We are now at the start of August 2013 and it is time to start talking seriously with our “India Specialist” who has been assigned to us. I start off by sending a copy of what we are thinking might be a possible itinerary and that resulted in a lengthy phone call to discuss the itinerary, and also to let us know that due to the complexity of the tour we now have two India Specialists looking after us – one for the north and one for the south. It later transpires that this is one of the biggest tours of India that they have arranged – like to give people a challenge!
A few suggestions are made on ways to improve the itinerary, basically to make the travelling easier between the various places that we want to visit – this is where “local knowledge” comes into play, and what we are paying them for. I have to say that there was no attempt at “upselling” for this trip and the additions that ended up being included were at our instigation.
Anyway a few days later I get an email with the detailed itinerary attached – all 74 pages of it! This was
followed a couple of days later by a printed copy – still cannot beat having a “proper” bound paper copy in your hands. We were extremely impressed with this as we felt that it was about 90% right for what we had in mind and a couple of weeks later after bouncing it backwards and forwards with emails and conference calls we arrived at the final version – and the final cost (ouch!)