reputable tour operators for Sri Lanka?

Johndubs414

Hi, I'm going to Sri Lanka later this year (November) with my girlfriend and am looking around for packages.
Shortlist is 3 at the moment:
1) Kuoni
2) Travel Sri Lanka
3) Q Holidays (closest to where I live)

My question basically is whether anyone has used any of the above, and what they were like; i.e. would you use them again?

Thanks

John

Incapuppy

The first time I travelled to Sri Lanka was on a package tour/stay with Kuoni and they were excellent, I could not recommend them highly enough and they were extremely competitively priced.

It all depends what you are looking for, I would not visit Sri Lanka simply for a beach stay but if that is all you want, your cheapest option for an AI holiday would probably be Mercury Direct (although they do offer tours of various lengths to combine with this)

If you fancy a tour then I suggest you check out Red Dot Tours who are highly praised on Trip Advisor and will make a bespoke intinerary for you (not as expensive as you might think)

Johndubs414

Thanks, I'll give red dot a try.

Do you know of anyone here that has experience of the other two?
Would be nice to have a beach element, but would like to explore to see what it's all about.

Incapuppy

If you enter the Tour Operators names on the search facility on the Trip Advisor Sri Lanka forums then you may find details of people's experiences with them on there.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g293961-Sri_Lanka-Vacations.html

DSoares

Hi John,

Why don't you give the individual tour operators you've listed a call?

See how they speak to you on the phone - decide if you would be happy to deal with them.
If Q Holidays is closest to you, why don't you pop in to them and see if you feel you can trust them?

I've used Q Holidays in the past as have friends of mine. They do bespoke deals too, but you need to give them a ring to tell them what you want.

From the below
http://www.qholidays.co.uk/destination.asp?dID=2&ddID=24
It seems that they mainly cater for the beach aspect, so that might not appeal to you if you want to focus more on the cultural aspect.

So to summarise a rambling response I would agree with Incapuppy - Go on lonely planet, etc, decide what you want to see in the country, then choose a tour operator that can satisfy your requirements.

Johndubs414

Thanks @incapuppy and @DSoares for taking the time to give advice - much appreciated.

I'm going to go on Tripadvisor later (thanks for link) and Lonely planet and be a bit more organised.

If anyone else has something to say, please do!

jcorbygas

We used Trailfinders to do our holiday which included Sri Lanka.
They did a tour called the Southern Swing which was excellent and used very good hotels. The price was competitive.
I have used Boutique Sri Lanka as well so that is another for you to try.

Incapuppy

Johndubs414 wrote: »

If anyone else has something to say, please do!

OK then!

It really is the most fabulous country, there is so much to see and do that I hope you end up falling in love with the place just like I did.

Incapuppy

Oh, and please bear in mind that although distances don't look huge (and in fact, they aren't) because of the quality of most of the roads it will take you an absolute age to get anywhere.

It will of course depend on your interests but for a first visit I don't think you can go far wrong with a tour of the Cultural Triangle followed by a beach stay. It is better (and cheaper) to do the touring bit in one go first rather than try to arrange long, tiring tours from the W/SW beach resorts.

Johndubs414

Thanks Incapuppy!
Lots of culture, food and a little bit of beach for us.

stratford_2

Or, as another suggestion, you could do what we're doing this summer and do a tour with one of the adventure companies (e.g. exodus, explore, intrepid - they have various lengths of itineraries) and then a week or so of beach/independent travel. Obviously tweak this to your budget /time.

Some of these tour companies will offer group flight packages (where they've blocked a number of seats) or you could decide what flights you want yourself and then get Trailfinders or similar to package the tour and flights together which is what we did.