Jordan on a Shoestring

11 Reviews

Excellent

36%

Good

55%

Average

9%

Rather Poor

0%

Bad

0%

• TF

  Tim
  Written on April 7, 2018

  2.5 - Average

  There should be time right at the beginning for fellow travellers to get to know each other. Travellers should be allowed to do their own thing at stops. We were forced to listen to lengthy and overly detailed descriptions from our guide, for over an hour, and then given just ten or fifteen minutes to explore on our own. It was a listen to me, go where I go, look at what I tell you to, think what I want you to think tour, which utterly killed any adventure, excitement or independent enquiry.

  

  Encounters Travel commented on this review

  Hi Tim, Thank you for taking the time to get back to us with your feedback. I’m sorry that you weren’t happy with the way the guiding was managed on this tour. All guides do have their own individual style and as most are very proud of their country, they do want to get a lot of information across to you. There's always a balance to strike between doing that and giving free time to explore, and we have to be careful not to upset other people in the group by going too far the other way either. However, if you want to miss out on some of the explanations and history and just explore independently, you should be able to do that. That is within reason though, as the guide does need to be careful that they know where everyone is, sometimes because the sites are so big it can be easy to get lost and separated if you haven't been told where the guide is moving on to with the group next, and also on travelling days where we need to be careful to keep to a schedule so further visits later in the day aren't affected. We're having a chat with the guide on your tour just to make sure that they do allow some flexibility of the kind you obviously wanted more of. To get a fully flexible time where you can listen and explore independently as much as you like, we do run a lot of tailor-made tours which are much more suited to accommodating this than a group tour.

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• SJ

  Susan
  Written on March 19, 2018

  5.0 - Excellent

  The trip surpassed my expectations for Jordan. The scenery is spectactularly different, the guide was not just informative but fun and the Jordanian people are extremely welcoming. At no time did I feel unsafe as a female solo traveller. Would highly recommend.

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• 

  Maria Therese
  Written on February 17, 2018

  4.0 - Good

  The main reason why I am rating the trip as Good rather than excellent is not because the tour did not meet my expectations (on the contrary, I rate our tour guide Sammy and the places the tour covered as excellent) but the local Amman hotel is more like a 2-Star than a 3-Star as promised as the breakfast buffet was poor and one of the rooms originally assigned to me was in poor condition (stained carpetting, broken TV,)

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• NK

  Nathan
  Written on February 17, 2018

  4.0 - Good

  The overall tour was amazing. We saw everything in Jordan. Our tour guide Sami was filled with knowledge and had a wonderful sense of humour. He made our trip! The only downfall was our hotel in Amman (AL WALEED),breakfast was inedible or just full of empty serving plates and dirty. Half of our group got sick. I will gladly tell everyone I know about how amazing Jordan is! I would definitely use this tour company again, I'm confident that they will find another hotel for travellers in the future to avoid these kinds of complaints.

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• CW

  caroline
  Written on February 16, 2018

  4.5 - Excellent

  The tour was amazing. Our guide, Issa, was brilliant, really helpful and knew about all of the sites that we visited and he arranged lovely lunches for us each day. The hotels were fine, basic but clean and safe. It's a busy tour and you do a lot each day so you can make the most of a short holiday.

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• 

  Pierre-Yves
  Written on January 13, 2018

  4.0 - Good

  The people involved were quite nice and helpful, especially Sami the guide, of course. The places we visited were interesting for most. Petra and Little Petra were my personal highlights. The Amman hotel we went to, while quite fine (except for the carpets), was not the original mentionned in the latest tour doc, and there was nothing around to do on foot. This screwed up some alone time plans, including getting money out of an ATM. Brings loads of small bills. It is hard to get change no matter where you go. The food was nice, but somewhat repetitive and buffets are not for everyone @ 10-20JDs each.

  

  Encounters Travel commented on this review

  Dear Pierre, Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your feedback and for choosing to travel with us in Jordan. I’m really pleased to hear that you had a good time on the tour and appreciated your guide Sami. Over the past year Sami has become one of our most popular guides in Jordan and it’s always good to hear such good feedback. With our scheduled group tours we don’t guarantee specific hotels as we do occasionally have to use alternate accommodations based on availability or recent customer feedback. We do try to make this clear on our website and within our tour notes, however I am sorry that this affected some of your plans for your free time in Amman. Overall I’m pleased to see that you had a good time on the tour. I hope that you’ll decide to join us again in the future.

