Novaland Tours Travel Reviews, Tour Reviews, Testimonials

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NLT-150328-FK52926 [Jan 23, 2019]

Hi Alice, We have rested well from our Korean vacation, thank you for asking. I just realized that you are not based in Seoul because when I mentioned your name to Mr. Young he hesitated for a moment and when I looked at your contact number it has a different country code. I had brought some dried mangoes for you. Maybe we will meet when I am in Hongkong? Hope that will be sooner than later. Anyway, we enjoyed our Seoul & Jeju tours despite my slow & labored walking due to an ankle fracture in November. The Hotels in Seoul are nice, clean and strategically located but a bit tight. Not your fault, but I guess it is to be expected in a busy and crowded city such as Seoul, squeezing 3 adults instead of 2 in a regular sized hotel room. If we are to go back, the two hotels would be worth going back to again. We covered quite a lot in Seoul. Mr. Young was attentive & solicitous. He would make sure we had a little snack if we're having late lunch or dinner. On the last day, he brought us to church (which is very important for us) though it was not on the schedule and had lunch at a good restaurant. Our van was new and very comfortable. The Jeju Island tour was a good one too though on some days it was raining. The schedule was adjusted to have more indoor activities. Our guide Victor knows Jeju well. However, the van he used was very old and needs a little cleaning. The next two days, we had Cindy who was engaging, perky and knows Jeju like the back of her hand. She has a keen attention to details and was quite helpful in shopping. Her minivan was new, clean and comfortable too. Overall, it was a very pleasant and insightful tour of Korea for our family. I look forward to our next tour in June 2015 of Tokyo and Hokkaido again, arranged by your company. Sincerely, Marlene

NLT-150328-CJ38382 [Jan 1, 1970]

Yes Cindy our friend is here, they are very happy and impressed with all the arrangements, hotel was comfortable, coach Was good, and the guide was good and helpful . On the last day our friend left early for the airport since the hotel staff advice due to pick season the crowd will be huge So better there well before, they took the taxi by themselves. Thank You for all arrangements, will contact you in the next trip.

NLT-150327-YK56340 [Jan 23, 2019]

Thank you very much for well arranged tour for us. Highly appreciate it. Regards

NLT-150327-YK55826 [Jan 1, 1970, from America]

Hi Joanna, So kind of you to ask about our trip! Everything has exceeded our expectations! You have done a beautiful job coordinating everything! Great job Joanna!!! I will give you details on our guides later! Chol Lee and Cindy are the absolute BEST!!! Will our guide in Busan give us our train tickets to Daegu and later Seoul? Regards,

NLT-150327-QJ54375 [Jan 23, 2019, from Canada]

Hi James, How are you? We are now back home. We had a terrific time in Japan. Thank you. I am just busy today so I will write again tomorrow. Among the 4 hotels that you booked us in, we enjoyed best at Sotetsu Fresa Inn Shimbashi. Fantastic location, good service, clean rooms, satisfying breakfast. Please book us there next time in future. Also for all your other clients, they will be happy at Sotetsu Fresa Inn Shimbashi. Next was APA Hotel – good service and great breakfast buffet. But location is so far away from train station. Worst hotel among the four is Kyoto Plaza Hotel. It has good location and passable breakfast but the rooms are old and they smell of wet carpet and human sweat/body odor. Hakone Hotel Kowaki-en is a grand hotel but in bad need of renovations, especially the bathrooms. Bedrooms are fairly large and the breakfast buffet was sumptuous. My daughter had to hold the shower button the whole time showering because it wont hold. Anyway, I will send over the receipt for the breakfast at Hakone Hotel tomorrow… I have 265 emails to go through today. Thank you, Grace Grace Perez, Msc Research Coordinator, QI & Epidemiology Department of Family Medicine | University of Calgary Phone: +1 403 210-7129

NLT-150327-LC52345 [Jan 1, 1970, from Australia]

