Fine location, poor organisation. This was an overnight travel holiday - but what a disaster !
Our holiday pick-up was at 02.50 on day 1 on Merseyside travelling to an interchange at Stop 24 Sevices. After a delay of almost an hour on the M6 due to a traffic accident (nothing to do with Shearings), we eventually arrinved at the interchange only to wait there for almost 2 hours for our tour bus. This arrived late and, apparently, low on fuel. Our tour drivers were not with it (apparently they were joining us in France!) Proceeding to Dover we joined a queue to get into the port. Again this was not Shearings' fault as it was a bank-holiday Saturday but, as we had to find a filling station to re-fuel the coach, we had agravated queueing time. All of this meant that we did not board the cross-channel ferry until almost 21.00 hours.
After arrival at Calais our driver was told to meet the tour drivers at Middlekirk. He did not know where that was and eventually got lost. The tour drivers told him to stay where he was and they would join us. By the time they had, arrangements had been made because of the delays so far to put us up at the airport hotel in Brussels rather than travel on through the rest of the night. We arrived thare at 03.00 day 2.
Although this break was welcomed it meant that because of drivers' rest time (where had they been waiting for us to arrive?) we couldn't leave Brussels until 12.30 and then travel on and through the night into day 3 to reach our destination. We should have been there by the afternoon of day 2 and arrived in time for breakfast 08.00 on day 3. We'd basically lost half-a-day at the resort.
The rest of the holiday went relatively smoothly although times of events and tours seemed to change quite suddenly and regularly. Including departure time on day 8 when our itinerary said we would be leaving early afternoon (allowing time in the resort in the morning) and we were advised we had to leave at 10.00 (allowing no time there at all).
The resort and hotel were excellent, but, again, why we had to change drivers again in France on our return to the UK was totally unexplained and further complicated the flow of the journey home.
A good holiday, spoiled by initial delays (not entirely Shearings' fault) and seemingly poor organisation (under-fuelled and late tour bus) and change to tour drivers on the continent.
Quality: 3
Value for money: 4
