Tour Company from Hell: Magado Travel

Avoid like the plague and you%26#39;ll have a happier trip.

DO NOT USE this tour company, travel agent DO NOT TO USE: Magado Travel

We contacted a concierge at the Tharabar Gate hotel in Bagen and this concierge (without letting us know) referred us out to their favorite travel agency. The prices for everything kept changing, including the room rates, car tours daily after we landed we were there and even after we paid and a contract was signed. They made a huge error in the room rate (40% difference) and expected us to pay the difference in cash. They are limited in experience and lack courtesy and professionalism. They will dog you at every step with price changes, car changes (worse car to worse car). They have little local information and rely on their agents in each of the cities. Worse is because Myanamar 90% accepts cash only, with price changes you are apt to have to skip many activities and adjust. On the cash side, in Mandalay, the Sedona is the only foreign hotel that takes credit cards, and so I would suggest to try and pay all your major bills when you get there with the tour company in credit card. Also Myanmar, U.S. dollars, they don%26#39;t take Thai bahts. The exchange at the hotels have been better than at the vendors. Negotiate negotiate everything and if you ask on one day the driver will be $30.00 another $60.00. Bear in mind, the average teacher makes US$30.00 a month and that%26#39;s middle class. Have fun, go to Bagen, Inle, skip: Mandalay and Yangon.

Tour Company from Hell: Magado Travel

This company has been famous in this Myanmar tourism industry with many complaints from other suppliers such as air lines and hotels too. Like common criminals, they have many other names (some may be fake or black-listed) for differnet purposes: WWW Media or Win Win War Media (www.www.com.mm), DPS (www.dpsmaps.com), and Amigo Tours (www.myanmartravel.info). For more information and complaints about this unreputed tour company, please contact www.tourismmyanmar.org or www.umtanet.com.

Tour Company from Hell: Magado Travel

Yes, I heard that a few years ago, this Agent was like that.

But we used this agency for visa service and hotel arrangement 3 months ago and they did excellence job.

I think they have new, efficient staff and next time you should contact Ms. Aye as she gave excellent service for our trip.

Inle and Bagan trips gave us unforgetable experiencesssss

A teacher earns 30 bucks a month in Myanmar,and she is considered middle class.With what knowledge of Myanmar you are saying so.It is ridiculous.Even a trishaw driver makes at least 4 bucks a day and he is

considered a poorest man in Myanmar.

I don`t care what bad experiences you had with that tour company.But,please,don`t insult the country and its people.

Hi sweetkaty,

you should not said like this to our country.

Most of the tourists like this country for good services ,beautifull landscape,wounderful monuments and friendly and smilling people.

Mandalay is one of the famous city in southeast asia for their economic and the last kingdom of Myanmar so many intreasting thing to see means colourfull city and famous for its culture and Buddhism teaching centre too.

Yangon is auspirous city for golden stupa and 20 th century buildings,one of the famous city in Myanmar and capital ,too.

Most of the tours from Sanfrancisco are really like this city and they love people ,are sampathatic,kindness to this people not like you.

I%26#39;m sure you have had some mental problem or stress for family,may be you are lonely diease so you looked (- ) view to other people .

So you should not be go to any other places because you are problem lady.

showzo

It may not surprice anyone reading this that sweetkaty doesn%26#39;t like Paris either:

The Hyatt Madeleine reception is one of the rudest - consistently. I needed to be in town and wanted to collect my Hyatt points. Went there 6 years ago, was awful, vowed never to return due to the rudeness of the reception process, the constant banging by the housekeeper (no compassion for jet laggers) that began at 8:30am on forward daily. Returned last week en route back from skiing at Alp D%26#39;Huile and Christine Richard, was the receptionist and told us straight out that we had our rate quoted wrong and there was no upgrade (despite being assured that when we booked the room).

I%26#39;m looking forward to reading who upset her on her recent trip to Tibet... She does get around you know!

Having poked fun at sweetkaty.... I would like to say that getting good hotels with nice people and finding good guides/drivers can most certainly make a whole lot of difference.. as can doing some reading before we make these choices... no point complaining after the vacation is ruined. I don%26#39;t think we should insult the people of Myanmar... on the grounds of us making bad and uninformed decisions.

My experience is more recent, so maybe things have changed. Twice Magado travel has handled my visa on arrival as well as hotel reservations and in- country airlines. My experience was exceptional. They were as courteous and helpful as any agency I have used, by the way I make at least 6 foreign trips a year to Asia or Europe. So please do give Magado a try, they are very good.

All,

I don%26#39;t think that you can say that Sweetkaty is ';insulting Myanmar';. After all, she does encourage us to visit the country at the end of her post. She simply had a bad experience with a travel agency and I appreciate her telling me about it, as it will help me deal with a situation like this if it comes up during my visit.

The great thing about TripAdvisor is that you get both sides of the story: the good and the bad. As users of TripAdvisor, we should not insult each other%26#39;s opinions or belittle each other%26#39;s experiences. We also should try not to take it personally if someone has a bad experience on our home turf (for goodness sakes, I live in Boston, and I have bad experiences all the time! Do I really think that it%26#39;s not the same for a tourist?) I hope that Sweetkaty continues to post her experiences, good and bad, just as we all do.

I have never used Magado Travel, but an Australian friend of mine used them about 2 years ago and was very, very happy with the service.

As for skipping Yangon and Mandalay, that%26#39;s nonsense. The only reason to not go to Mandalay is if you don%26#39;t have many days to spend in Myanmar. For example, if you are only going over for a week or 10 days, then Mandalay should not be a priority. But some parts of the city, and especially the surrounding towns (Mingun, Amarapura, Sagaing, Paleik) are well worth seeing. You need at least 3-4 days to properly see the Mandalay area, otherwise, I don%26#39;t think it%26#39;s worth trying to do a rush tour.

And Yangon is a MUST! It%26#39;s one of the best cities in Asia for just walking the streets and meeting people and absorbing the news sights, sounds ... and smells!

I haved visited to Myanmar with www.myanmartravel.info , It was perfect .Moreover they are a group of tour guides , at the same time they are doing volutarios works helping a lot to the poor who suffered from Nagis Ciclone. Belisima