Group travel
- Bernd
- Jun 21, 2024
- 8 min read
7 points you should know
Group travel is a tricky thing. As always, it has advantages and disadvantages. If you believe the tour operators' bold promises, you will immerse yourself in foreign worlds and cultures and make contact with people in the respective countries. The decisive criteria - regardless of the price - are:
the organizer,
the tour guide,
the program,
the transport company,
the accommodation and meals,
the composition of the group,
your resilience.
Let me say this up front: This article is not about travel bashing, I leave that to the yellow press.
However, I would like to critically question certain practices.
I have planned five weeks for Mexico. A privilege. I will be travelling on my own for most of the time. Experience has shown that transport takes up the most energy and is a drain on the budget. The advantage: I can stay wherever I like for as long as I like. I have reserved seven days for a round trip with Meiers Weltreisen from Mérida, a company I have travelled with several times before.
A quick tour
I'm flying from Mexico City to Merida. At the airport I look in vain for the sign for the tour operator Meiers or Dertour. It's a pain if you don't speak the language. A man speaks to me. It turns out that he works for a subcontractor and is supposed to take me to the hotel. I check in there. The rest of the day is free.
The next day there is a group meeting: 32 people from Germany, Austria and Luxembourg. What did I write about Mexico and Morelia? Great food. Cheap but good. Tasty, filling. The breakfast here tastes of nothing: scrambled eggs, a few pieces of pressed meat, some fruit. The coffee is watery and therefore undrinkable for a passionate coffee drinker like me. Better not to have any coffee then.
Some guests criticize the worn rooms in the Grand Real Yucatan Merida. Mold in the bathroom. It can happen sometimes. At least my shower worked, although the cold water is hot and the hot water is cold. Left-right weakness, I guess. The following hotels are not much better. But we don't know that at this point.
The giant bus takes us through the narrow streets of Merida. The bus driver is a real expert. He masters all bottlenecks with his monster bus. The group is still relatively fresh and receptive: Extensive city tour of Merida: On the left you see houses, on the right you see expensive houses. North-south axis, shopping mall. Then the trip to Celestun, visit to the lagoon by speedboat and real pink flamingos.
"Grandpa, hold on to your hat!" The group is in a good mood with such a fresh wind and the speed at which we are gliding over the water.
The next day we head from Merida to Yaxcopoil for a photo stop (visit to a hacienda), then to Uxmal for more photos to a Mayan site, then to Campeche for a night at the Ocean View Hotel. Guests complain about broken toilet flushes, low water pressure, mold in the bathroom, and a massive smell from garbage outside the window. They are given another room. Campeche has a picturesque old town. Unfortunately we are only here for one night, too little to settle in. Breakfast as before, long, grumpy faces.
Stone-old
The ruins of Uxmal tell of what remains.
On to Palenque. Here we stay two nights in the Hotel Mission Palenque. At least. Breakfast: how surprising, long faces again. The land of chili has no spices. The evening before I had left the hotel on my own, took a deep breath and mingled with the crowd. I finally needed a strong coffee, so I ordered a double espresso con leche in an espresso bar. Much too dangerous in the evening, a member of the group told me at breakfast the next day. I can't confirm that.
Visit to the sunken Mayan site in the jungle, part of it walks through the forest (tour guide calls it jungle) because there are not enough shared taxis available, but that's OK, we sit too much anyway.
Continue to the mountains of Chiapas, visit the Agua Azul waterfalls with the opportunity to swim.
Even more stones
On the way to Chetumal we visit the Mayan sites of Chicanná and Becan. The group shows the first signs of fatigue when looking at the many stones; a few people seem mentally exhausted by the Mayan names, which are complicated for us, and the strange characters eroded by wind and weather, and switch to standby mode.
So shitty
That day we travel 485 km by bus. In the evening we reach the state capital Chetumal, apathetic and weakened from sitting so much, and spend a night in the Fiesta Inn hotel. Nice hotel. But breakfast as usual. As bland as it is a shame. We share the loveless buffet with another tour group and queue at the back. I remember that from the GDR times. Our group becomes increasingly aggressive, protests briefly, but finally accepts it with resignation. Silent. The tour guide says there is nothing he can do.
You wouldn't believe how important toilets are on a tour. We've barely left the hotel when the first fellow travelers use the bus toilet. Somehow the hotel food seems to be a huge success with these people. So far I've managed to completely avoid the charm of the bus toilet. I was too happy too soon. Then, in the last few kilometers before the end of the tour, it hits me too. My stomach rumbles, pinches and aches.
Gurgling intestinal noises do not bode well. Time is suddenly running out. Stomach pains herald diarrhea. Now it's getting tight because the toilet is occupied.
Now the good news: In this explosive situation with no alternative, you lose all inhibitions. Fear, disgust and health concerns. The toilet is just becoming free. I don't hesitate and rush in. I am pleasantly surprised at how spacious and clean this bus toilet is. Only now do I notice the bumpy road conditions. It seems that the bus driver has to keep avoiding obstacles. I am crouched down, swaying to the left, swaying to the right, trying to guess which position my rear gun is in. It's not going to be easy. Oh dear...
