Kimkim Trip Reviews

The sites were great as was the drivers in both Jordan (Nabil) and Israel (Abed) as they were not only excellent drivers but their knowledge was excellent for our group which was not a religious tour. Our guide MaHa, in Jordan was also good in adjusting the itinerary to our particular preferences. I felt this was more a group tour in a small van rather than a private tour. We would have appreciated being offered a broader range of accommodation options to suit a range of budgets. We would have also appreciated a broader set of itinerary's - for example - just camp dinner at wadi rum with no overnight We also had to identify our own more upmarket hotels in some locations.

Basma was excellent in adjusting the tour to our needs but we were surprised when she informed us she was leaving the tour half a day earlier because it suited the tour company better and there was no guiding to be done in the last leg. It would have been better if you had informed us we only needed a guide for 3 days instead of four.

The trip was close to perfect. Great choices on destinations and activities. One day was overplanned: it would have been too much to get off the ferry at 17:30 in Brjanslaekur, then drive to the cliffs of Latrabjarg, then drive back to Patreksfjordur. So we skipped Latrabjarg.
It was fun to stumble on the Wild Westfjords office in Isafjordur and meet Halldor, Preeti, and the kids. The next day we got to spend a good bit of time with the family. We drove up above town to a ski area to take a lovely hike. When we got back to the car, it had a flat tire (our second of the trip). When we were having trouble getting the tire off, I called the office. Halldor and family actually drove up to help us, made an appointment at a garage to get a new tire, and arranged for a reimbursement from Enterprise. We felt very well cared for.

Friendly and responsive staff. good itinerary. We enjoyed the trip very much.

Navigation directions had inaccuracies or were out of order that led to skipping some destinations or having a "phantom" starting point on one of the detours.

Not clear if going on a potholed road all the way to Látrabjarg makes sense, since the puffins leave in mid August.

Very helpful for a very last-minute vacation! We loved some of our lodging accomodations and really enjoyed the sites you suggested.

Preeti was very responsive at every moment that we needed her, and she created a terrific itinerary for us as we knew little about our destination and what we wanted to see.

Kim Kim should provide better transparency and costing and the break of the fees and their charges upfront.
It was difficult to get this info to decide if the prices charged are fair and reasonable. Just a lump sum figure without details delays decision. It my trip costs, some fees were included, but this was not known to me. Also about $500 fee charged by Kim Kim was not clarified in advance. The overall charges may be reasonable, but without advance information, it is not possible evaluate the same. Hope this is addressesed.

When booking, I was under impression that only our small group will participate in most of the activities - however it turned out we were joined by other people on the Little Petra to Monastery hike, as well as on Wadi Rum tour. It wasn't much of an issue in Wadi Rum - we already became friends with other 2 women, and we had wonderful guide who was making sure that we are comfortable at all times.
Little Petra to Monastery hike however was quite disappointing - our guide was going very fast, moving on with the most fittest in the group, acting quite arrogantly when asked to slow down, and making rude comments about having to wait for us. It was quite a challenge to keep up with the pace, and it felt like I hardly had any time to look around, and absolutely no time to take any photos!

Another issue was a behavior of our driver Ali at times:
He suggested that when visiting Dead Sea we go to different beach instead of Dead Sea Spa hotel as planned by our trip advisor. He was very persistent, making up stories of how the entrance to the Dead Sea Spa hotel "without reservations" would cost 45 instead of 20JD, and while saying that it is up to us, truly making it quite impossible for us to refuse - we ended up going to "Oh Beach", and although the beach was not bad, I believe it was not quite same standard as Dead Sea Spa hotel (but we still paid 20JD per person for beach entrance).
On the way back from Wadi Rum to Madaba he tried to "ditch us" - at first he said that another driver will meet us at the gas station, and take us back to Madaba. Once we arrived at the gas station it turned out that the other driver had somebody else in the car, so Ali told us to get back into his car and kept driving, while constantly making phone calls. Little later he pulled into the Rest Stop with shop and restaurant, and declared that we will take 15min brake. As we got back into the car some time later, it turned out that Ali's car "broke down" and wouldn't start, so he had to call his friend to take us back to Madaba! Also, instead of coming to pick us from the hotel in Madaba to go to the airport he sent yet another friend - who was driving quite old taxi without any AC.

