I booked two days with Usmani Taj Tours, a one day tour of Agra as well as a trip the next day from Agra to New Delhi, plus sightseeing in New Delhi. If I were to do it again, I would certainly find a different company to book with.
I settled on a 2 star rating because while we did get where we needed to go, we felt our experience was quite stressful and there were many parts of the service we did not like.
Summary, with in-depth explanation below:
Pros:
- on time for pickup
- quick response via email (although the communications themselves were a bit frustrating)
- Driver to Delhi was chill and provided great service
Cons:
- Tricked into trips to selected stores for sales pitches, billed as “Craft and Mugal Bazaar”
- Bought a necklace from a store, the chain broke the next day (it was not silver, as the merchant had persuaded me)
- Agra guide, although friendly, was hard to understand and very “hands-on” with my husband and myself
- Our driver to Delhi did not know the city well enough to find any place for lunch at all (we found one on our phone and directed him)
- No guide to Delhi, even though we paid extra for “sightseeing”
- Possibly worst of all: incessant harassment about leaving a 5-star tripadvisor review! Seriously, we were reminded during our tour at least 10-12 times and each day after by text and even an in-person visit.
Things were ok to start with at the beginning of day 1. We were met by our driver/owner of the company, Riyaj, and a guide Lala for Agra promptly at 9 at our hotel. We saw Agra Fort and Khas Mahal, but the guide was a bit difficult to understand, possibly for lack of teeth, possibly for accent reasons. It was hard to get questions answered because he had trouble understanding the questions (would ask one question, get an answer to something unrelated). He kept insisting on using my camera to take pictures of both me and my husband on site (which I appreciated) as well as taking pictures of the site itself (which I did not appreciate). Along the way, our guide Lala felt the need to constantly touch our shoulders and arms during the tour. Neither of us liked this at all, but didn’t know how to tell him.
During my emails back and forth setting the itinerary, the operators added “Mugal town” which was not on my list. I inquired about what this was, because I could not find information about it on google and was told “Mugal town is craft and mugal bazar.” Imagining it was an actual bazaar, I thought this would be fine, and we could explore, take pictures, and leave when we desired but I found out that it was actually a series of stops to shops, not a bazaar in any way. I assume they get kickbacks for any purchases we make.
For lunch (not included in trip price), we were taken to a restaurant which was actually quite good.
Although I’d made it clear we wanted to go back to our hotel after lunch in the email, Riyaj convinced us to go to his home instead. On the plus side, it was a chance to see his actual home, meet his family, and for his daughter to give me a henna (the henna is beautiful, btw!). BUT, during our visit, he hounded us to write a tripadvisor review, asking us to download the app on our phones right now, and when we declined, he placed a computer in front of us, and then asked for TWO reviews, one from me, one from my husband. He also had found out my husband is a web developer and spent much of the time at their home asking him to help them with their site SEO. He showed us the store in their house and let us know that if we wanted to buy any clothes, they were “so cheap.”
Finally we head back out for more shopping, skipping our trip to the hotel, as we had wasted lots of time listening to sales pitches earlier, and to see Edmad Ud Daulah (the Baby Taj). After our quick visit to Edmad Ud Daulah, we were convinced to skip the sunset viewing of the Taj Mahal from the gardens because the river is dried up during this season, and doesn’t make for as good a picture. Being exhausted from the day’s sales pitches and feeling like we had to “love their service” (the driver and guide were constantly asking us whether their service was good), we agreed to be taken back to the hotel early.
Before turning in to the hotel we asked to be taken to a fruit stand 1 block away, and they insisted we go there later, saying we could walk from the hotel.
During the whole car ride back to the hotel and upon exiting the car we were reminded AGAIN, multiple times, to write a 5-star TripAdvisor review as soon as we were back in our room. Later that evening I got two texts telling me to write this review.
Day 2, we were greeted 20 minutes earlier than our scheduled pick-up time by our driver to Delhi as well as Rahij, the owner, who apparently drove himself (in a separate car) just to tell us to write a TripAdvisor review before we left the hotel. After delivering his message, he left. We finished packing and left with our driver (different guy than day 1), and NO guide. We thought we might be meeting a local guide in Delhi, so didn’t think much of it, but this wasn’t the case at all. We even paid an additional cost for Delhi sightseeing, despite omitting the Mathura sightseeing on the way to Delhi (so it wasn’t that we were paying for additional time with the driver). Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed there was no guide.
When I saw we were in Delhi, I asked the driver to stop for lunch somewhere. Turns out he didn’t know Delhi at all and we drove around for 45 minutes looking for a place to eat. We finally found one by chance at Lodhi Garden and, since we were there, took a nice walk through the park which turned out to be our favorite part of the day. We then went to Humayun’s tomb before heading to the airport. Out driver patiently waited for us to take our time at each stop. Even with his lack of knowledge about Delhi, he was the redeeming factor for our experience!
This morning I woke up to yet ANOTHER text prompting me to write a 5-star review.
