Feb 06, 2024 02:38 PM
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We were 4 Australians doing the East and West Europe Motherland of Christianity pilgrimage in Sep/Oct 2023. We would not recommend anyone go on any tour or pilgrimage with Jenson and we will definitely not make that mistake again even if Jenson did not charge for it. Let me list the reasons why I would give Jenson a 0 or even a negative star rating if it was possible:
1. Jenson was rude, arrogant and screamed at anyone who challenged him.
2. He refused to provide us with the names of the hotels we would be staying in and the majority were substandard
3. The worst hotel was in Rome. The curtains were torn in several places & plaster fallen off from the walls. The shower cubicle was tiny, dark and had no place to keep our soap so we had to keep it on the floor.
4. Jenson broke his commitment to take us by ship overnight but to save money made us travel on the bus for many hours.
5. We spent more time in the bus due to his poor organizational skills crossing back & forth the same way instead of going from place to place in an orderly manner.
6. Jenson very rarely took us to our hotels before 8 pm and on some evenings we did not reach till after 10 pm.
7. Most of the meals Jenson provided us were at cheap petrol stations or ‘all you can eat’ poor quality food.
8. He promoted the Salt mine in Krakow for not only its beauty but also the health benefits. This convinced everyone to do this optional on Sep 27, the day that was scheduled for the salt mine & Auschwitz optional tours. The very next day he changed his mind and wanted to skip the salt mine. Jenson angrily conceded to the unanimous decision of the tourists to do the salt mine tour making us wait for over 40 minutes in the hot bus without having the decency to let anyone know that he was making last minute arrangements.
9. The Milan Fiasco was probably the lowlight of the entire tour. Jenson was having breakfast with us in Padua around 7:45 am. We all gathered in the lobby as per his instructions by 8:30 am for our trip to Milan. He promised us a 2 or 3 hour guided tour of the largest Cathedral in the World, the Duomo after which we would stay the night in Milan. He came down after 8:50 am and spent a while at reception before coming to us and ordering some people to take their bags to the bus and others to the lift lobby. He did not apologize for the delay nor did he communicate what was happening. We travelled over 4 hours to Milan & were given lunch at McDonalds. He broke his promise of the guided tour and all we had time to do was walk around the outside of the Duomo Cathedral. He took us to the airport to drop off the 11 East Europe pilgrims and pick up the 17 for West Europe. We then drove another 4+ hours back to the same hotel in Padua we had checked out from that morning. It was a total waste of a full day for us.
10. After many requests for the exact dates of the tour so we could book our flights to Vienna, hotel stays in Madrid & Barcelona as we wanted to stay 2 additional nights in Madrid at the end of the tour and then a week in Barcelona, Jenson finally gave us the confirmed dates mid-July 2023. Accordingly, we booked our flights and non-refundable hotel accommodation. At the last minute, Jenson changed his plans to arrive in Madrid 2 days later than scheduled making us lose our time in Madrid. He did not have the decency or courtesy to apologise for the loss he caused us.
I could go on with a number of other examples of Jenson’s pathetic behaviour, constant changes to his program, non-existent customer service skills, broken promises, refusal to refund even for genuine reasons and failure to provide his customers with much needed information about currencies needed, coins for toilets, laundry facilities, etc. I think people will get the message loud and clear and stay away from anything Jenson organizes.
