Two days trip with Panda Travels on September 8-9
Totally disorganized trip. The guide we have for two days was totally lost and getting carried away with questions of other tourists She is not well presented and seems sleepy and when explaining about the places we've been, she is reading it on her notes from her phone. The lunch was good, the driver behaves well. But the dinner food provided was a total disaster. They served food without asking our order and the guide stated that "we don't have a choice" and they just gave us food that feels like a feeding program! The price of the drinks are doubled on where we ate whether it is a bottled water or a softdrinks, it costs us 1500 KZT per drinks. On the hotel for a night, one of our toirist batch doesn't have a partner and she paired it with the tour driver and she told again "he doesn't have a choice" On the second day, we went to Kaindy lake. Moon and Black Canyon has been added on the first day of trip so the second day has been cut. We had good breakfast and call time informed was 8:00am. Food was good and service was fast but again the tour guide woke up at almost 10:00am and we waited without informing us at what tome we will be leaving for the itineraries of the day. We went at 10:00am from the hotel and went to Kaindy Lake and drove for 2 hours for lunch. And after lunch we go back to Almaty. We never had the souvenir photo as mentioned on the package. We dont have a tour guide on our way back to Almaty and she stays on the restaurant where we had lunch. It is our first try with panda travel and we will never go back and have this travel and tours again. Kazakhstan is an awesome country, beautiful sceneries and good people. But Overall, Panda Travel is NOT RECOMMENDED. They have to improve and check on their tour guides as this will definitely impacts overall experience of every tourists who will take panda travel with the same guide and their perception as well on the agency.