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• NA

  Nicole
  Written on November 17, 2017

  3.5 - Good

  This was a great trip! Jordan was wonderful, especially Petra! Our guide, Sammy, was very knowledgable and personable. Hotels were ok. Another couple had an issue with their door not closing and the hotel wouldn't give them a new room. The only thing I would change is dining options - often we were only given the choice of one restaurant with a buffet and no a la carte options. These buffets tended to be pretty expensive and, as I'm not a big eater, I never got my money's worth.

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• BV

  Benjamin
  Written on May 8, 2017

  4.5 - Excellent

  I am usually a do-it-yourself kind of traveler, so taking a five-day tour package is quite rare for me (maybe 3 times in the last 12 years). For non-Arabic speakers, getting around the Middle East is not easy, so I signed up through Tourradar for the "Jordan on a Shoestring" five-day tour with Encounters Travel and operated by local company Al-Thuraya. Our tour group of six persons, plus guide and driver, took a minivan that was just big enough to fit us all and our luggage. I expected to see all the sights from Jerash in the north to Wadi Rum in the south, and was not disappointed. We did everything listed in the itinerary except for Kerak Castle which we substituted for Montreal (Shobak) Castle at our guide's recommendation. Optional tours were available upon request for extra cost, such as Petra by night, a Turkish Bath massage/spa, and camel rides, though I did not feel pressured to do any of them (and did not do any of them). Accommodation at the Al-Waheed Rum Hotel in Amman for 3 nights was excellent and at the Petra Palace Hotel for two nights was good (swimming pool was nice on a hot afternoon after returning from Petra, hotel just 200 meters from the park entrance!), but the wifi only worked in the lobby area. Not a big deal, but could be improved. Lastly, about our tour guide: Hasan did a fantastic job keeping the tour moving, giving useful and interesting information about the sites even for those who may not know the area's long history (Hasan stated that he has done tours for "23 years"), and making sure guests were comfortable. I am in my 30s, but the average age of tour customers is probably somewhat older, and for those guests with mobility issues, he made the necessary arrangements to help them see as much as possible in a country which can be difficult for mobility-impaired. Whenever we needed to proceed more quickly, he offered explanations like "I would like to take you to the next site before the big tour buses arrive" or "I brought you here to show you The Treasury when the morning lighting is perfect for photos," etc., otherwise he was not pushy as some tour guides can be. The only thing I would have appreciated would have been a hard copy itinerary print-out on the first day so I could see our destinations beforehand, but Hasan generally did a good job telling us what to expect the night before. I rate the tour a 5/5 stars, with very little room for improvement. I could have done some of the tour on my own, but would have missed our guide's excellent descriptions and would have found some of the organizing of trips difficult enough that paying a bit extra for the tour's smooth execution would be worth it, in my opinion.

  

  Encounters Travel commented on this review

  Dear Benjamin, Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with this feedback, it's very much appreciated and I'm really pleased to hear that you had such a good time in Jordan. It's also great to hear that you were happy with the services of Hasan and that the accommodations met with your expectations. I hope that you can join us for another adventure in the future! Encounters Travel

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• AS

  Alex
  Written on March 19, 2017

  3.5 - Good

  Jordan was absolutely fantastic and definitively a must for anyone wanting to experience stunning landscapes and a rich cultural history. The tour itself lacked polish however and there were a few complaints by the group. Logistically speaking, we were given very little concrete information, and in terms of explanations of the sites being visited, what our guide Ala! said was incomplete (and some of it wrong). Some of us stayed longer in order to spend the night in Wadi Rum (great fun) and tour Amman the next day with a visit to Qasr Mushatta on the way. However we did not have a guide with us that day, and so had no explanation of what we were seeing, nor did the itinerary follow what we had been told (ie. no visit of bazaars in Amman itself) - despite being promised a guide. There were other mishaps throughout the week, and it was clear that the tour could have been much better. Nevertheless, Jordan is a wonderful place to visit.

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• 

  Jamie
  Written on September 26, 2016

  5.0 - Excellent

  I can't recommend this tour and this country enough! The hotels were great, staff were fantastic and the sights were simply awesome. The guide we had, Hasan was clearly passionate about everything, making the effort to get us to Petra at a certain time to see the sun shining through the gap onto the Siq.

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