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Cambodia: Siem Reap and Angkor Wat
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Monday, August 07, 2006

Vendor Reviews - Zenith Travel Ecuador

I'm the kind of shopper who likes hearing about people's experiences word of mouth. It builds my confidence in the service or product I'm about to purchase. Before the trip, I wasn't able to find many unbiased reviews (i.e. not affiliated with zenith) on Zenith Travel so I'm going to do my part for the travel community by posting one.

We liked Zenith because they have a good online presence and their website had information in English. More importantly, they offered the cheapest rates for the Galapagos Cruises.

We used Zenith to book our Galapagos Cruise, plane tickets, hotel in Quito, and hotel in Isabela. Initially we were concerned with the company since their responsiveness to e-mail was intermittent and not knowing Spanish made it difficult to communicate over the phone. Full payment (via paypal, an additional fee is added for credit cards) was also required before the trip. We felt uneasy about this, however, thankfully for us, we had a friend in Quito who made a trip down to the agency and verified that they did in fact exist to put our minds at ease.

Eventually we also found that one of the travel advisors, Maria Antonieta speaks great English. P was also able to catch her on MSN messenger once. She was extremely helpful and helped us make all our arrangements.

We didn't receive much paperwork before the trip which was disconerting. However, we did get a cute travel pouch and a folder with all our required documents when we arrived in Quito. This was given to us by our driver who picked us up from the airport. Zenith Travel also provides a 2 complimentary transfers from the airport to your hotel (and the return) if you book through them. They have a pretty nice van!

Zenith Travel

Maria did a great job arranging everything for us. Almost everything went without a hitch. Our Galapagos flights were confirmed for us and we did not have to worry about a thing. The only hitch was that the van which was to bring us to the airport broke down and did not show up the morning of our flight. Luckily it wasn't a big deal since the hotel was able to call us a cab pretty quicky.

Marco (I think he is the owner) was really apologetic about this and even showed up at our hotel to talk to us when we returned. He arranged for us to have a free meal at Adam's Ribs. We totally did not expect this. It was really thoughtful of him!

To end off, I would definitely recommend Zenith to my friends and will most certainly use them again. They organize trips to Peru as well and that's next on my list!

One more thing, it is better to book your hotel rooms through the travel agency since you'll get a better rate. We had to extend our stay an additional night at the hotel and they charged us a higher rate since it was not booked through the agency?!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

or if, zenith travel is a great company, great people, takes care of and offers the best thing of the tourism in equator

Anonymous said...

AVOID ZENITH AT ALL COSTS. THEY ARE CHEATS AND LIARS. YOU WILL GET SOMETHING BUT NOT WHAT YOU BOOKED OR PAID FOR. A HUGE MISTAKE AND COULD HAVE RUINED THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME.

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AVOID ZENITH AT ALL COSTS. THEY ARE CHEATS AND LIARS. YOU WILL GET SOMETHING BUT NOT WHAT YOU BOOKED OR PAID FOR. A HUGE MISTAKE AND COULD HAVE RUINED THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME.

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AVOID ZENITH AT ALL COSTS. THEY ARE CHEATS AND LIARS. YOU WILL GET SOMETHING BUT NOT WHAT YOU BOOKED OR PAID FOR. A HUGE MISTAKE AND COULD HAVE RUINED THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME.

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Siem Reap Taxi Driver said...

Cambodia is one of the best destination to visit. You should visit it once in your life. Angkor Wat in Siem Reap is the most famous monument in the world.