Hello, Lillian, thank you for arranging our recent trip to China. We have taken lots of photographs , met some very nice people, and now have many happy lasting memories .We thoroughly enjoyed finding a new local restaurant each night, and found that we could eat out most nights with a beer for around $25 Aussie dollars which for us was a highlight We very much appreciated the convenience of the driver/tour guide aspect of the trip. We must also thank Susan (the Guilin Guide ) and Novaland office staff for arranging a new itinerary at short notice. We left our original itinerary in our room at the New Globe Hotel in Xian, and despite numerous calls and a fax, we had no response from the hotel, to locating the missing file which contained personal information, such as medical and passport details and forward airline tickets . A special thanks also to Colby in Chengdu to waited until 3.30am for our plane to arrive from Guilin due to air traffic congestion caused by bad weather. We found the majority of drivers courteous, and the guides friendly, well informed and had good command of the English language. The high speed trains were awesome and we would use more of them should we ever visit again Here are a few notes we made from our trip Holiday Inn Central Plaza Beijing. Excellent staff , nice clean hotel room, would be happy to stay their again any time. Grand Nobel Xian, Nice room, centrally located., however, breakfast was a nightmare with just too many people, and no seating until staff cleared tables and there where long queues for breakfast food . We would not stay here again. Guilin Park Hotel Guilin. Nice hotel, great breakfast lovely riverside location with lights for an evening walk Green Lotus Hotel, nice hotel, good breakfast Celebrity Rucheng Chengdu Centrally located, but the worst hotel of our entire trip to China this hotel is not a four star hotel any more, the carpet in our room was filthy and the breakfast area was tired and in desperate need of a renovation. Breakfast was also disappointing for western tastes. Poor choice of hotel from Novaland and we would not stay their again. Crown Hotel, Yictang, very nice hotel, river view, good breakfast, not much to do in Yichang, in retrospect would have preferred to have caught the train to Shanghai as several of the cruise passengers did, at the conclusion of the three Gorges dam visit. Les Suites The Bund, Oh what a lovely hotel! and the pick of the trip, fabulous room, sensation view of the Pudong Area and service to match. Summary of the sights visited Beijing, Tiananmen Sq, Forbidden City, Summer place, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall at Badaling, Cloisonne factory all iconic sights and well worth the visit.and the guide was very informatative. What we did miss out on was the Scared Road tour and somehow ended up with a retail tour of a huge Jade Shop, which was not on our itinerary , the purpose was apparently to have lunch! Howvever rather than sit in the dining hall, with other tour groups, we were escorted to a back room where another couple were seated food was just OK , but it was at least double the price of what we were paying for our evening meals, not good value at all. Not a good choice for lunch. Hutong Tour, The rickshaw ride was also disappointing, it lasted around 15 minutes and doubled back on many of the same roads, the meal was tasty , but not really an authentic family lunch, just another tourist stop, we met the owner /chef which was nice. We found more authentic Hutongs ourselves that afternoon. We enjoyed the Terracotta warriors, guide however seemed have trouble in filling in the afternoon before we caught the plane to our next destination. Dumpling Banquet, Not sure how much Novaland paid for this, but a total disappointment, rushed, noisy surroundings, we did not know what we were eating, would have been nice to have an English menu. We have eaten better dumplings with far better service in Perth . Never again. Li River cruise, Very pretty , Susan the guide worked hard to point out highlights along the river, but not sure if the trip was necessary given that we were doing the Three Gorge river, a couple of days later, Could another option could be been presented? Not sure of the cost, but lunch was disappointing, as we were about the last couple to join the table as we waited to see the hills on the 20 yaun note. - a better alternative would have been to hold the lunch service until after those hills Reed Flute cave , beautiful and unique , Elephant cave and the climb to the top great exercise. Chengdu, Pandas, (panda photos have not been permitted for about 12 months so suggest this is removed form your notes Wenshu temple and Jinli Street very interesting and made a great day out. Chongqing A visit to the old town for a couple of hours before we went to cruise. Great use of time available Celebrity Legend Great boat, lovely cabin, clean, very pleasant hardworking staff, superb scenery, well organised shore excursions. We very pleased we took the dining option, and we were disappointed that we were asked to pay extra for Wi Fi, and English speaking movies, in our cabin, and for an optional trip to the bridge! you wouldn't expect to pay for these services in a four star hotel, so was hard to justify why on board. The biggest disappointment for us was the captains farewell dinner, all passengers were asked to be in the main restaurant at 6pm. What a free for all, we arrived at 2 minutes past 6 and there was 380 passengers swamping the buffet as if it was their last supper. A table call up would be a far better option. Tipping was out of control, with additional collection for the cruise director, who apparently does not participate in the the crew tips. Shanghai Dinner at the oriental Pearl tower, what an excellent night, and thank you for arranging the window seat. Our guide seemed to run out of things to show us in the time we had in Shanghai, so not sure if Novaland planning department put enough thought into planning our time in Shanghai. Summary Overall, we were happy with with our Chinese adventure, However your companies policy of pricing everything in US dollars and emphasis on tipping, are aspects that would make us think twice about booking with Novaland in the future. We believe this practice made the entire trip more expensive than it needed to be, and certainly compared to other Asian countries we have visited. , and we are not convinced that Chinese Nationals were asked to do the same. It would have been worthwhile to get a “welcome pack” to china including city maps, city high;ights this would have help us get oriented quicker in the very large towns. Also we found that the guide kept many of the admission tickets to the places we saw, as a visitor admission tickets are quiet a nice souvenir for the photo album! However we will do more homework on this as we move forward with our next trip. Again thank you for all of your hard work and patience with the emails. Chris and Maurine