Bianca was easy to communicate with, she answered all our questions, and the plan she came up with covered everything we wanted to do/see in Jordan. Entire Wadi Rum experience was truly wonderful - highlight of our trip! And it was great to meet Bianca in person =)
There were few minor hiccups, but those seem to be somewhat out of her control: as mentioned before, we were disappointed with the back road to the Monastery hike, and a bit unsatisfied with our driver.

Great trip that more than exceeded my expectations. The guides, activities, and accommodations were fantastic. The only thing that I could have improved would have been to do more research myself and request more days hiking.

Having the opportunity to chat with James on the phone could have sparked a discussion of the pace of the trip and whether a more aggressive itinerary made sense for us.

I will start off by reviewing Ida. The entire experience of communicating our needs and having the trip set up was painless and very good. I would recommend Ida wholeheartedly to anyone wishing to go to Sri Lanka.

The trip itself though well planned had some hiccups in execution. The driver will take you to tourist traps for shopping. As long as one is aware, it is easy (though annoying) to avoid grossly overpaying for things. The driver will also take you to restaurants that cater to tourists. These are impossible to avoid despite repeated requests to the driver to avoid them. The issue here is that we almost never got to experience Sri Lankan cuisine, only local parodies of "pasta", "pizza" etc. The hotels where we stayed were not much better with "American" or "Continental" being the option in most places. This is not a reflection on the Driver or on Ida but on a lack of understanding on the part of the hotels of a certain kind of traveller.

The pacing of activity was off as well on two days. The second day was crammed with activity. The entrance fee to the Temple of the tooth had to be paid up by us despite being included in the price of the tour. I was told that the driver did not have enough money and the tour agency would be refunding the money to me directly. The tea factory tour was on day two in Kandy as opposed to later at Nuwara Eliya. The explanation given was that the tea factory was shut on Sunday at Nuwara Eliya and hence the activity had to be shifted to Kandy. This could have been avoided as it was apparent that the day at Nuwara Eliya would fall on a Sunday.

Additionally, the morning of the day which we were supposed to visit Galle fort was rained out. The driver informed us that the entire day would be washed out and we could do Galle fort the next morning. We accepted this as something beyond our control. But later in the day when the weather cleared up, the driver was unavailable to take us to the fort. This meant we had to do this activity the next morning eating into the time we had to tour Colombo. We only got to see the fort at Galle for half an hour before the heavens opened up again leaving us to rue the half a day of sunshine we missed the previous day. Additionally,we only got to see Colombo from the car on our way to lunch and after that to the airport.

Overall, I would rate it as a good experience but would caution any would be traveler to be constantly wary of his own interests to avoid issues which is not a state of mind one wants to be in while on vacation.

As mentioned previously, the service received from Ida was exemplary.

Excellent. Very prompt and efficient. Great communication and reliable.

Enguerran from Horseback Mongolia was excellent from the very beginning in providing an itinerary which I requested as well as flexible in adding any changes that were required along the way. He was up front and always prompt in his communication. He was also in touch while we were in Mongolia to sort out any issues that had occurred which was reassuring. Mongolia isn't the easiest country to navigate yourself through and I would highly recommend Enguerran as a trip planner and organizer for you trip through this beautiful country. He also put us in touch with a great guide and driver for our memorable trip.

Our guide Bolortuya (Boogie) was on to it from the word go. She was informative, friendly and made us feel very much at home during our stay in Mongolia. She would show us things along the way through her excellent local knowledge which would be hard to find in most guide books and provided a totally unique and authentic Mongolian experience. Would highly recommend her if you are travelling through Mongolia. We will always remember the fun times spent with her in a beautiful country. Special thanks to out driver Sarul as well, who navigated the rough Mongolian roads with ease and was always keen to stop at a great photo location. It is always important to have a driver you can trust on the long and rugged Mongolian countryside and he was really good in this regard.

