If you are located in central Europe and are surfing the internet to find a travel, if the name Cedok comes up in your search - my advice for you is to move on to the next alternative as fast as possible. This company provides the lowest standards of travelling I have ever experienced and should concentrate on things which suits them better, like animal transports or transporting prisoners to Guantanamo bay.
Me and my wife are now sitting on the bus on our way back from the French Riviera, and you heard me right - an exotic province in the south of France which is famous because of great food, fancy shops, perfumes and lovely weather. Unfortenately my wife chose this travel agency from hell, so we saw the most of it from the bus window - or was so knackered that we didnt have the chance to enjoy it.
My bet is that the person who organize the journeys for Cedok has hardly been outside the office, and do not even know how to spell the word holiday. Our journey started in Prague, and the person whom my wife spoke with did not inform her that we could have taken the metro one stop to catch the bus - something that resulted in us waking up an hour earlier than we needed to take it from the central station.
It was just a sign of what to expect as we moved on south, having 2 hours in Verona - doing what? Sightseeing a city for 2 hours is a joke, and we stressed back to the bus were we continued to Monaco arriving 4.30 in the morning. You might understand how much it was to do in this lovely town arriving this early, so I ended up passing out on a small beach for some few hours before we stressed to the next location, Antibes.
Here we got another 2 hours which we spent in the town getting some refreshments before we moved on to something which hardly can be defined as a hotel. It looked more like a cabin in a train, and I guess the bathroom in a spacecraft is more comfortable. The food on the restaurant, which was prepaid, was as far from French food as you can get and taking into account how tired we were from the journey and the stress from the first day - I could easily have slept standing.
Everything on the journey was in a program, so we had to wake up early on as obedient boyscouts to enter the bus before heading to Marseille the second day. A massive city were we got some few hours, and since I am an experienced traveller we chose to get out of the program and explore it on our own. However, due to the thight schedule they had made we had to meet up in the afternoon to stress on to the next destination which was St. Tropez. A beautiful little city overcrowded by tourists were we got another 2 hours before we had to move on to our hotel, that was upgraded from 1 star the first night into a 2 star B&B.
We were so knackered that we passed out 10 o'clock after a good meal on the restaurant, but it is not easy to enjoy anything when you are dragged arund as stressed animals. Third day was the same, they stressed us up in the morning and we had another 2 hours in the bus before arriving in Cannes. Now we had starting becomming exhausted, and the poor tourguide had just been watching the food the night earlier - before she left the table going to sleep.
We got some few hours in Cannes, and got the chance to enjoy the marketplace and the beach before we had to move on again since none of the hotels we had was near to any of the places we visited. The company from hell, Cedok, obviously just wanted to rip of their clients sitting back with a maximum profit. You know when you travel it is alright to have the hotel near by in case you want a little rest, or having a shower until the night comes. However, this was not in included in this animal transport - so when the evening came we had to get in to the bus for a couple of hours drive before we could have our evening meal and pass out after.
The last day was not different, up in the morning like in a millitary camp - stressing for a guided tour on a perfume factory? I dont know about you, but I am not receptable for this kind of information in general - and especially
not 9 o'clock in the morning. After 1 hour with useless info - we stressed our way towards Nice, which is a lovely city in France. However, you do not have energy to explore it properly unless you are a top trained athlete, or a very young person who recover quickly from this kind of work outs.
We used most of the day exploring the old town waiting for the bus to be prepared for us to get back to Prague. To be honest with you it has been a hell of a journey that could have caused a divorce if it was me who came up with this idea to explore one of the most exotic areas in Europe. At least I am a patient husband who cant blame my lovely wife for being inexperienced when she choose, but if is she come home with more insane surprises - I will.
Conclusion:
As I am from Norway it might be that I have different standards in life than this poor people who grew up behind the ironcurtain. On the other hand, Cedok - the travelling company from hell might be the oldest in Czech Republic, but this people should be happy that communism failed and there are competitors that understand that we live in 2018 and provide better travels than this. This journey, despite the fact that the French Riviera is an exotic area, sails up to be on top of my worst journeys ever. Keep in mind that I have visited more than 50 countries and 500 cities, so I can speak from experience - and the travelling agency from hell is the best and only expression that comes to my mind when I think about Cedok. My advice for you, choose anything else - you will thank me by doing it.
We were staying in Geneva for a two or three weeks and we eventually took a sightseeing bus to the French alps one day. It was also horrible.
We had been travelling a bit forth and back to CERN, and we also relocated to a hotel on the French side of the border - crossing the border between France and Switzerland was no problem, it could be done by feet, by bike, by a regular city bus - there were never any checks of passports. But of course, this tourist bus was checked. The driver specifically asked every passenger joining: "do you have your passport with you?" and still we got stuck on the border with France for one hour because one of the passengers was without a passport.
Arriving to the destination at 14:00 and then having to leave for the return at 16:00 ... aaaargh ... that's so pointless! We took a cable car up in the mountains ... and arrived indoors in a building with lots of windows. I'm a hiker, I want to get out, walk around, enjoy the fresh air ... but as soon as I tried leaving the building my wife was yelling after me: "STOP! We don't have time for that!"
We also did join a sighseeing bus in Xi'an. I had messed it up a bit, we got surprised by heavy rain, checked the forecast, "where in China will there be no rain tomorrow? Xi'an, excellent, let's go there and have a look at the terracotta warriors!". I went to the hotel reception and got them to order tickets for us. Leave at four, arrive at nine, that sounded great. Only, at eight thirty in the morning we were still in the middle of the country side. The train was arriving at 21:00, not 09:00! So in the end we had quite short time in Xi'an, and we decided to join for a sightseeing trip to spend the time more efficiently. Right. We got onto the bus, and the first stop was a souvenir shop, we spent like more than an hour there. One thing though, we took the sighseeing together with some really old people from Australia. After two weeks on our own in China, it was such a wonderful experience to have some western people to talk with!
True, I have done camino de santiago 6 times - walked 3500 km, and love to walk myself. The issue with this journey was that they could have organized it different. One hotel is more than enough, and those who wants to go sightseeing can do it on free will. This was a horrible experience.
Yes. But my point is, two hours for sightseeing and all the stress to get back to the bus in time is usually not the best way to enjoy a vacation.
Defo mate, incredible 😂have no words for it
Your level lowered and you are now a Red Fish!