Traveler’s Feedback

Guide: Guides were great. English skills were excellent. All did a great job.

Driver: No problems.

Car: It was fine.

Hotels: Good for the price paid.

What did you like best in your trip? Seeing other cultures and countries!

What didn't you like in trip? nothing

What would you add to your trip? nothing

Would you recommend our company to your friends? Absolutely

Dear Liana, thank you, I am back in Iraq fully immersed in work :D

Once more thank you very much for the really perfect organization and your great communication. I was really impressed by your professionalism and as it was just second time in my life I asked somebody else to prepare my holiday, for sure I am happy I made such a good choice with your agency!

I enjoyed my holiday and I really appreciated Levon as a guide because he is a wonderful source of information!

I will do my best to come back to you with more detailed feedback soon, when I will find more time to focus on it.

I wish you many satisfied clients!

Ilona

Guide: Arthur in Armenia - Good communicator, language and information provided all good. Friendly manner. Competent guide. Iraqli in Georgia - Good communicator but lacking knowledge to impart information on sites visited and highlights of itinerary.

Driver: Above guides were drivers. Competent drivers

Car: Armenia - Airconditioning ineffective.: Georgia - O.K. but awkward being right hand drive.

Hotels: Generally quite good with friendly staff. Well located in Yerevan and Tbilisi.
What did you like best about your trip? Beautiful scenery, monuments. Good balance of guided and free time.
What didn't you like about your trip? Guides could have been more informative. In Georgia, guide lacked knowledge of subject matter and did not cover itinerary as well as we would have hoped.
What would you add to your trip? Nothing. But thinking it might have been better to have a driver and guide rather than driver/guide. It may have been difficult for the guide to provide information while focusing on driving and his breaks.

Would you recommend our company to your friends? Yes. I think the itinerary and flexibility was good and dealing with you over email was efficient.

We did enjoy our time in Armenia and Georgia and were glad we chose to travel there. Thank you for organising the tour efficiently and making adjustments to the itinerary to meet our wishes.

Dear Syuzanna;

The tour was very good. Perhaps a few less churches, but the service was overall very good Chris.

Hello Liana,

With this message, I wanted to share our feelings on this trip. we have many loved our journey in armenie. The Armenians are warm and welcoming. our guide was exciting from start to finish, it has a knowledge of his extraordinary country and is very resourceful. we loved Parandzem. The driver is more discreet, language barrier forces, but it is well appreciated. The waterfall hotel was very good, ideally positioned, the small lunch very correct. the staff always had a smile. the hotel has goris was good, beautiful spacious rooms, hotel .I was somewhat handicapped by the heavy work at the hotel but nothing serious. for Hotel Nairi has Jermuk, the remote host Aete, clean rooms, but the small non-existent breakfast, no fruit, no fruit juice, ice tea, some dishes seemed not first freshness. for the band ba dilidjean, and friendly rooms well, small royal breakfast, to recommend.

Liana we were very happy to meet you, see where you work. I recommend Arara tower for its thoroughness and listening. a suggestion in Jermuk stage has dilijean n hesitate to propose sevenhavank and hairivank, these two monasteries are beautiful.

Bernard and Claire

Overall both Usha and I very much enjoyed our holiday to Armenia & Georgia. Both are beautiful countries with much to offer the visitor and we are recommending both countries to many of our family and friends. We thought that the tour price offered good value for money.

Excellent. Be it in Armenia or in Georgia, we were pleased with the level of organisation.

In our opinion the hotel in Yerevan (Opera Suite) was a more pleasant experience than theTbilisi Inn. Although both 4 star hotels, the quality of the room in the hotel in Tbilisi was definitely inferior to that of the Opera Suite hotel.

Vardan is a very personable guy who was friendly and very very helpful. We believe, however, he should offer more information.

All too often we needed to ask him  Mike (guide in Georgia) was great. Again he was super helpful and extremely knowledgable and volunteered all the information (and more) we needed. Toko (driver in Georgia) was also great. He was very good at his job and very polite. In conclusion, thank you Liana for your help in making our holiday so memorable and we will definitely be thinking about a possible South Armenia / Iran holiday.

Anthony & Usha

Guide: Arthur is a professional, personable and knowledgeable guide who was always happy to answer our many questions with clear well thought out responses, and he speaks excellent English.

Driver: Arthur was our driver and guide. He  drove safely and knew where to go for the itinerary and accommodation.

Car: The car was very comfortable,clean and Arthur negotiated some of the more challenging roads very well.

Hotels: The Cascade Hotel in Yerevan was excellent and ideally located near one of Yerevan's main attractions and the main city centre. We were delighted with this choice. All of the accommodation was interesting, comfortable and appropriate standard and value for the cost of the tour. The accommodation was also nicely varied, recognizing that the further away you are from tourist centres the less choice one has.

What did you like best about your trip? Armenia has some of the most spectacular scenery we have seen and we were fortunate to walk in some beautiful areas. The visit to the history museum in Yerevan was excellent and could ideally have some more time allocated.

What didn't you like about your trip? We realize that fortresses and monasteries are major attractions, but it would have been better if there were other, more varied attractions to visit  as well. As it was a walking tour the time in the countryside and mountains was excellent, but without the walking the tour would have become a little monotonous. Day 4 walking from Cristal Lake through the forest and mud was not a good choice of walking terrain. The forest is too closed and dark to enjoy, and the ground is too muddy to bother with, given other non doubt better altefnatives elsewhere.

What would you add to your trip? Not so much add to the trip but suggestions for improvements. The written itinerary for the first day out of Yerevan (Day 2), if followed as detailed, would have seen us finish at sundown, and seen us walking in the hotter and stormier part of the afternoon, and resulted in a very short next day. Arthur sensibly had us do that first days walk at the beginning of the second day, thus balancing the two days and we benefited from walking in the cooler and more weatger-stable part of the day.

