Vietnam Adventure Tour: Kayaking, Hiking & Cycling Through Amazing Landscapes

We recently took a trip to S.E. Asia using Zicasso Travel and their local agent. Zicasso had also asked another company to bid on our vacation and based on our interaction with that company, they would have done an excellent job. Our choice of our travel agency came down to personal preference of some of the tour details.

Planning

Both agency's proposed comprehensive itineraries and modified them twice as we zeroed in on what the vacation would entail. After choosing our travel agency, our representative sorted out details based of her experience and our evolving requirements. In the end, the itinerary expanded to 24 days and came to include Cambodia and Bangkok in addition to Vietnam. We were clearly told what preparations were needed on our part for border formalities and correct attire for temples and palaces. Part way through the process, our original representative left the company but our agent took up the file and the transition was seemless. The handoff was handled by the Sales Manager at at the company which was both appropriate and professional.

Execution

Our vacation involved eleven hotels, four planes, two busses and a speedboat (not counting 4 planes and 30 hours just to get to Vietnam!). Over 24 days there were no hiccups, no glitches, no missed appointments and no lost reservations. With noted exceptions, hotels exceeded our expectations, itineraries were comprehensive and appropriate and guides, with noted exception, were professional, knowledgeable and added their experience to the execution of the itinerary.

Over the years, we have mostly travelled on our own. This was our first fully managed vacation and while it did seem a little odd being carted around like minor royalty in our private van, we were very pleased with the trip. This travel agency is a good partner with Zicasso in Vietnam and we would book with them again given the opportunity.

Some Hotel Detail

Hanoi – Excellent!

Ha Long Bay Cruise– Very Good

Sapa – Excellent!

Hoi An – Excellent!

Hue – Excellent! A lovely historical hotel.

Ho Chi Minh City – Adequate. Poor Service

Chau Doc – Unacceptable, only technically a 4 star hotel. Poor breakfast, no assistance with luggage, poor location, dated interior. This hotel was a replacement for the beautiful Victoria Resort which was booked up. There are few alternatives in Can Tho.

Chau Doc – Excellent!

Phnom Penh – Excellent!

Siem Reap – Excellent! Top service of all!

Bangkok – Nearly Excellent. Probably the nicest hotel of the lot, let down by poor breakfast service and problems at check out.

Tour Guides

All of the guides were Adequate – Quite Good with the exception of our Sapa guide who was missing on the first day (a replacement was arranged). On the second day, we discovered part way through the day that he was not complying with our itinerary but rather executing a shorter program that would allow both of us the afternoon free. When confronted with this, an ad-hoc extension to the walk was enacted but rain the next day prevented any redress of the itinerary. In addition, the restaurant chosen for picnic lunch was very poor although there were better alternatives clearly available. This was a learning experience for us and we carefully reviewed our itinerary each morning of the following days before we departed the hotel but all of the subsequent guides lived up to their obligations.

Train

This is an excellent option to the sleeper train. You get to sleep in your hotel room then enjoy the passing countryside as you climb into the mountains in a very comfortable coach with WIFI, snacks and hostess, arriving in Sapa before lunch. The problem is the bus driver. He was pulled over by the police on the way to Sapa for reasons unknown to us. This should have been a warning. On the return voyage to Hanoi, the bus was not available and, since there were only two of us on the trip, a private car was used, complete with WIFI and refreshments. A member of management undertook to accompany us most of the way to Hanoi airport. When he departed the car, 45 minutes from our destination, the driver, the same bus driver as previously, began to drive recklessly, endangering our lives and likely making enemies of all the other drivers on the highway.  We would certainly stay with them again and would recommend the Bus service to Sapa but we would not get into a vehicle with this driver again. The hotel needs to deal with this problem and Zicasso / This travel agency need to encourage them to do so.

From the start to the finish, this travel agency did a marvelous job in helping us set up our 19 day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in Feb. - March 2018. The four of us, two couples, had lots of ideas and questions about the trip. Our representative was wonderful. I told her what we were thinking of, our budget, what we wanted to see and where our focus was and she devised an itinerary that hit all the objectives of our trip. We did a bunch of tweaking and sending questions and concerns over  time and she answered all very promptly and made sure that what we wanted in the trip was fulfilled.  When I told her we wanted to up-grade our hotels, she handled all the changes  without any problems.  She phoned several times to make sure all was going well with our planning and that we were happy with what she had set up for us.

Our guides were fabulous. They did everything and more to make sure we had the experiences we wanted. If they thought that what was supposed to happen that day wasn't what they would recommend, ie., eating at certain food markets, etc., they pointed us in another direction. They took into account some of the physical limitations of several of us and made adjustments accordingly. They were friendly, helpful, caring and fun. At several points in our journey we had some requests for things that weren't in the itinerary and they made sure that those requests were fulfilled. We couldn't have asked for better service. More that once we asked where we could buy a certain thing and they went out of their way to find the store where it could be procured, even after the tour for the day was done and they were off their time with us. Wonderful service. All of our drivers were excellent, friendly and helpful. They always had bottles of cold water for us when we returned to the vans, which was much appreciated. 

