicate with her. I can't tell if she just can't understand my English (she sounds Asian but spoke alright English) or she's just dense. I think it's the latter, from her lack of understanding or thinking outside of the box for possible solutions.
  
  I explicitly told her I don't want a refund, I want to make this work, I really want to go on a tour with the guides and the group, please tell me what else we can do. Yet she just kept pushing another tour to us. Or, "why don't you come tomorrow?" (Hello, remember our conversation earlier, I told you multiple times I cannot go tomorrow already?!")
  
  Because Daintree Forest was a priority for my trip, I started thinking of other ways to make it. I offered to drive up there from Cairns since we have a car and can meet the group. I told her I don't mind the hour-long drive. And to that she said, oh ok then please arrive at 8am. By this time it's 7:35, the driving time she has just quoted me is an hour, and she is suddenly expecting me to arrive in less than 30min?!
  
  And then she was like, oh, you can meet to do the river cruise. I thought, great,that's an idea, then I can just miss the first bit, and catch rest of the tour, which I don't mind. Wrong, it was too complicated for her. She couldn't work that out because lunch needs to be provided.
  
  Just to make sure what happens and see if I can catch up on another place, I asked her to give me a rundown of what the day looks like. This proved also to be too difficult of a question for her to comprehend. Took me about 10min to get this itinerary out of her.
  
  Finally I got so frustrated and stressed I gave up. I just wanted to go on my trip. Yet due to her mistake and incomprehension it was a fail.
  
  From all my travels and working in service industry, I can tell you that the most important position in a travel agency or tour company would be the person who answers phone calls because that is often the first and only impression. It's crucial that these people are not only courteous but smart. Phone manners crucial.
  
  Anyhow I ended up visiting two other tourist information centers (Cairns and Port Douglas). Both said they no longer work with North Trek because it's not reputable.
  
  Please be really careful with this company. Again I'm sure the guides are fine, just management is not.

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