Jetwing Travels Reviews 7

3 day day booked several months ago at Jetwing Ulyana via Bookong.com. Email received 5 days before trip today they had ‘inventory review’ and couldn’t accommodate the confirmed booking . Confirmed clearly means
Nothing to this group

Once I’d paid my deposit interest and communication fell off a cliff

Received a response to my emails after about a week

From the moment we were picked up in the pouring rain, till our drop off 9 days later in the thunderous downpour (the in between days were fine), our guide & tour leader Nauwfer, delivered over & above everyday.

From Colombo to Dambulla, Kandy & Galle, we traversed the rich communities in the countryside, bustling cities & with “off grid” wonderful experiences like cooking Sri Lankan curries, buying vegetables roadside, arriving by bullock, classes in mud & dung homes, wood fire stoves. Then gliding across lily pond lakes at dawn & a local picnic basket brimming with treats (pancakes), hot tea alongside jaw dropping sights of bird life.

Beaches we spotted where turtles lined up meekly for ogle eyed tourists. Such is the friendliness of Sri Lankans with their wide smiles & welcoming gestures despite recent turmoils & desire for unity and the ability to thrive as a country.

Our wonderful special driver & guide Nauwfer never ever stopped displaying his pride & passion for his country & for we, as guests, to find joy every day, just like the locals do. A special mention must be made about Nawfer’s depth of knowledge & skill about bird life, and nature was extraordinary. Thank you for representing your country & company in such high esteem Nauwfer.

Hubby and I booked a tour with Luxury Escapes in Australia. LE linked up with Jetwing travels. It was our first time to Sri Lanka.

We arrived close to midnight on our flight from Cbr-Bris-Singapore-Sri Lanka. We were very tired and expected to have someone at the airport waiting for us.
Noone turned up. Tired and hungry and waiting past midnight, I walked around the airport and asked the other agents waiting for their guests about it. Suddenly, 1 guy knew someone from Jetwing and called him. He came over and asked us for vouchers which were not passed to us at all. Imagine us, in a foreign country, unable to call anyone on our mobiles and stuck at the airport. We got our sim cards there and then after 1 and a half hours passed, around 130am, a man comes and picks us up. He tells us the car that was supposed to pick us up had broken down. We arrived at the hotel at 2 plus in the morning.

Everything on tour was perfect until the end of the tour when the guide Nalinda Bandara asked the whole group for more cash as tips. You see, we gave some but he said it was not enough and demanded more at the last hotel which was not a Jetwing hotel.

We were shocked and very upset as we needed him for our transport back to the airport. Our group finally gave in to his demands but it was short of his expectations. He was very rude to us on our whatsapp messages and even called me a dissident for not giving him what he wanted. I was upset and quite emotional with him at the hotel as we were about to check in and here he was haggling with us re the tip amount in cash when we did not have that much Sri Lankan rupees to give them

However, he was very rude to say that he has never
encountered such a group writing "I hope you will never exibit this types of disappointing behavioral patterns in the future in any circumstances. You all met me as my guests and departed as my friends. But some one departed as dissidents."

Our response was:
It was an anxiety filled Galle hotel foyer trying to piece together all parties available cash to pay your teams approximate $1650 aud amount. This was not a nice conclusion to our holiday, this left us all quite upset and dismayed. The trip we all booked was meant to be an all expense paid, trust me we all paid a small fortune. We will be talking with our supplier upon our return as we were ill prepared coming from Australia where tipping is for services that are over and above expectations which we did pay at restaurants, jeeps,hotel staff etc, as individuals, we also supported local businesses with our purchasing"

My hubby was running all over the place looking for an ATM to get the cash he wanted. Foreign land and unaware of where the ATM's were was so stressful for my hubby who has a heart condition.

I wrote to Jetwing straight away who replied that tips were a privellege and not a right. I called LE to complain as well. They gave us a $200 voucher for our next trip. I doubt I will use it.

I just need to know what Jetwing has done on their part for having such a rude tour guide who demanded payment. Make no mistake, we did give some but it was not enough for Nalinda and his team.
We did give on our own to the hotel employees etc.