NLT-150327-FJ55934 [Jan 1, 1970, from Ireland]

Hello Alice, Just a small email to tell you that the trip was very nice and everything was perfect. The Fuyija Hotel was superb and well worth the money and effort. So thanks again and maybe we'll book some interesting Asian trip with you for China :) Torsten

NLT-150324-EK55198 [Jan 1, 1970, from America]

Dear Emma, we thank you for a great Korea tour. You took good care of us. Miss Jena in Seoul was very helpful and nice. We had a great time and would certainly use your company again in future and recommend Novaland Tours to our friends. Christina and Michael

NLT-150323-CJ54760 [Jan 1, 1970, from America]

Hi Cindy, 1. How is our service throughout your tour from any aspects you feel? Such as our travel consultant, tour guide’s, drivers or others’ attitude; hotels, transportations, scenic spots’ arrangement; and any other words you would like to say to me. They were all good services - no complaints. 2. Where can we improve to be better and stronger? One thing I find very hard to understand is that why the tour bus has to drop us at different location (example drop off at tokyo train station) once the tour is over? can the tour bus drop us off at the bus station in tokyo? If tour bus can improve this drop off service, I think the service will get A+ rating. 3. Any other valuable comments, travel experience and happy moments you may have. I would recommend your tour to my friends.

NLT-150318-MK38548 [Jan 1, 1970, from Canada]

Thank you very much for all your help in planning our trip to Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia. We had a wonderful trip and really appreciate all your efforts for us. We have not yet had a chance to reply to your email but will do so in the next week. Hi Melody, I am sorry it has taken so long to write to you regarding our comments on the trip you planned for us. As I mentioned, we enjoyed the trip very much. We really appreciate all the time and effort you spent in helping us plan this trip. We did a lot in a short time! 1. How is our service throughout your tour from any aspects you feel? Such as our travel consultant, tour guide’s, drivers or others’ attitude; hotels, transportation, scenic spots’ arrangement; and any other words you would like to say to me. All the arrangements you made for us worked very well. Pick ups were all there to greet us and the drivers and guides very prompt and very good. It was a wonderful way to be able to spend some time with my niece and we all enjoyed being together! The only thing we were disappointed in were our meals in Vietnam. The lunch we had on Gary and my day in Phoenix island was excellent. Our dinner in Ho Chi Minh was however quite disappointing, especially when we saw the menus that were provided to groups at nearby tables. The restaurant was very nice, and the food was good, but not very much was served and the variety was missing. We hoped that this dinner did not cost you very much! The lunch on the return from the Bassac cruise was also not very good. We enjoyed the elephant ear fish very much and could have seen it on the menu more than once. Fish in Vietnam is excellent compared to the chicken or the beef... Maybe you could have given us a choice? 2. Where can we improve to be better and stronger? Other than the above, everything was very good... Thank you 3. Any other valuable comments, travel experience and happy moments you may have. I am especially concern on the night you live at ship in Vietnam, is it comfortable and recommend? Yes, the ship was very comfortable and we enjoyed our guide and the experience very much. i am not sure I would do both the visit to Phoenix island and the Bassac cruise. They were very similar, and I would do the cruise first. If there is not enough time to do the cruise, then the visit to Phoenix island is very nice. In this case, since my niece was not with us for Phoenix Island, I was happy that we were on the cruise with her, so that she could experience life in the Delta. Our trip to the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam was one we were glad that we added to our itinerary. For people visiting the temples in Cambodia who may have difficulties walking, you may want to suggest walking sticks (or have them available from the guides, if needed) as these can be very helpful when walking up and down the uneven steps of the temples. If you will plan for your next trip to Korea or other Asian Countries, we can offer travel expertise throughout Asian Countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, China, Japan, Korea, India, Nepal and etc.). We sincerely hope we can service you again to realize your wonderful trip and return you an amazing memory! We will definitely keep you in mind for our future trips to Asia. We really enjoyed working with you!!!! I also want to thank you for your help with ticket numbers and etickets that you sent to us. I really appreciate your prompt responses! It made things possible for me to be able to get credit for these flights which I would have lost otherwise. For the moment, do not bother with Cambodia e-tickets. I do not know if I require them, but will contact you if I do. ( In future you may want to advise your passengers when the Asian airlines is associated with one of the air alliances like AC or AA. It is easier to add the number before flying then to try and get mileage credit afterwards).