Overall, a great experience, some lovely people . Would highly recommend all the individuals mentioned in making our trip nothing short of an adventure to Mongolia. :)

The driving plan didn't include GPS coordinates or addresses for each location which made navigating hard at times. Some of the hiking trails that were mentioned and sites to see the written directions weren't sufficient enough to easily locate trails/site.

Halldor was very responsive during planning however the driving plan lacked the addressed/GPS coordinates needed to easily navigate the island from place to place.

Our guide was well informed but sometimes didn't seem very interested in answering our questions. He was a bit impatient when we wanted to wait to see animals. Otherwise, we loved it!

Nathalie was great to work with. It might've been nice to have a "menu" of activities to choose from in each city. It would also be nice for the pricing to be broken down by activity/accommodation to better understand how the total was calculated.

Nathalie was very accommodating in the planning process, and checking in with us at the beginning and end of our trip was a nice touch. There were a couple of times that we would've liked to call her but couldn't because we didn't want to incur expensive international cell phone charges. It would've been nice to have been provided a cheap cell phone that we could've used to reach her if necessary - this is something we have had from other agencies for other trips.

The choice of itinerary was good. The guides were excellent. Communications could be improved.

Tiago chose the hikes and other activities very well. The flight information had not be requested from us and we were not met at the airport. The wrong date for the departing transfer was given in the written documentation we were given on arrival. I provided a phone number for contact but we were never called when morning pickups were delayed.

The overall experience planning was easy and fast!

Tala organized an amazing trip. We visited the places we wanted to visit in addition to some places that she added to our trip and they were all worth it. Also she provided us with all the necessary information. She made sure that everything went as we wanted. Thank you for the great experience Tala! Also the driver we had with us, Ahmad, stopped us at some great views and took us to visit places on our way that we were interested in. The car was very comfortable. The overall trip was amazing, a great experience!

Linda was very intuitive and delivered exactly the kind of experience we were hoping to have.

Super!!!! I wish we could have Linda could always plan out our adventures.

Even though there were some mild challenges, Marco was able to rectify everything which made the experience better than what my boyfriend initially anticipated.

Marco was ABSOLUTELY amazing! I would recommend him to any and everyone.

We started with 8 people planning 1 itinerary, but ended up with 1 with 1 schedule, and 7 persons in a different itinerary. Linda was a fantastic, patient and knowledgeable travel guide in helping to plan our trip, from beginning to the end. She had fantastic recommendations. The 2-hour city walks / tours were wonderful. (We had 1 member who used a wheelchair for the walks, which we were able to borrow at our hotels. Planning that in advance would be a big help for future trips)

Linda was prompt in responding to our questions and concerns while on the trip. There were 2 issues that came up in 2 cities, and Linda helped to resolve them quickly and professionally to our group's satisfaction. Travelling in an unfamiliar country with a group of 8 people is difficult; when possible it would have helped us if we'd had a short list of recommended restaurants, price range, etc. Some of the places we wanted were closed for the season since it's the end of their peak tourist season. We would have loved to meet Linda while we were in Oslo, but we didn't have time. We'll definitely use Kimkim again, and will recommend to our friends.

Chris' attention to detail was really appreciated. He did an excellent job with our trip from my first inquiry through to his "check in" note during our travels. We really enjoyed the out of the way and less visited places he suggested, and the hotels were fabulous!

As stated earlier Chris was friendly, knowledgeable and efficient. His suggestions were excellent, particularly his advice about how much we could realistically see and do in 3.5 days

The tour guides, the excursions, the experience was fantastic. We really enjoyed our trip and it was economical too. Only thing that could have been better is it would have been nice if everyone knew it was our honeymoon. No one knew and that would have made it a bit more special. The last hotel didn't even book us a double bed on our last 2 nights. Other than that, it was a great and memorable trip.

Honestly, there really isn't anything that could have improved the trip. Communication from the get go was excellent and extremely thorough. Follow through on arrival was perfect and the guide exceeded expectations. Absolutely no complaints.