A BAD Guided Experience

Inflatable rafts floating in a remote gorge on a guided tour illustrating poor planning by another provider.

A BAD Guided Experience – I remember the last time I went on a guided adventure tour (rafting) as a guest. OMG, it was in such an amazing place, the other guests were great fun and the guides knew their technical “stuff”.

The experience was once in a lifetime and charged accordingly…….but you know what, it was obvious the company that ran the tour had no idea how to maximise and even ensure the safest or highest quality experience.

Pre trip communications were poor from the very get go and as guests we should have followed our instincts which were telling us this wasn’t well organised!

On the trip:

Safety briefings were poor and haphazard; gear was old and tired (it’s deflating when a raft starts leaking on day 1!!).

The food was good, but no effort was made to make it great (unwrap the cheese from its packaging, slice the salami and put it on a platter, not on just on a tarp on the ground). It felt like everything from the boss’ freezer was thrown in an esky and there was no menu or plan for meals.

The trip was sold with a hike included, and the guides (with the encouragement of the owner via satellite phone) did everything they could to discourage everyone from doing the hike.

Why was it laughed about that everyone got gastro and openly discussed that the same thing has happened on the last couple of trips? (some soap or hand sanitised at the toilet station and mealtime may have helped!!!).

The list goes on…….

From go to whoa it felt like the guests had to seek information and clarity about what we were doing and how this would happen. The guides (again) knew their “stuff” and any time we were in challenging situations on the river they did a fantastic job, but they clearly weren’t following any type of operations manual or guidelines.

One has to ask: does the tour company actually have quality – dare I say robust systems and processes; are the guides even aware of these; is the business merely compliant enough to hold a license to operate (compliance is so often a desktop process that has no real on-the-ground checks or measures); do they do any internal auditing, evaluation or feedback; are staff performances reviewed?

I believe that this tour company doesn’t know how to do any of these things well. Or are they just lazy?

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Connect Adventures facilitate hiking tours into spectacular, natural and wild locations in NSW.

We provide premium walking experiences that captivate our guests through the interpretation of the environments we explore, the delicious food we serve, our personalised customer and logistical support and the quality and expertise of our local guides.

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