Hi Jason,
We are are having a fantastic tour ! This country has such an interesting history,
Our guides are excellent , of course!
In Moscow Ilya introduced us to the country.
Our tour to Suzdal showed us the countryside.
But, here in St Petersburg we have enjoyed the interesting days with Anna.She has tailored the tour to us. We have eaten Russian food in good restaurants and in fast foods. Great fun! She knows how to get through palaces the best ways!
Plus, our driver Arton is exceptional! He drops us off at the closest point and he picks us up right away.last night he sat for three hours in the car in the rain waiting to bring us back for a ten minute trip to the hotel!
B y the way. Our seats for the ballet were unbelievable. I had not been to a ballet so it was a wonderful experience.
You didn’t have to worry. We are in excellent hands.
Enjoy your holiday!
Sincerely,
Di Semple
Di Semple, Canada
Dear Michael
We are back home - today a week already! My apologies that I am writing to you now only.
First of all: Thank you VERY much for the well organised tour you had prepared for us! The entire group had a wonderful time, and I am still getting messages of thanks and praise about the tour. We all enjoyed the tour thoroughly.
I am already planning our next tour for 2019. I think it should be at the end of July like this year.
I also have the following ideas: to present a second tour with music and ballet performances - and to include the Valaar monastary in this one. Tanya told me that it is possible to do it with hydro-something boat! in one day, and that that could cut considerable cost. What do you think? Perhaps we could then cut some of the otherr visits as well, to keep the lenth of the tour almost the same as the past one.
My next idea is to have a Christmas Tour to Russia. To include Moscow, Boshoi Ballet and a few extraordinary visits in Moscow, and to go by train to St Petersburg (4-5 hours?). There an orchestral performance, Catharine Palace and the Hermitage, etc. What about a sleigh ride on the snow at Pavlovska? What else would you suggest. This tour could be a little shorter...I thought we could include a luxurious dinner in a larger beautiful place at or near Christmas perhaps with a chamber ensemble?
Michael, thank you again for our wonderful tour!
Kind regards
Stefano
Stefano, South Africa
Hi Tari Team,
My name is Rona Karimzada, and I work in the Customer Care department at Kensington Tours.
One of our clients, Hyang Lee on trip Lee4T-430809 left some amazing feedback about their trip to Russia. The family was so impressed and very pleased with your team and wanted me to pass along this message to you. Thank you so very much for taking such good care of our clients!
In addition, Mrs. Lee wants to personally thank her guide in St. Petersburg, Victoria. She was asking about Victoria’s contact details as she wants to send her something as a token of appreciation. Could you kindly forward me her email address that I can pass along to the Lee family?
Thank you so much!
Rona Karimzada, USA
Hello Collette,
We are soon saying goodnight to our last day in Russia. We will be picked up (hopefully) at 5 AM tomorrow morning for our 8:20 AM Lufthansa flight to Munich continuing on to Chicago.
Thank you for the wonderful job you did in managing our travels and tours. Our guides, Elena in St. Petersburg and Svetlana in Moscow, were truly outstanding. They were extremely knowledgeable, spoke English perfectly, and were delightful to be with.
I would also compliment Kensington on the vast majority of their organizing. There were a few things that bothered me and believe they deserve to be shared with them:
We had an excelllent car (Toyota Camray) and Driver (Michael) during our stay in St Petersburg. The car was clean and bottles of water were readily available to us.
Also, though not a huge problem: our seats on the train from St. Petersburg were, in my opinion, anything but first class even though our car #2 was called “first class.” In fact car #1 had the type of seating that was, in fact, first class. I don’t know what we paid for car #2 but would certainly have preferred the seating in car #1 however, we never were presented this as an option. It was a less than comfortable 4 hour train ride..... and with no guidance as to how to use the wi-fi. It seems to me that the train booking and instructions in English would have been an opportunity for them to demonstrate a
High-touch level of service that would have distinguished them from those miss the details and dropped the ball.
I must say that we found each of our hotels comfortable and worthy of they five-star ratings. Indon’t Think we could have been any more satisfied were we to have stayed at the Four Seasons or the Ritz.
Each of the locations was perfectly situated. Even so, we did a ton of walking
Howard (and Imy), USA
This was the trip of a lifetime and everything was perfect! Thanks to your impeccable planning and the expert guides/drivers. In St. Petersburg we made a friend for life with our guide, Arina. She really got to know us and what we liked and spent time each evening to prepare little surprises for the next day tours. Things like outdoor parks were we could walk, talk and take in the great weather and she even took us to the world renowned Vaganova School for Ballet where the Mariinsky Ballet trains their students. The evening of our performance my favorite ballet dancer of all time actually performed.
The accommodations were first class and the breakfasts were a feast, more than we could eat in a lifetime.
Needless to say we did not want to come home and would go back for the same trip again. We thought Ireland would be the next on our list but St Petersburg took our hearts.
Thank you for all the time and planning you did for us. We were able to see palaces and museums in St. Petersburg that a lot of my Russian friends have not been able to get to. Especially the Gold and Diamond Rooms at the Hermitage.
Ever grateful,
Paula
Paula, USA