Sona Tours Ltd www.sonatours.co.uk

A lot of time was wasted , we did not get to do City tour of Melbourne, when it was included in the price. Sitting in airline was terrible, all 25 of us got middle seat for 14 hours flight . Food same every day, we didn’t go even once to vegetarian only restaurant .

On 11th February 2022 I booked a package holiday with Sona Tours to go to Alaska. We were supposed to go in August 2022 and there were 15 of us going. We booked the trip in February and each paid £100 deposit. Unfortunately in April I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and would not be able to go on this holiday. My husband went to their office immediately to inform them that we would need to cancel our place on the trip and I sent an email on 25th April confirming the cancellation. We did not hear anything back from Sona Tours. In June, we received an email demanding we pay £3250 (half the cost of the holiday) as a cancellation fee. As you can imagine, this was a huge shock to us and not something we could afford as we had spent a lot of money on my cancer treatment. They also pretended that they could not find our original email informing them of our cancellation (but later they found it). We hoped under the circumstances they would be more understanding of our situation, but they demonstrated no empathy for the toll this was taking on my mental health.

Meanwhile my husband contacted our travel insurance, who were extremely supportive, and they thankfully told us that they will pay the amount to Sona Tours directly. We informed Sona Tours of this but instead they sent us a court order and a deadline to pay the amount. They did not want to deal with our insurance company, they only wanted us to pay them. In the end our insurance company paid them £3250 but we still had to pay the court fee (because it’s in their T&C’s that we need to pay the court fee) of £205. They final vulgar act Sona Tours did, was they refused to give us back our deposit of £200 after they had received their payment, and decided to take this as their court fee.

I am writing this to highlight what a terrible company Sona Tours is and how disgusting their behaviour has been towards me. Their emails, particularly from Chetan, were extremely rude and threatening. Had it not been for my daughters, who had to respond to them on my behalf because I was too unwell. I should not have had to deal with this stress shortly after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and having to go through chemo and surgery. I urge anyone considering booking a holiday via Sona Tours to think twice about it and go through their unfair terms and conditions with a fine tooth comb so you know what to expect in case anything should go wrong. I hope this helps prevent someone else from going through what I have had to go through with them.

My brother and sister in law gone to scotland they were so happy and the tour guide was very helpful and the tour was for 4 days 3 nights exceptional and they did a fun+ enjoyed+excellent hotel good hospitality good food what to say i would recommend my family and friends to go with sona tours for UK+europe and international and I would give 5 stars to sona tours.

Well organised from the start of our booking till we returned back. Well informed in regards to PCR test due to Covid19, both for Sri Lanka and Maldives, online visa plus government documents required before arrival and insurance. In Sri Lanka good hotels with dinner, knowledgeable and well explanation done by the GUIDE to all sites visited, comfortable minivan provide for us 3. Guide immediately picked up our desires and he did fulfil them as we went along our journey.

They chose the best, all inclusive hotel in Maldives, not cheap, but what you pay is what you get. Things are not cheap and wanted a peace of mind.

Will definitely recommend them as they manage to organise my booking within 2 weeks.

I was refer to a friend who had travelled with them.

4 days trip to Scotland. Wow! That is what comes to mind first after coming back from this trip. Excellent tour manager. A very well planned out itinerary and enjoyable trip. Thank you for a wonderful experience once again. Simply need to ask " When do I go on the next one"

Thank you Sona Tours for a memorable experience

Our tour guide, and the driver, were excellent throughout the 4 day Scotland tour.

The guide kept us informed with very good communication and factual information about places of interest.

The approach was friendly and kept us entertained and interested at all times, so was fun and an extremely enjoyable tour.

I had travelled in your Scotland tour from 24th May 2019 to 27th May 2019. on the feedback of the localities.

I was disappointed with the tour. The tour guide was not aware of all places and was providing information after seeing google or printed papers.

Some of the information provided by her was a bluff.

The stay at "Holiday in" experience was bad and breakfast too was very disappointing.

The only good part of the tour was 2 buffet dinner and our full time driver.

Would not recommend to anyone.

Guide didn't know about the history of Eastern Europe. He was just reading from I phone or printed paper. Keep on

walking,while,lot of people were legging behind. Couldn't find location of reasturant and wasted time. Food was average. I will not use Sona Tour again. Tour Manager could have made the tour better but he is inexperienced. Because he wasted the time to find the restaurant, which was only 4 minutes away, we could not seenPrague Castle. He never accompanied the tourists, he just left us to explore everything ourselves. At Gatwick airport no was there to greet us(12 of us). We had to find our own way. Chetanbhai called my brother in law asking if we reached airport or not and promised he will call back. He didn't call and my sister was worried. No Sona tours on our list. This was the first and last tour.

We have been on four Sona Tours to date and have enjoyed every minute of the three of them. These three tours were to Scotland, Japan and South America.

However, the most recent tour we took with Sona to Ireland did not deliver to the same expectations and we are really disappointed.

1. I had to chase the office staff for information and payment – we paid 5 days before we were due to leave!

2. We did not get a final itinerary. The latest we had did not have timing of pick-up or the name of the Tour Manager.

3. We were told the group consisted of 16 people. We were 23.

4. We were told to be at the pick-up point at 5.45 – we did not leave until 6.30!

5. We passed through some beautiful countryside (the Snowdonia country plus Ireland as per the suggested itinerary) but we just drove through with no information given.

6. This is the first tour I have done where there was minimal interaction between tour manager and the group.

7. The Tour Manager lacked person skills and always came up with negative phrases when we asked about places we were travelling through or visiting. He did not show any knowledge or expertise in the history of the places we visited.

8. The Tour Manager always agreed with what we said but never implemented. E.G. – we requested several times to have a few minutes off the bus to walk around Trinity College in Dublin. He agreed but we did not stop (this happened twice!). If there was a reason for this not to happen; he never apologised or gave reasons why we were not doing it.

9. We had requested a meal with no onion or garlic for one person in our group on the booking form. At each restaurant, our requested meal was cooked after we were seated at the table which meant we had to hurry through our meal.

10. Our meal at the restaurant in Dublin was a complete disaster – we were served our meal piece by piece, (rice and naan arriving some 20 minutes after the hot dishes were served). Ordering drinks was so chaotic that many just made do with water!

11. Hotels

a. All the hotels were quite far out of town and it was impossible to get back to town for the evening to get a taste of the country’s social scene.

b. DUC rooms were the worst – we did not expect to be put up in University rooms where the facilities were basic/non-existent.

Recently went on a trip to Rotterdam, a friends bag was stolen on the trip, the tour manager refused to help or advise on what we can do, was no help and said he would leave us in the country and he doesn't care. We were in a foreign country with a tour group with no idea on what to do. I have never experienced someone so rude, disgusting and vile. When calling the company to complain, they again were just as rude and disgusting. Awful company and customer service.