Special Blue Swimmer Sailing Adventures

Pour que mes mésaventures avec « Blue Swimmer Sailing Adventures » soient dignement référencées (en français et en anglais), cher lecteur, permets-moi d’intercaler ici le mail que j’ai envoyé au responsable de l’agence. Ce n’est qu’une redite des jours précédents en anglais (désolée pour les fautes mais je suis plus  à l’aise en Francais !!!).

Dear Mr Vinh,

we have just finished a tour with your travel agency and we are very
disappointed.
I have booked by email one month ago an overnigth trip (1PM – 12 AM) on a junk
with SAILS. I told Ngoc that it was very important for us that the junk uses the
sails and she said « no problem if wind ».
On 25/10, we arrived at your shop in ben beo at 9am and we paid for the tour
170$ (150 for the junk and 20 for the food). Mr Binh told us that the junk will
sail with the sails the next day because it’s not possible the first day.
When we came back at 12h00, he told us he had  bad and good news. The bad new
was that the junk was rent until 4pm and the good new was : you could use
catamaran instead of the junk.
We were very  surprised because when we came in the morning, he told us nothing.
As I knew that renting a catamaran is cheaper (30$ for 3 hours) than renting a
junk (60$ for 3 hours), I asked a discount and he refused. That is not really
honest because the junk was rent twice.
As I insisted on a discount, Mr Binh gave us  the money back and said that the
trip can be cancelled but I disagreed because we have no other choice et not a
lot of time to find a new junk.
Finally, I asked him to rent us kayak for free but we are not really fond of
kayak and he agreed but it was a default choice.

During the tour, the food was good but there were also some problems :
1/nobody speak basic english so it’s difficult to understand what the staff try
to explain us.
2/We stopped sailing the first day very early at 5pm (we were eating when we saw
other junk just stopping) and the staff repaired the engine. As we started at
4PM, it was very very short.
3/The next morning, as the day was windy, we asked the staff for the sails and
he tried to told us that they were out of order and they really seemed to be old
and broken (see the attached file). We cannot imagine that the junk has sailed
with sails this year.
4/We stopped for 2hoo to repair again the engine.
5/We finished finnally at 11h30 instead of 12.

As we are not pleased at all, I will write to Lonely planet Guide who recommands
you to explain that you’re not a really serious agency. When I’ll be back on
France, I will also post bad reviews about you in french (and maybe english too)
forum on internet and also in my website http://www.voyages-pascale.fr

I travel a lot, I’m not used to complain and it’s the first time I feel so
angry.

Best regards

Actualisation du 28/10. Réception d’un mail d’excuse et d’une proposition de remboursement d’une responsable de l’agence. Nous avons rendez-vous lundi soir sur Hanoi… Suite au prochain épisode.

Dear Mrs. Pascale,

My name is Mrs.Thuy. I’m Mr. Vinh’s co-founder of the Blueswimmersailing. Thank you very much for your promptly complaints and frank comments.  On behalf on the BSA company I would like to apologize for what happened during your trip with us. That was a bad experience. It’s our staff’s fault not to be honest about the boat schedule as well as it’s condition(tattered sail). Also, I wasn’t informed properly about the boat condition. It was ashamed. In fact, we have some different sailing boats to charter, just not that one. But they was all booked at the same time and so the boat with tattered sail actually need to be fixed but then was still used for your trip. Anyway, that sail boat already appointed to stop running for changing a new sail right after your trip. However  I would say that this is happened unexpectedly and it should never be happened again. We commits to be a serious travel agency and provide quality tours and services. We do not want this bad thing first time happened to ruin our good reputation which have been building for years.

As a little compensation for an unhappy trip, we would like to refund you 50% of the boat charter’s cost which is 75$. We hope that it would be fair for you and probably can heal your bad feeling from your trip with us. If you are still in Hanoi by now or whenever you are in Hanoi, please kindly let me know your hotel address, I will meet you in person to refund. I had a look a your web page and so I had an idea of your travel schedule but not sure if you change it. Please advise me best time to see you as well.

Look forwards to hearing form you at soonest.

Best regards,

Actualisation du 3/11. J’ai finalement rencontré Mrs Thuy à notre hôtel à Hanoi qui nous a remboursé la moitié du séjour en jonque. Elle m’a assuré que la jonque était déjà réparée et s’est excusée à nouveau. Merci de m’envoyer vos éventuels témoignages (négatifs ou positifs)  pour que je puisse les ajouter à cette page.

Finally, we met Mrs Thuy at our hotel and she apologized again. She refunded us 75 $and told us that the junk’s sails had been repaired. If you have experienced bad or good trip with this travel agency, please let me know and I will add your rewievs here.