Aitken Spence Travels Reviews 

I’ve used Aitken Spence before and they were excellent

Extremely Disappointing Experience on Our Sri Lanka Group Trip ---- I am Apoorva Vaidya, and I recently traveled to Sri Lanka on a group tour organized via MakeMyTrip. We were a group of seven travelers (Apoorva, Aishwarya and Madhuri Vaidya, Mr Salim and Hameeda Charaniya and Mr Rakesh, and Asha Bansal) who had trusted your platform to deliver a memorable and seamless holiday experience. Unfortunately, what we encountered was far from acceptable, and I am writing to formally express our deep dissatisfaction with the service, particularly with the assigned tour guide from Aitken Spence, Mr. Thilak (Toyota vehicle WP PI 2103).

From the very beginning, Mr. Thilak displayed an unprofessional and uncooperative attitude. He was consistently rude, dismissive, and unwilling to accommodate even basic itinerary requests. Several key tourist attractions, such as Kandy Lake View Point and prominent waterfalls en route from Nuwara Eliya to Bentota were completely skipped, despite being part of our planned route and free to access. When we questioned him, he responded rudely, often arguing and raising his voice rather than assisting us.

Throughout the tour, it was evident that he was steering us towards restaurants and shops that were highly overpriced and commission-based. He discouraged us from visiting more budget-friendly or local alternatives and did not allow us the opportunity to negotiate prices. For example, during the Kandy cultural show, he refused to share ticket details and dismissed our questions in a disrespectful manner, asking if we wanted to eat the tickets — a response that was both inappropriate and unacceptable.

At Gregory Lake, he directed us to an uncomfortable and poorly maintained boating area frequented by a disruptive crowd, which made our group feel extremely uneasy. In Colombo, which we were eagerly looking forward to for some shopping, he deliberately skipped taking us to any suitable shopping destinations.

Overall, Mr. Thilak’s behavior was consistently unprofessional and unpleasant. His lack of basic courtesy and his aggressive tone significantly impacted the quality of our trip. As paying customers, this level of service was far below our expectations, and we feel both disappointed and misled.

We request that MakeMyTrip take strict action regarding this matter. We also expect fair compensation for the distress and inconvenience we experienced. If this issue is not addressed promptly, we will be left with no choice but to escalate the matter through consumer forums and lodge a formal complaint.

We hope you treat this feedback with the seriousness it deserves and look forward to a timely response.

This company provided our Sri Lankan tour. It was an extremely disappointing experience during a once in a lifetime holiday. Despite providing full details of our complaint we were offered a €60 refund. What a joke. Never again and would not recommend.

We stayed in the Maldives. All reviews and information we read about the resort were 4*. So our expectation was 4*. Day 1 no drinking water available 2 bottles in the room for 2 people. Nearest possible drinking water 0.5 kms either at the bar or to order more at reception. Coffee machines were out of service for the week. Table water and general cutlery was anyone’s guess, so you generally had to grab it from another table. Sun lounges and parasoles had more holes in them than Swiss cheese and the accommodation was dated, not dirty at all but far away from the 4* indicated. The Lively atmosphere, described was generally provided by large noisy groups of people and I am talking group sizes of 15 to 30 people, this meant table service to mere mortals of 2 people was clearly not in the line of sight of any service staff. So we wrote a review on Trip advisor, the response from management we will aim to improve, nah that didn’t happen, day 4 coffee machine was still out of service. So we dared to get what we thought was filter coffee, nah that would be 14 tablespoons of instant coffee in a filter coffee jug. So after making noise with management, post a charge of 54£ for a 4£ tube of suncream we kind of said no more. Lunches are at the local grill with a basic menu, that’s fine, except when you order from the set menu don’t be surprised if what you ordered isn’t what you actually get, literally everyday we pretty much had the same thing the meal came without certain items that were on the menu I.e fries, mustard, etc. we were told pizza was served, where I am not sure, another island maybe…The upsell to have the ‘BBQ’ is rife we were asked at least 5 times in the same day did we want to pay an extra 55$pp for a meal, considering this was a similar price to the suncream it like was a bargainI emailed the company, no response yet, then we decided to have a chat again with management they said they would have a word with management, that was at about 10.am this morning, it’s currently 12.30pm here. As yet we haven’t had an update from management or an action plan on resolve, my understanding of 4* is very different, this resort at best is 3* There are rave reviews about this resort, but this is not luxury it’s a resort in a nice place. The staff are lovely, nice and welcoming but it ain’t no luxury. The Maldives is a luxury retreat where you expect to relax, chill etc. The point being apart for the beach where you get some serenity there is no escape from the large groups, or louder than average people if you want a quiet drink or a quiet meal. Staff seem overworked, likely underpaid our initial issues with charging extortionate prices for suncream were met with disregard by the assistant manager, they literally just walked off from us when we stated that the charge was extortionate, again not 4* and shows a lack of training and investment as well as a lack of care by the manager because they don’t get paid enough and it screams PLC making sure they provide minimal service and quality so their shareholders get a good % of the profits.

Aitken Spence looked after us superbly on our Jewels of Sri Lanka 9 day tour with a 4 night beach break at the Coral Sands, Hikkaduwa, which we picked for the great snorkelling from the beach. The Tour Guide, Coach, Coral Sands Rep and private transfers were all very good. We also booked a separate private day tour with Aitken Spence who treated us like VIP's. Overall a trouble free experience. We actually booked our holiday through Mercury Holidays who use Aitken Spence in Sri Lanka.

Absolute joke of a company alongside Hayes and Jarvis, they made false promises and lied continuously. Never again! Ruined our honeymoon in 2019.