Customer Feedback

Holidays to Nicaragua arranged by Condor Journeys and Adventures

Instead of displaying only one-sentenced-flattering and useless comments, we decided to publish the whole message of out customers as they wrote it. This page provides you with valuable information about our holidays into Nicaragua as well as about our organisation skills and the feedback is written by people who experienced it during the past years. Our customers being international, comments are published in the native language of the writer.

Alexis from the UK, Volcano Trekking Expedition + beach 12/2004
Hi Gilles, Lenin, Richard,
Great holiday. We loved it. We climbed five active volcanoes, we spent a week on the most beautiful beach we've ever seen in the world where we hatched turtles at midnight and escorted them to the sea, we kayaked and mountain biked all over the place, we met lots of smiling Nicaraguans and we soaked ourselves in the fascinating revolutionary history. I would recommend this holiday to anyone. The Nicaraguans are incredibly hospitable, the country is incredibly safe and Lenin is fun guy. In fact we're even thinking of going back for our honeymoon next year!
So thanks. Now here's our detailed feedback.
1) The programme was too ambitious. For example - it took us 23 hours to get from our home in London to the hotel in Léon. We arrived at 23h00 and yet we were expected to get up at 04h00 the next day to climb Nicaragua's highest volcano. Madness. I accept that I should have seen this coming but Tours Nicaragua should have planned nothing for the first morning and should have planned to go through the itinerary in detail with us on arrival.
2) We asked to go clubbing (dancing) in Managua or wherever. We did do some of this in Léon and it was fun (Granada, by contrast, was a dancing black hole), but Gilles told us that Managua wasn't interesting so we didn't get a chance to try the nightlife. We subsequently discovered from some friends that Managua is in fact quite lively.
3) Late in the day we requested a home stay for part of our holiday as a way to meet some Nicaraguans, reduce the cost of the holiday and improve our Spanish. Gilles came back with the message from Tours Nicaragua that home stays don't really exist in Nicaragua. Not true. We came across quite a few of them. You should include this option in your holidays. Granada would have been the obvious place to do this.
4) We would have prefered to visit the volcanos around Léon as part of a 3-5 day camping trek rather than going backwards and forwards in Flavio's ageing Landcruiser. We did spend one night on Telica which was fun but 3-5 days would have been better. But you'd have to professionalise your operation for this to be a reality. Lenin & Flavio's camping trek was pure improvisation. Fun for us but not everyone would put up with it.
5) You have to be able to provide a four wheel drive vehicle with functioning seatbelts for westerners.
6) Meeting a Nicaraguan family on their small farm and drinking coffee with them at the end of the hike up San Cristobel was the unscheduled highlight of the day. You should try to schedule more of this. Perhaps one night could be spent with such a family? 7) Sandboarding down Telica is a sport waiting to be offered. But you need proper boards, helmets & gloves. We did this in Namibia on the sand dunes with a highly professional outfit. You could learn from them. http://www.alter-action.com/
8) Ometepe Island and Villa Paraiso. I would stop going here. It's a dump. Both the island and the hotel. The volcanoes are beautiful from a distance but always in cloud. Maderas was 7 hours of mud, cloud, rain and pain. There was nothing to see at the top nor at the crater lake. A complete zero. And the hotel was like a 2 star Austrian boarding hostel. The food was awful. The wind was gale force all the time. The beach is fly-infested. And our room backed on to a building site. [ I still consider it as a very nice place when conditions are better. The hotel is not great, but this is the best and very well located ]
The fact that we had $800 stolen from our bag by one of the staff was the straw that broke the camel's back. I would suggest instead hiring a sailboat for the day to go round Ometepe so you get the views but not the misery!
9) The food at Morgan's Rock isn't quite up to the standard of the place itself but it will get better. A new Food & Beverages Manager is starting in February.
Laura might add some other points but I think that's basically it.
So, our perfect 3 week holiday would have been:
3 days in Léon to acclimatise including kayaking, mountainbiking & sandboarding
4 day camping trek in the volcanoes near Léon including crater lake, family farms & coffee producer
1 day sailing trip around Ometepe
6 days homestay in Granada including Spanish lessons, kayaking, a baseball game, Masaya market & mountainbiking
7 days relaxing at Morgan's Rock.
Regards

Glenn- UK, Extension from Costa Rica 12/2004
Hi Gilles
We had a great time in both countries and thankyou for all the effort and connections.
Please convey our thanks to Alexa Delgado in Costa Rica for all the help she gave to us.Also we would like you to tell the people in Nicaragua how excellent our guide for 3 days was. His name was Julio and he was the best guide since Adriana in Chile.
Just a couple of things
The hotel in Leon was not good and there were others available, with all the money we spent to be restricted to one item for dinner and for breakfast was not suitable and the quality of the room after a hard day was poor. Next time please give us the optoin of paying more for more suitable accommodation. [ Effectivelly, there is only one good hotel in Leon : el Convento, in an old convent ]

Jenny - US, Granada, Leon and Cerro Negro Volcano... 05/2004
SERVICES
? The service provided by ORO TRAVEL was first class. Everything was according to the programme and the minibus was in good repair and air-conditioned.
? The guide, Julio, was excellent, we cannot praise him too highly. His English was very good, he was well-informed and interesting and had a great sense of humour, getting on particularly well with Giles, our son. He went out of his way to accommodate us. On the first day, for example, when we said we were getting hungry he immediately organised a lunch stop.
? The driver, David, was also excellent. At all times we felt safe with him.
? The lunches were very basic but Giles told us they were par for the course in Nicaragua.
HOTEL
? We had mixed feelings about the Hotel Alhambra. Giles had a refurbished room which was fine. Our room had not been refurbished. The electrics looked positively dangerous with at least one plug being loose in the walls with the wires showing. One of our bathroom lights did not work and when the hotel tried to change the bulb the whole fitting collapsed. They installed a new light the next day. Our room overlooked a noisy street. We did try to change rooms but the alternative offered had only a high window overlooking an inner courtyard so we did not change. We felt the hotel was not as good as suggested to us. We mentioned the room to Julio who, I think, made a note of the number. I imagine the refurbished rooms are OK. The Gran Francia looked very smart and expensive! We had a lovely meal there.
SIGHTS VISITED
? Volcan Masaya was undoubtedly the highlight and we were pleased it came at the end.
? Las Isletas was very pleasant and relaxing.
? Leon Viejo was fairly interesting but I knew from the guide book that there was nothing much there!
? Granada was quite good.
? Managua does not have much to offer although we were interested to see it. The National Museum seems to have very few exhibits!!
CERRO NEGRO
? On our return to Leon we climbed Cerro Negro using Va Pues Tour. When we reached the rim of the crater the wind was so strong that we did not attempt to walk round it. The guide was very poor. He spoke little English and did little guiding. Giles had been up the previous week with some friends using the same company and although the guide was better they felt he was not safety conscious enough and some of the group had to protest. I imagine this would be a concern for your company if you were thinking of using them. I don’t think I would have run down the ashes in any event as I shall be sixty next week!!
Overall we were extremely pleased with our little tour and found our whole visit fascinating. We were struck with the poverty of the country, even worse than Cuba we thought but the people were lovely, especially the doctors with whom Giles is working. We were privileged to visit some Nicaraguan homes and the health centre where Giles is working. We only saw a small part of the country but feel that, at present, it does not have a lot to offer the average tourist (we only went to visit our son). Presumably the volcanoes are the main attraction.
El Convento is indeed an extraordinary hotel not least because it seems to have more staff than guests!