Sona Tours Ltd — Attraction in London

Not good at all. We recently finished the long awaited and booked tour to France and the tour as well as the services that we experienced in it were seriously not up to the mark. Starting from the vehicle, it's facilities, the tour manager, the timings, the accommodation, almost anything you can think of, nothing went right on the tour. Two points I'd like to mention in detail:

First off, the bus and the accommodation: Quite old vehicle. Not suitable at all. The air conditioning kept getting shut off. There was facility available on the bus but it was blocked so noone could use it. There were no charging points in the bus as well. How can such sub-standard service be provided to customers on a 3 day tour? People are going to require facilities in the case of emergency. Kids, senior citizens, they can't voluntarily control everything for a very long time. The less said about the air conditioning, the better. It was a blatant disregard towards the welfare of passengers when it came to air conditioning. You may get to know about this or not but let me inform you that the air conditioning in the bus and in our accommodation is really below par given the temperatures here. In the bus, it was so poor at one point that it got so warm that we had to open the emergency windows at the roof of the bus. And the state of poor air conditioning just continued like that for a good 30 mins. Our kids had to take their clothing off simply because there was no other choice. There was going to be a health incident too involving one of the passengers. Coming back to the accommodation, the message inside every room was that the thermostats can only increase the warmth, can't increase the coolness. Such was the level of callous support and unpreparedness from their end.

Coming to the second point, our tour manager announced in the bus on the first day itself that next day, we would be dropped at Disneyland and will be picked up at 9:30 in the night. On pressing more about why we are going to be picked up so late, he brashly answered that it's company's decision and asked to speak with the admin. It still remains a mystery to me as to what senseless fool within the company approved such brainless timings and did anyone there, for even a fraction of a second, care about the welfare of the passengers. Absolutely no point making everyone wait for almost 3-4 hrs for there for nothing, no matter what the climate conditions be and more so, when the climate and temperatures were so high. Of course everyone was gonna be tired after 5 or 6 in the evening. All the passengers were just made to wander around in the park making them look like cattle class citizens for a good 3-4 hours.

I am very very disappointed by the services that were extended. It really felt like they just wanted to finish the tour just for the sake of finishing it. Makes me wonder that it was good that my original tour to Italy, that I had booked with them got cancelled. What would have happened if that had gone ahead? We would've been made to move from one sub-standard hotel to another one and roamed around in a sub-standard transport vehicle for 7 days with absolute disregard to weather conditions, facilities and welfare. I would, in no certain terms strongly recommend against taking their services. Entire point taking their services was to have a homely environment within the bus wit fellow passengers from Indian origin. But the supposed third world services extended would just go on to show that we should not just blindly trust a merchant to provide goods or services because they've got a connection to your roots. I had written to them about the same a few days later but there's been no response on the same. This kind of shallow behaviour takes the reputation of all the other honest merchants with our native connections plying...

Probably the worst experience of our lives!

We are on a short Europe tour with Sona Tours with our ‘tour guide’ for our trip to Brussels and Holland.. 3 nights

All he has done for the two days is bark orders at us, tell us we have to sweep the coach, and Leacture us like naughty kids!

We have had two stand up screaming arguments on the bus due to his manner in talking at people and ordering us about!

He also ‘hard sold’ us a tour for a minature village on day in Brussels (which was optional extra) saying there is nothing to do around there other then sit in the bus, even though we said we would walk to the town. When we got there it was close to a town and parks we could have easily walked to! When confronted he said how can you not like it it’s so pretty!

He next day took us to another almost identical minature village in Netherlands.. why wouldnt he have mentioned this was similar when ‘selling’ us the option for Day one?

We have no structure on the tour, he sets timings to go visit attractions with so little time to see things and refresh our selves that it’s laughable, then lectures people on being late threatening in a aggressive manner they will be left behind .. the lectures carry on for 10-15 mins usually.. understandable lots to cover in a short time and t&c of the tour.. but there is a manner you heart and speak to paying customers.. this man has no clue!

This guy has no training at all it seems, he certainly doesn’t understand how to tear customers, making a old lady cray at dinner last night! He reads facts of a fact sgeee with no additional info or explaining or what we are seeing how long it will take between destinations.. fun facts etc all the normal stuff you expect from a experienced guide!

This is a Utter rubbish tour! If there was any way we could get off and swap our guide we would jump at it!

I expect a formal apology to the whole bus from the head off and a refund for the utter garbage we have had to put up with from this so called guide!

We spent a lot of money and had faith in the customer service and quality of Sona!

My advise is DO NOT book with Sona! Go with Star or others! You may get treated like a paying customer...

Had a disaster travelling with them on a coach trip to Scotland. Started with a shock and the surprise after seeing a mini bus at a place of a coach, which has been accommodated with a discomfort for travelling 1500 miles in 4 days (because I understand trips can be under-booked). Another surprise came when they have not arranged a tour guide, which destroyed the sole purpose of coach trips for getting well informed (i think that has been done to save some money rather the reputation of organisation). The third Surprise came when realised all the accommodation has been booked outside cities (that's too almost an hour away from cities, by which your night plans can be screwed and I think that was one of the selling point for them on Star Tour which is same). I realised they could have managed it well with some small management, which they lacked pretty big time. The only take away was the additional excursion of 'Cairngorm Mountain train ride up the mountain', I realised there also they mismanaged everything and charged us extra (I would have saved 15 GBP if I would have booked directly with less hassle, as we realised they were having them booked online which took some time to reflect in the system of Cairngorm mountain train reservation desk (and we were waiting in the queue for tickets). If the driver would not have followed up a lot with Sona Tours, they would surely have wasted our additional hour). We also realised they screwed up on Distillery visit too at the place of day two when it was planned in the booked Itinerary, we did that on day third which was the most critical day for us where we have to cover Edinburgh. I realised we did visit that Distillery because of one of our traveller did not agree to skip the Distillery which Sona Tour realised they have missed booking on Day-2 and they have to book it forcibly on day-3. I wish we would not have had this expereince, otherwise, Scotland is a wonderful place. I still bring alot of memories back and thanks for all my co-travellers who are my friends now. I know everyone need improvement and i wish Sona tours does there bit for the same. I wish them all the best but not my cup of tea...