I wouldn’t recommend at all this company for the Rinjani tour. Lack of responsibility for our safety, lack of professionalism. I didn’t get the service I paid for. In particular, the main guide (Madil) did a very bad management of time and changed our itinerary. However, the second guidé was amazing (Lalu). Here’s the details of what happened.
the main guide changed our tour, which meant going down from Rinjani with a different path that the one mentioned from the beginning in the itinerary and the briefing. We ended up camping next to the lake, so we missed the sunset which was one of the highlights of the tour.
he said we needed to help them carrying the water from the lake to the second summit. To be honest, it was a way to convince us to change plans and camp at the lake. The porters do an amazing job, carrying everything. However, the price included the porters and at any moment carrying water was specified in the itinerary or during the briefing. Making this up was very unprofessional.
guides were never on time. they told us we would start hiking to the first summit at 2am for sunrise. We started 2:30am, we were all ready before 2am and the guides were not even up at 2am and breakfast was not ready. I had to push the guides and hurry them because we were loosing time. This is not my role as a client. they should organized properly everything, including time, so everything goes according to the plan. They didn’t even have water for all us before going up the summit, they should have preparer that the day before. The result, I missed seeing sunrise up the summit. With 30 minutes more I would have made it to the very top and it was also one of the highlights of the tour. after the hike I also had to ask the main guide what time we were going to the hot springs and I also had to tell the group to get ready. Again it’s not at all my role, guides should do it. We arrived so late to the lake that we didn’t have enough time to camp at the second summit and we missed the sunset, as is as before, because the main guide did a bad management of time.
most of the time, me or other people of the group, walk alone, specially if we were slower. We had two guides, one of them should stay with the people that was behind the group to help and make sure we were ok. That’s the job of a guide, which is also included on the price and I felt many times like I didn’t have a guide. I fell off a lot of times and none was there to help. They didn’t even have first aid kit, which is a basic thing they should have. I cannot believe they didn’t !! Basically, the second guidé was always taking care of the group but the main guide, which is the leader, didn’t seem to care about our safety and just left us alone and walk by his one. However, I still thank Lalu and the porters for their amazing job and making our tour...
Read moreWe booked a 3-day tour with this organization for our trek to Rinjani. We made the booking several weeks in advance, keeping in mind the planned 10-day closure. Once we arrived, however, we heard that other travelers who had booked the 2-day trek would not be able to reach the summit of Rinjani due to overbookings. What was even more disappointing is that the company had let all of these people pay in full before communicating this issue.
Before making our payment, we specifically asked the organizers to guarantee that we would be able to reach the summit of Rinjani. They assured us that we would. However, after a full day of intense hiking, we were told during the evening briefing that there were problems with the required documents. As a result, we would have to turn back the next day instead of continuing to the summit. We were left speechless. It is the organizer’s responsibility to ensure that all necessary permits and documents are in order before starting such a trek.
What followed was a long discussion about our refund. We had paid 3,000,000, but they were only willing to refund 600,000. We requested the full amount back and ultimately decided to calculate the actual costs ourselves for the guide, porters, and meals.
The one star is solely for the amazing people I met along the way, our guide and the porters, who were truly fantastic. Unfortunately, the organization itself is far from...
Read morePros: Food was healthy and not bad tasting We got up the summit
Cons: Very small portion sizes when it comes to food. Not enough snacks for everyone and meals were so minimal that we were all left hungry. Not organized when it comes to fast and slow walkers: the guide was not clear about where we can stop. He told us we must wait at every rest stop for no reason. Bad planning: had to wait an hour and a half to eat lunch when we could have just went to the hot spring. The idea to go to the hot spring while waiting wasn't even given, it just wasted our time and we missed sunset at the second campsite as a result. Bad communication: the tour guide Endiy doesn't speak good English or doesn't really try to listen to concerns, like getting a bamboo stick. It also felt like he was trying to get us not to do 3 days like we paid for. No first aid!!! We told our debriefing guide to rent headlamp and walking stick but apparently it never came Food not on time, took way too long to prepare. We just decided to skip lunch on our last day because we were almost back Guide was basically useless. We basically went up to the summit entirely on our own. There was no need for a guide since the path is so well marked and there's so many people going, except to translate needs to...
Read more