Our hotels were perfect. The hotel in Hanoi, our private boat in Ha Long Bay and the staff on board, the hotel in Hue, the boutique hotel in Hoi An, where we had a wonderful 2 day rest period to enjoy the beach and relax,  the resort in Saigon, which was luxury at it's best, and the hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia were the perfect places to relax, rest and explore after our days of seeing the sights. They all had wonderful breakfasts and the staff of all of them were friendly, helpful and informative when we needed some advice. 

They also made getting our visas easy and painless, and arranged our internal flights and the flight to Cambodia with no problems. 

I highly recommend this travel company for any trip you are planning to Vietnam. Their service was outstanding and we have no complaints about anything they booked, recommended or suggested. 

We really enjoyed working with Zicasso’s tour company to plan the trip. Our agent took into account our research and made suggestions/recommendations that enhanced the itinerary. We spent 11 days visiting Vietnam (HCMC, Hi An, Hanoi, Pù Luông, Ninh Bình, and Lan Ha Bay). It was an ambitious agenda that was executed without a hitch.

The internal flights were arranged so we did not feel rushed (our guides walked us into the airport, helped us check in our bags, and stayed until we made it to security). Our driver during the latter half of the trip was extremely professional and kept an immaculate car, making sure we had water and whatever we needed during the multi-hour drives.

Some of our guides could have been more knowledgeable, but my husband is a history buff and we tend to like a lot of in-depth information. The exception was our guide in Hanoi (and for the rest of the trip). He was fantastic and we were delighted that we had such a high-quality guide during the parts of our trip we had to rely on a guide the most. We were a bit taken aback that we had two guides for certain activities, but at the end of the day, we did not feel it was extraneous.

The hotel selection was up to our standards. It was a mix of standard rooms in five-star luxury hotels and spectacular rooms in Pù Luông and on our Ha Long Bay cruise.

The overall experience was very good.

Laos was much better than we expected, the hotel was nice and the staff friendly, we had some issues with the water on one of the rooms, because water was very hot most of the time and taking a shower was a challenge, but the breakfast was outstanding and the view from the room, the pool and in general the view from the hotel to the city and the mountains was beautiful.   The group did not like to much our tour guide, we think that he was really not involved on what we want.  He was helpful and attentive but he think that was limited to just do his job.  We had an issue when taking the plane out of Laos, because one person of the group bought a Buddha figure and we were told at the airport that we need a certificate (I strong believe that they only wanted money), our travel agency travel told us latter that we need the certificate, but the tour guide never told us that if we wanted a Buddha we need to ask for the certificate.  this was a very unpleasant moment but what we do, see and taste in Laos was incredible.   We loved the temples, the Kuang Si Waterfalls, the Tak Bath was also a great experience.   We took an elephant ride tour that was not in the program and was one of the best memories we have for this trip. this should be included or at least mentioned.

Vietnam.

Hanoi, was a very interesting city, hotel very well located by the city lake, very good quality rooms, food and staff very helpful as any big hotel.   The tour guide was a very nice guy and he create a very good atmosphere with the group.  He took us to different places and gave us enough time for our pictures, his level of spanish was good.   Our main memory will not be the temples, was the traffic that is amazing most of the time.    The food was very good, we loved the Vietnamese food in general and he create good memories. We really regret not be able to experiece Ha Long Bay as planned, because of the bad weather.

Hoi An,  We did not have an idea about this beautiful town, we as a group loved the city, the hotel was the best we had in the tour, very nice, small, luxury, nice food, nice staff.   Our guide was an incredible guide, very supportive and took us to many nice spots for picture taking, that he loved photography was a plus, because was easy for him to know where to take us.   The bike tour was voted as the best experience in Hoi An and during the tour in the top 3.   The agency arrange  a tour to Mi Son, using Jeeps and took us for surprise that where original jeeps from the Vietnam war,   this was incredible, unfortunalety was raining that day and the jeeps were the worst option to use that day.  no matter that we enjoy the day an the tour.

We loved the food in Hoi An, our guide was very supportive on this matter with good recommendations and lot of advice about what not to miss.   

Sa Pa,

We had great expectations about Sa Pa, that were not fulfilled, we expected to see the rice paddles but no one told us that Nov/Dec are the wort months to visit them. since there is no rice and the weather is very cold.   However our tour guide was incredible, he has a very good spanish skills indeed was our best tour guide, he mixed with the group very, very good, was very attentive, supportive, helped us all the time beyond our expectations,  He never mentioned that he was taking picture of us and he created an incredible photographic memories of us taking pictures, that later he share with us.   He helped us to translate and communicate with the local, visit a local house, visit a local school, etc. this guy saved by far this part of the trip and it become the best part no matter we did not have the rice paddles to take pictures.  He also took us to Fansipan Mountain and we had one of the best sunset over the clouds at our disposal for picture taking.

Sorry if my English is not good enough, but not a native speaker.