BASICS:
- I picked this tour over a few others because almost all entrance fees are included so you don't have to carry a bunch of cash on you or deal with the hassle of buying tickets and you can often skip the lines.
- Different cities/sites get their own tour guides. Agra had one, Jaipur and Delhi was another guide for us, but I was told this can vary depending on availability.
- We had the same car/driver for our entire trip.
- You can tell the guide what you'd like to see within reason and what you'd like to skip
- The itinerary was visible in the app, but I had been using a browser before the tour and hadn't seen it until partway through the tour. I thought they had just provided an itinerary. I did have to ask for which specific hotels we were booked for.
PROS:
As someone mentioned below, the tour is very good value for what you get. Personal transportation for your party, personal guide for efficient time use and to take care of potentially uncomfortable situations, accommodation, and western hotel breakfast/dinner.
The guides were good with cellphone camera settings, took good photos and could answer the majority of questions asked regarding history, culture, art, architecture from what we saw. Apparently there is an official tour guide exam in India where they have to learn these things before getting licensed.
The guide will call ahead to the driver to let them know when you are done with an area to pick you up, which was great for time efficiency - a great perk over self-exploration and hailing your own rides. The car also carries your luggage between hotels while you're out which is another time saver.
They have a dispatch system to help the trip go more smoothly. When I asked my Jaipur guide to see/shop local, he called dispatch and was able to find a few suggestions. It was very nice to have a team of sorts keeping the trip smooth. It's not always perfect, but it helps.
We only ate food from the hotels we stayed at and I was fine. My husband might not have been used to all of the spices over a longer period of time, but he felt better after sticking to the western selections at these same hotels. Bottled water is provided at these hotels and in the car.
CONS:
There was some pressure starting as early as day 1 to leave a review. As the same other reviewer mentioned, we too were taken to the tour guide office in Agra and given post cards and asked to place a review then and there. The other guide also asked, but just verbally without the out-of-the-way trip. I would suggest asking to skip this part if it happens. I get that it's a competitive market and some people forget to place reviews, but that's a little excessive and uncomfortable.
As part of the tour, they take you to some shops where they do a small demonstration of how some crafts are made. These are understandably tourist traps, and a good tour guide will let you know ahead of time that they are taking you to one for transparency, one of ours did while the other did not, and a whole big thing happened when I found that similar items were online for considerably less (talking 50% less it was a pretty large purchase). To their credit, the tour group went out of their way to help resolve this via email even after the trip and made sure I was happy with the result. The guide does get a kickback.
Some smaller hiccups that weren't that big of a deal - e.g. taken to a wrong hotel, some guides were clearly much less jaded than others.
TIPS:
Being in India for the first time there was a lot I had to learn. Some merchants will give you a "tourist" starting price, so that even if you haggle down to 50%, it's still considerably more than what locals pay. I don't super mind paying more in general, but an Indian friend told me pashmina scarves of the quality I showed him are usually $5 and not the $20 (haggled down from $40) that I paid and I half couldn't believe him until I came across fixed price stalls at Red Fort - Chhatta Chowk and he was completely right. I had already bought quite a few as gifts, and ended up buying quite a few more since they had even nicer ones in the back for still less than $20. I suggest finding a "fixed price" local place to shop, or at the very least, check online to verify prices so you don't get too much buyer's remorse.
CONCLUSION:
Our Jaipur/Delhi guide Brajesh was absolutely amazing - he went above and beyond to make sure we were having a good trip and took us to see what we wanted to see and skipped what we didn't. He took us shopping locally when we were palaced out and handled otherwise awkward situations for us with ease. For the quality of service, transportation, customer service, even factoring in the Cons, I do recommend this tour for its great value . And ask for Brajesh - he was very professional and a lot of fun.
Everyone else has the main attractions uploaded, so I've uploaded an idea of some sample hotel foods and misc scenes.