This left us with a sour taste. Hope Jetwing picks up their game and trains their guides better.

This was an adventure of a lifetime in Sri Lanka for myself and ten fellow travelers. Although the program was designed by our tour Director, the execution fell on Donald, and his team of two. The hiccups were few and far in between, the praises were on the tip of our lips and well deserved. I am particularly grateful for Donald’s infinite patience, his encyclopedic knowledge of Sri Lanka history, culture and the deep meaning of religion. Thank you too Donald for making your 1,000th climb on the Sigiriya Lion Rock Fortress to keep me company. A successful tour depends so much on the smooth organization and problem solving on the ground: Donald was clearly a winner in this regard. I will spread the word among friends and on the World Wide Web. With all my appreciation.

Me and my wife used Jetwing Travels to book a holiday package for our Honeymoon to Sri Lanka. The trip started from 22nd Dec 22 to 2nd Jan 23. We visited Negombo, Dambulla, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Bentota and finished in Columbo.

We requested our emergency contact person Sameera that since this is our honeymoon we really want it to be made special.

They started off well but then issues happened in Nuwara Eliya. We were put up at Galway Heights and given a room where there was no privacy. To Jetwings credit they did sort this out and moved me and my wife to another hotel but knowing we are a honeymoon couple and that we booked the package well in advance before leaving for Sri Lanka, this incident should have been avoided. We were tired from travelling from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya and we had to wait a good couple of hours for this to be sorted out.

When we reached Bentota we stayed at Cinnamon Bey, Beruwala. We checked in and we were supposed to be given a room that was fit for a honeymoon couple, with bed decorations and a complimentary food basket/cake. Instead we were given a room where again there was no privacy, stained bed sheets and a stained bed frame with stains on the wall tiles. I rang Sameera and spoke to his boss. I then spoke to the Duty manager at Cinnamon Bey. We were tired from the 4 hour drive from Nuwara Eliya to Bentota and now we had to wait for this to be resolved.

I requested Sameera that in Columbo there should be no issues. He upgraded us to a better room at the MovenPick Hotel but again there was no bed decoration as promised and I had to chase him up and speak to the Duty manager. Now since Columbo was our last day, me and my wife wanted to explore the nightlife. I asked Sameera to speak to our driver to make it clear that we want a bit of a late night. Our driver was based in Columbo so we let him leave his shift at 3pm so that he could go back and see his family and we asked him to come back to us for about 9pm. Now around 10.30pm our driver wanted to head home. I tried calling Sameera and messaged him to ask if he had not spoken to our driver like we requested. Now we weren't planning on staying out too late as we had our flight the next morning. However there was no reply from Sameera. He is our emergency contact person there. He didn't message me back or take my calls. So we had to take a tuk tuk to travel around which wasn't a good feeling since we had paid for the private car. Now imagine there was an actual medical emergency, no one from Jetwing Travels would have been available.

Since returning to Mumbai, no one from Jetwing Travels has been in touch to ask us about our experience.

My advice is not to bother with this company. I won't be using them again. Especially since we have been ignored. Anyone looking to travel to Sri Lanka either plan it yourself or use another company.

I've just returned from a fabulous tour of Sri Lanka. We were met at the airport by our guide/driver/translator and for the next six days Nilan took care of everything. Nilan, was always happy, friendly and informative. He was a safe and considerate driver: he navigated the busy roads avoiding all the goats, dogs, people, Tuk Tuk's, and even elephants that we came across! Every hotel on the tour was of a very good standard, food was always great with plenty of choice, the pools refreshing and very welcome and all staff polite, friendly and helpful. Check-in was always taken care of for us making moving around seamless. Nilan was happy to vary the tour from the plan to accommodate our levels of tiredness and desire to suddenly see something else! Nothing was too much trouble making this special trip for us, even more special.
If Nilan is an example of the quality of care that Jetwing guides offer all their customers on all their tours I would not hesitate to recommend them and to book with them again.