ALL REVIEWS

It’s all wonderful so far. Thank you. The hotel, our suite and the conservatory restaurant are all just right for us. The staff too are excellent. Always laughing and joking with us. You and your SA agent have done a brilliant job. The overnight Virgin flight was pretty grim though. Not worth the money at all. The beds were awful and neither of us slept at all so we were shattered all day Sunday until we had a good night’s sleep. We played Steenberg yesterday with a couple of very nice English brothers - our golf not so good! We walked up to the botanical gardens today and looking forward to our special dinner tonight. It’s very hot here and snowing in Cornwall. How lucky are we.

Gordon and I had a super holiday thank you.  Everything was great.  We enjoyed all the courses we played although some took a little longer than others😂. One round was five hours! But at least it was in the sun..  hotel was good, nice food and great staff.  Our favourite course was Monte Rei so that will be back on our list sometime. All in all though a very good holiday and you and you friends recommendations of restaurants were fab.

We will be touch again for our next adventure.

What a fabulous time we had at the Gloria Serenity. The quality of the product on offer at the Serenity is incredible given the price point. The standard of service was as good as any of the supposedly top hotels  we have stayed in around the world. We are definitely ‘buyers’ and have plugged in the same week for next year.

I would also like to say as people who normally organise their own holidays, flights etc what a joy it was to have someone do it for us, even down to booking our airplane seats! So thank you, we had a great time, everything worked exactly as per the booking and you have two very happy customers who will be looking to rebook next year.

Transportation between the airport and the hotel was fine - both ways. Our hotel room was excellent as usual. They are spacious and ideal for a golfing holiday. Housekeeping was also excellent with a turn down service in the evening and everything was spotlessly clean, although they sometimes forgot to replace certain items in the room like water glasses, face flannels, snacks in the fridge but nothing drastic. The food was up to its usual very high standard although between us we had a few duff steaks in The Steakhouse restaurant. Excellent choice of food in the buffet and also at the BBQ. We enjoyed all the restaurants - lunchtime at The Italian was particularly nice. Good choice of wines, spirits and soft drinks. It also made it more enjoyable having the golf club as part of the all inclusive package. There is a new (to us) outdoor swimming pool which has been well designed. Evening entertainment in the main bar was good as was the entertainment at the amphitheater and the outdoor stage. One of the nice things was that the outside ‘noise’ finished at midnight.

The golf ‘experience’ was fine. Improvements on the new course are noticeable, especially the work done around two of the par three’s. All courses were in good condition. Chris, Mickey and Jane all work very hard to try and ensure that you do not have to worry about anything yourself.

The check-in at Gatwick and the service of Turkish Airlines going to Belek and returning to UK was superb. I simply can’t fault it. Matrix was right on cue and as far as we were concerned, did a very good job.  The quality of food & beverage was excellent with a massive variety of dishes available. You could eat yourself into a stupor!  Malliet and I are not drinkers so I can’t comment on the quality of wines etc but the Turkish beer was very good. The same applies to the rooms and service. Quite honestly, the Turks were so pleased to see visitors returning that they bent over backwards to help and be of service.

But I can’t fault the holiday and golf – it was a great experience and as usual Mickey, Chris and Jane made us feel very welcome and part of the family.

It was a very successful holiday. The hotel perfect for our needs, helped by not being full and being by the sea made it warmer and less windy than in the hills. The access to coastal walkway made sure that R could get out easily.

 

Great and memorable holiday. Telfair Hotel and golf fabulous.

Thank you for organising and will be back for more!

A great trip that we all enjoyed immensely with so many happy moments.

Hi David – all over the jet lag and the self imposed “coronavirus isolation” – all well, no signs of virus!!!

 

In terms of feedback – I will call the holiday Part 1 (golf) and Part 2 (travelling)

 

Part 1:

We had a fab time, the courses were wonderful.  Buggies and caddies seemed a bit excessive, but if that is how it has to be done so be it!
Hotels were all very special – especially the hotel in Cambodia – truly lovely.  The Hotel in Hoi An was the “least good” – it was fine, and we were told we were upgraded to Executive rooms, but frankly if they were executive rooms, I dread to think what the ordinary rooms were like – rooms were small and very cluttered.
We were very glad that we went to Hanoi for a few days before the golf otherwise we would not have been able to see Hanoi, and would have been straight into the golf the day after we landed.  It was great to have a few days as a tourist to see and experience the culture.
We did find that there was a lot of travelling on this part of the tour which we had not really expected – we think with better planning, a lot of travelling time could be saved – for instance playing Ba Na Hills course from Hoi An, when it is very close to Lang Co (where we stayed at the Laguna Hotel) – with hindsight it could have been better to play Ba Na Hills from Lang co instead.
One thing we did think was that there was no need for a guide on the days that we were playing golf.  The driver would have been more than ample.  All the guides did was accompanied us on the bus on both journeys – and added nothing really!

 

Part 2

This part of the trip was really great – we had a good time, managed to keep away from touristy areas most of the time, and the hotels were very comfortable.  Especially the hotel in Phu Yen (Son Cau) – that merits a special mention.
We enjoyed the flexibility of the two different guides – Dang who accompanied us to Ho Chi Minh City and Tin who was our guide in the Mekong.  They were both willing to be very flexible and help us to have the holiday we dreamed of.
The downside was that the holiday was during the TET celebrations – we had not understood that everything will be closed for 7 days!  If we had not been such experienced travellers and if our guides had not been flexible, it could have been very different.
The towns and cities that we visited on this part of the tour were lovely – we were not so keen on Nha Trang (too touristy) but Dang was able to get a local guide who took us up into the mountains and forests and enabled us to do some wild water swimming – fab.
We were surprised that we had to tip so much on this part of the holiday $35 (plus extra for the extra guides added in) a day was quite a lot on top of the cost of the trip.  However, the guides and drivers were very good!
Finally, just so you know, it was a good job we were able to make other arrangements for our golf clubs (friends took them home for us) as with TET we probably would not have seen them again at Ho Chi Minh City – everything was closed down – so it would have been unlikely that they left Da Nang!!

 

Hope this helps you to know more about the area and the tours.  All the feedback is meant in a constructive spirit.

 

Warmest wishes,  Helen and Viv

Hi Helen and Viv - thank you for the detailed feedback, thank God we got you home before COVID-19 spread across the world.

Dear David,
Thank you do much for your well crafted, personal and considered note.

I cannot even imagine the stress you must have under for the last few days  trying to run a business in the travel industry under these unprecedented circumstances.

Rest assured, when  not if , we can travel again, you will be top of the list I will turn to.

Thank you so much for all you have done! And, we will all have a fabulous short game! My biggest hope is that people will pull together and will be kind!


Thank you! And already looking forward to fabulous golf travel in 2021!
Rita

Thanks Rita - lets hope we are allowed to travel in April 2021