What’s your View on Reviews?

I like to think it’s and interesting question and one that can be open to quite a bit of debate, what is your view on reviews? Are you the kind of person who has to endlessly  research every purchase they make in their life and go on forums and then read 100’s of reviews only to be put off by 1 person. Or are you easy going and laid back and think, do you know what I’ll just try it and decide for myself. Does this vary on what it is you are looking for? I think I may fall into this category.

I have had some bad look with cars and wanted to purchase a new reliable one recently so I spent hours looking at reviews for the ones I liked, I also this time listened to an expert, the mechanic who looks after all my various car woes. What is great with him is he always give’s me honest advice and even told me to get a new car rather than the one I had even though he could of made a small fortune from constantly fixing the next problem that occurred on it. I like to think it is because I have booked this guy’s holidays for the last 10 years and have gone out of my way to recommend hotels that would be suitable and used all the reference guides, including the likes of tripadvisor to steer him clear  of any potential holidays from hell.

My new car after my research and advice!

(That’s not my drive by the way)

I think it’s great that in this day and age we have so many reference points to check and read up on whatever we want but I do think we need to be careful and  treat everything with an open mind. I think on the likes of tripadvisor for example are really good useful sites, whenever I look for hotels as part of a package I will always look at the reviews and ratings on there and if anything gets below 3.5 out of 5 on a decent number of reviews then I wont even look at it, if it get 4 or more out of 5 on a good number of reviews then I would have no hesitation in using. The reason I say this is because we are not all the same and we do not all like the same things. If you can see something with over 100 reviews and it gets a good mark you know it will be ok, It still may not be your favourite off all time but it should be good enough and if there is any problems you should be able to see what that is likely to be before you travel, so you are informed and aware.

What did we ever do before the likes of tripadvisor?

The problem I find with cruise reviews is that I don’t we have enough and I’m not sure that they are always balanced. It seems that people  think they are fantastic or terrible and sometimes people use them to boast or complain about everything. That may well be what people think and everyone has there opinion and I like to hear anything good or bad. The feedback we get as a company and as individuals from our customers is fantastic. We always try and give everyone a call before they travel to make sure everything is ok and answer any questions. We then like to call you on your return and see how everything was and listen to your feedback. We get some really good hints ant tips which is great to know and we can pass onto other customers or use ourselves. What I find is most customers when they have just come back are dying to tell us how it was and it is really nice to hear.

Make 5 minutes get yourself somwhere comfy and do a quick review

What I do find though is most say at some point in the conversation is that they will do a review and I always actively encourage them to do so. The more reviews we can get the better, we have 1000,s already which is great but we want as many as we can get. The more we get the more balanced the reviews will become, If anything is an issue the more peeople who put it the more we can feedback and advise, If a restaurant or excursion is mentioned positively that is a great, we can then recommend so everyone can get the full enjoyment you did. What I do find however is most people who do have the good intention of doing the reviews don’t and I think that is such a shame. We can remember so much of what you say and try and feedback to everyone we have contact with but if you have done a review it is there for all to see.

Your FREE Berlitz guide for every review!

So try and encourage you to make the time we offer a little incentive to you, we give every person who adds a review onto our website a free Berlitz guide, which are worth around £18. You don’t have to of booked your cruise through us we just want to know what it was like so people can make an informed choice. What we want is just your honest opinion or your cruise/hotel/transfers anything that was part of your experience. If it was great tell us, If it was not again tell us. Tell people why and what you think they could do to avoid the same issues/problems. The more information the better, I and all the people who like to read reviews will benefit if you do.

Here is the link to our review page, Why not add yours today!

http://goo.gl/w48RuZ

If anyone is going to do a review please let me know so I can have a read, You can contact me on 0303 303 8252 or email [email protected]