The itinerary on Day 7 which includes a hike to the southern peak of Mt Aragats is is totally unreasonable considering other points in the itinerary, the 3-4 hours drive to get to the start and the following 2 hours to get back to Yerevan. We did not do the walk thaf day due to weather but if we had we would have finished after 10pm!

Suggestion: do not pretend that walkjng up Mt Aragats is feasible. It is not. The weather will almost always prevengbit happening, if is too long a day, and should onlhh be attemoted by well prepared and experienced walkers, rather than casually. An alternative less elevated walk should be substituted.

Another suggestion: if Mt Aragats remains in the itinerary, put in an altednative (2-3 hours) that is reasonable on the last day.

Another suggestion: If clients could or should bring proper walking boots, walking poles and good wet weathef gear, put that explicitlh jn the tour notes, ratheff than leave it to chance.

Would you recommend our company to your friends? Yes we would.

Overall we were very happy with the tour and the value for money.

Dear Lusine,

Gary Bengier has asked me to say a few words about our tour. I will gladly post some praise and observations on the platforms you suggest. As I write this I am listening to your compatriot, Lusine Zakaryan as she sings "Aravot Luso." Her music sustained me during my last few days in Armenia. Her voice seems to capture the archaic poignancy that we experienced everywhere. Our guide, Ara, thoroughly informed us about the spiritual and historical traditions that support and have sustained Armenian culture. Zakaryan transfers that light, the "luso" in her song from the window behind the altar to her audience, in this case to me and my friends, Gary, Ed, Don and Paul. In the same spirit I express our gratitude to you and your group, most especially to Ara, that most excellent guide.

Jack Darrow

Guide: Rima was an excellent guide, she demonstration good knowledge about the places we went and made the trip fun. Her English skills were very good. The guides in the three museums we visited also had good English and it was nice to get a personalised guide of the museums.

Driver: Very skilled driver; Punctual; Polite

Car: Comfortable! Good size

Hotels: The Cascade Hotel was lovely, it was a small hotel with comfortable beds. We were lucky to have the room with a terrace. Breakfast was adequate and the lady also made us coffee. The second hotel, Astoria in Georgia was ok. When we arrived, the receptionist was a bit cold towards us. She did not have our names on the system and so it took us a while to check in as we were not on the system

What did you like best in your trip? It was not too packed, and we were allowed enough time to walk around the sites and enough time to see the city etc when we got back from our excursions. The food suggestions in Armenia were very good. Wine tasting was nice, although a different winery may be a bit more lively, maybe because we are used to the European type tours and Armenian wineries are slightly smaller.

What didn't you like in your trip? One of the people who joined us on the trip was an older gentleman. He was a bit difficult at times, but I think the Georgian tour guide managed him well. Otherwise I feel the trip went well.

Would you recommend our company to your friends? Yes definitely

Guide: our guide was Haykuhi, very nice person, friendly and kind, very explicit (English at high level)and clear on the information, good knowledge on all sites. She was on time every day, as per our schedule. We will be glad to have her on our future trip to Georgia.

Driver: our driver was Aram(don't remember the exact name), very nice person and good driver. he took care of our luggage with kindness and calm. he was on time every day as per our schedule.

Car: 5

Hotels: All hotels were very nice and clean and the breakfasts were delicious. every day same idea, but something new.

What did you like best in your trip? The beautiful landscapes of Armenia, the people who are very warm and nice, the great food and once again, the landscapes. The itinerary was wonderful.

What didn't you like in trip? The roads must be improved and the advertising, must be on the first place of improvement. nothing to do with your company. just to pass over to the proper offices.

What would you add to your trip? nothing, just Thank You!!

Would you recommend our company to your friends? Definitely we'll recommend your company to our families and friends. We also, will  like to book our future trip to Georgia with Arara.

Dear Liana,

I’d like to let you know how pleased I was with my recent tour. I was impressed by the service and arrangements. Parandzem was an excellent guide, full of information and anecdotes about Armenia andI have learned a lot about the country, it’s history and its people. I am now going through my photos and trying to put them in order. The accommodation was comfortable and the places chosen to eat were interesting. Arshak was a good driver and I always felt safe with his driving.
All in all I had a wonderful time and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Arara Tours as a company and Armenia as a fascinating place to visit. As I mentioned when I visited you, I would be interested in your trips to Iran, so if you could pass on my details, I’d be grateful. Once again, thank you to Yourself, Parandzem and Arshak for a memorable holiday in Armenia.

The owner and manager of "Ornitour",

This has been the first birding tour I arranged in the southeasternmost tip of the Western Palearctic, where some of the most sought after birds of WP live and breed.

Well, birds are not at all as monuments and churches (some finest example of which we saw as well during this marvelous trip), and their sightings are never guaranteed. But the fabulous mix of our guide Vasil’s experience and knowledge about the country ornithofauna (but not only: for any question about reptiles, mammals, amphibians, insects, plants and flowers we got from Vasil a prompt and exhaustive answer) and the perfect organization of Arara Tours, our ground tour operator, led to an amazingly successful adventure, both from the naturalistic side of the tour and the services provided.

Hotels were carefully chosen according to their level and convenience for closeness to the main birding areas (the latter a very important aspect in a birding tour), all the people working there proved to be friendly and helpful, food was excellent.

Our driver did a great job (driving a van full of birders screaming to the appearance of this and that bird, asking to stop for a photo and for an observation is not an easy task!) and, again, Vasil was absolutely excellent. I recommend Arara Tours for any birding (and not only) tour in the fantastic land of Armenia, which I’ll sure visit again next year.