NLT-150318-EK54956 [Jan 23, 2019, from America]

Young is also wonderful. I placed a review on Trip Advisor. He is taking excellent care to make our Korean journey an adventure. He is an amazing, caring, kind, thoughtful, reliable, thorough in his planning and guiding. We are enjoying and learning much about Korea. He is very generous. We feel he is taking extra care with us. Appreciatively, Barbara Emma, I hope all is well with you and Mr. Young. It has been about a month from our return from South Korea. I was in a car accident and many non-essential tasks have been delayed. But I am recovering and wish to share our thoughts. Mr. Young was incredibly generous with his time, planning and guiding. Everyday was a new adventure. He extended each day with wonderful surprises and additions. He provided extensive narration in history, culture, and geography. With his educational history background, he was most interesting. and being a veteran added yet more diverse discourse. He also listened and added places and events to the tour that we did not know would be of interest. Mr. Young showed us the beauty of Korea. Had we taken a group tour, we would have not seen as much or had the kind care I think. A private tour made the trip unforgettable, and he made each day magic. When he found out we were “foodies” he made sure we ate wonderful authentic Korea that was very diverse. He was flexible to begin late on days we wished a delayed start. He included additional days, a most generous gift. He stayed with us to the airport and saw we knew where to go. Mr. Young was diligent, hard-working, clever, funny, a great driver. His English language skills were very good. If you talk with him, please let him know I am recovering from the car accident. My car was a total loss. The police and doctor told me I was VERY lucky…like the fortune teller said. (one of my favorite events.) I have recommended Novaland and Mr. Young to friends that are interested in touring Korea. Please share this communication with Mr. Young. With deep appreciation, Barbara Barkemeyer

NLT-150317-LJ37123 [Jan 1, 1970]

hi lilian, thank you so much.. the tour was great.. i had fun and the spots we visited was all amazing.. i love working again with you since im planning to go to korea mid or late this year.

NLT-150315-TK54196 [Jan 23, 2019]

NLT-150315-EK54956-2 [Jan 1, 1970, from America]

Steven was great. Very accomodating and great at explaining things.

NLT-150313-LJ50633 [Jan 23, 2019, from America]

This is just a short note to thank you (especially) and Novaland for arranging a very nice tour of Japan for us. All the arrangements you made for us worked out perfectly, from the size of the mini-bus/van that you arranged at all our destinations with very courteous and helpful drivers, to the very knowledgeable tour guides throughout the tour. The hotels that you picked for us were all first rate - clean, well run and very accommodating. All the furnished breakfast buffets were excellent as well as the included kaiseki dinner at Kajikaso Ryokan in Hakone. Everything was memorable and the tour guides were very helpful about taking pictures of the whole group so that no one would be left out of any of the pictures they took for us. At times, we had to make minor changes to our itinerary (such as the first day when we took longer than I had anticipated getting out of the airport and had to reschedule our tour of the Osaka Castle until the next day on our way to Nara). Both tour guides did an excellent job of meeting our active schedule and I can't think of anything on the itinerary that we did not see or do. I think one of the highlights for me was the two nights at Kajikaso in Hakone, where we enjoyed the luxury and comfort of the private onsen both days and to relax in our yukata while sleeping and eating during our stay at the ryokan. I'm sure there are a lot of other highlights, such as the ladies in our group enjoying all the shopping they could fit in on the time allotted and the magnificent close-up of Mt. Fuji on a blessedly clear day, all the magnificent temples, castles and shrines that I hope my children and grandchildren will remember for the rest of their lives. We took several pictures with the Novaland pennant in them. If any of these pictures should appear in future Novaland magazine or advertisement, we would appreciate it if you can send us a copy or two. It will help us reminisce about the good time we had in Japan. Thank you for everything.

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