Maldives Travel Agents & Reviews

Our travel specialist did a great job in working with us during a difficult time of traveling! COVID-19 certainly provided a lot of roadblocks and extra hassles, but they were able to help us go on a wonderful vacation in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. They did a good job of checking in with us and arranging our COVID-19 tests. The driver and the activities they picked were very good, fit our needs, and there was a great mix of different things in our itinerary that we liked. We also loved our accommodation options. Overall we had a great vacation!

Some things that could use improvement: 

Attention to detail- there were some things that were overlooked. For example, their travel contract clearly said we were responsible to get our own country tourist visas. We used another service to help us with this and when there were delays, our travel specialist seemed upset. When we reached out to them, they said that was a mistake and they were doing our visas and the hold-up was on us because we had used another agency to help us with the visas. Very frustrating communication. 

We had given them our passport and other information months before the trip. I am a US service member and was deployed and did not have access to email at that time- I usually am on top of details like my passport expiring, but this was an unusual circumstance. We then found out two weeks before our trip was set to leave that my passport expired 5.5 months after our trip and we almost were not able to take the vacation- we then had to rush to get a passport. This is why we pay a travel agent to have an eye for detail and the way in which our travel specialist responded to this issue was less than ideal. 

During the vacation, we had no scheduled lunches. Every day we had breakfast at the hotel, and dinner was planned at a hotel, but during the day we would sometimes wait a very long time before we were able to have our driver find a place for us to eat. Definitely something that should be considered for the next trip.

Overall really great experience.  The places we stayed were beautiful and perfectly aligned with our expectations.  The itinerary of the sights and activities matched what we were interested in.    The local agent and related guides were outstanding.  We have some bumps in our trip, including a hospital visit in Delhi, and our agent was super responsive and helped coordinate ad hoc transportation.  Our travel planner was great at providing input and advice around ideas for the trip and thinking about varying the transportation between cities given the drives are long and not smooth given its India. My only real disappointment was the quality of the mini-bus.  We had 5 long drives between cities so this was important.  The buses were clean and comfortable but the top speed was 43 kilometers per hour.  Watching other mini-buses speed by us when we were on highways was frustrating and I do believe added to the length of our trips--quite possibly adding an hour to our drive from Agra to Delhi for example which is all highway.  I would have paid extra for a better vehicle had I known.  I also was surprised that no one noticed that we were booked at an adults only resort in the Maldives but we had one in our family under the age of 18.  Luckily the resort honored our booking because they had our passports and should have noticed but that could have been a really challenge had they not given it was the holiday season.

The real question is....Would I use our travel planner again? Yes I definitely would.  For me trust is most important and I trust her knowledge of India, her selection of local agents, her hotel suggestions and the sightseeing activities.  I would just pay closer attention to some of the details.

Consistent with our trip to Chile (that was arranged by Zicasso), our India trip was great.  The guides, activities, food and accommodations were excellent.

One issue that we still don’t understand is that our confirmed booking at the Udaipur hotel was changed at the last minute to a different hotel.  We were moved to a suitable hotel, but part of the anticipation and a specific expectation of our trip was a stay at that hotel.  That was a bit disappointing.