Talim Tulum
On the last day, we travel 380 km (or is it more? I've lost track of time!) from Chetumal towards the coast, with various detours and stops, first to the lagoon of Bacalar. Some people long for their compression stockings after sitting for so long. The tour guide shows off his knowledge, torments us with archaeological terms that hardly anyone really cares about.
As if that wasn't enough, the journey then continues to the Mayan site of Tulum, right on the beautiful Caribbean coast. The group is now close to collapsing after the long journey. Some participants freeze into columns, they almost melt and become one with this Mayan burial site.
Our tour guide coldly seizes the opportunity and distributes a paper to evaluate the trip. I think the group would have signed anything during this sensitive period of weakness.
The bus then takes the coastal road from Tulum to Cancun. Along this highway, like a string of pearls, are the all-inclusive hotels, isolated from the outside world. Most of us have booked a follow-up vacation in one of these tourist temples. The tour guide says goodbye to everyone one by one with a handshake and takes them to the booked hotel, thus making sure that he has released each participant alive to the booked follow-up hotel.
He calls me a taxi to downtown Playa del Carmen, three kilometers away. For that fare, I could have afforded a chauffeur from the Hyatt. I stay there for five nights, recover from my severe bronchitis and wait for what is to come.
Less is more
Just like at a buffet, tour operators tend to overload us with program items and locations. Even during the tour, we are hopelessly lost in our impressions. During the endless bus rides, the brain organizes data, facts and emotions, if it weren't for the constant, superfluous, irrelevant information from the tour guide, which is so soporific. Where to go with all the names, numbers and family relationships of boring and power-hungry rulers. The experiences so far are already confusing, you confuse place names with family members and one family almost forgot their pubescent son at the last rest stop.
Luckily, an attentive lady travelling alone remembers that you and your husband started the journey together with your son. And suddenly you ask yourself why you have to sit next to your husband or wife for the whole journey? There are still plenty of free seats!!! Suddenly everything seems so cramped, so nerve-racking, so overwhelming. Air!
Sometimes less is more: less schedule, less closeness, less obligation, fewer expectations. Allow yourself some distance from one another.
3 questions you should ask yourself in advance
1. Why do solo travellers still have to pay the single room supplement?
Well, if that isn't a rip-off. I travel more than average, book my flights and match the hotels to them. I can't find that hotels charge me a single room supplement. Very rarely do they charge me a cheaper double room for single use. I always book a double room for single use. The price is the same. So what's the point of the single room supplement? Nowadays, as a solo traveler, I can even choose where to sit in the restaurant in most hotels. I used to get a table in the darkest corner at the back.
Conclusion: Ask the travel providers or tour guides critical questions.
2. Are tourist groups being ripped off both culinary and financially?
You can always get an overwhelming selection of typical local food, spicy and lovingly prepared - outside of the hotels. One should not generalize and there are certainly exceptions. Mexico is so rich and varied in starters, main courses and desserts in all taste nuances. But not on this tour. And it was no different with comparable tour operators. The organizers are too afraid of those guests who gasp for air desperately for a chili con carne with their eyes wide open and their faces bright red. Perhaps it really is down to the demands of the average tourist who are always moaning. Travel, yes, but it has to be German food. Like my guests from the Villa Massai in Kenya, who gave me a bad rating because it is so hot in Africa.
It's similar with lunch or dinner in specially offered local restaurants. On this trip it was like on previous ones. There was a pre-selection. When it came to the bill, the prices were higher than in the neighboring restaurants, the staff calculated the tips themselves to be on the safe side (as is usual) and even made a mistake when adding up the amounts.
In Cuba, the entire tour group once got up from the table in protest and left, much to the surprise of our tour guide. He really just stared stupidly. But he had also overdone it. Each time he took us far away from the city to tourist factory restaurants where 30 other tour groups met at the same time. This was only bearable with a lot of humor.
Conclusion: Get out of your comfort zone and try something new, away from the buffet.
3. Why do simple hotels exude more charm and atmosphere.
But you have to ask yourself who in the tourism companies chooses the hotels. And according to what criteria? Mold in the room or rooms that smell of garbage, that's completely unacceptable. Not for these prices. Mexico is not just any travel destination that lacks affordable alternatives. And in my opinion, the tour guide would be the right person to put an end to such situations by giving feedback to the clients.
Conclusion: Choose small boutique hotels with charm, at the latest after your group trip.
It seems to me that the mandatory evaluation forms that companies give to customers at the end of trips are ineffective. Tip: After a tour, you should choose your own hotel and not opt for the standard bunkers offered by tour operators. Dare to be more individualistic.
And here's a sentence for the travel companies: Just like in the market: Travel should whet customers' appetites for the culture, the people and the country they are traveling to. Nothing else.
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