Essence of Mongolia - 7 Days

Customer Reviews

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  Ijechi

  · August 6th, 2023
  We signed up for the 7-day "Essence of Mongolia" tour. Our tour guide, Shuree, and driver, Maga, were absolutely amazing. We appreciated the flexibility of the tour schedule -- the activities were nicely spread out and were not back-to-back -- so we never felt that we had to be constantly rushing from place to place. We also throughly enjoyed our experiences staying with the nomad families. The families were very warm and friendly, and it was nice to see how each family was slightly different from one another (some families were bigger, each family had different animals that they reared, etc). Shuree, our tour guide, was also incredibly attentive to our needs and interests over the course of the tour. For example, I had told her at some point that I liked the history of the Mongol Empire, so she took a lot of time and effort to go through all the exhibits with me when we were at the various museums (and also told me stories about the different Khans during our car rides). There were so many other wonderful examples like this. Overall, my husband and I had an amazing experience. The tour provided us glimpses into different parts of Mongolian history and culture, and really, the "Essence of Mongolia". Our guide and driver were always present and caring, and we always felt welcomed and well taken care of. Thank you, Tour Mongolia!
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  Tour Mongolia commented on this review

  Thank you very much for your feedback, we are happy to hear you thoroughly enjoyed the tour. Wish you all the best from the Tour Mongolia team!
  
  Trip date: July 2023
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  Felicity

  · August 2nd, 2023
  There were many enjoyable aspects of the tour. I loved meeting the families and doing the home stays. Mongolia itself is very beautiful. The driver of the minivan was very professional and careful. I appreciated his efforts to make our ride safe, and keep the car clean. My highlight was the second family we stayed with. She was lovely and tried to speak English with us. The food was also good, and I'm happy they were able to accommodate the other member of the team with her dietary needs. However, I was disappointed by a few things. 1. I was told by the service team that efforts would be made to increase the number of participants on the tour to four. But instead, there were two tours with two participants each. After speaking with the other group, who say they would have been happy to go as a larger group, it felt like we were used to generate more money for the company. 2. Unfortunately, while I liked our guide, I do not think they were serious about guiding us on this trip. They rarely interpreted for us while we were on the home stays and did not take us to do the activities mentioned in the brochure (archery, ankle bones games). Again, when talking to the other group, they received a lot more value from their guide including the walk in the national park, being taken to the source of the hot springs and learning about their significance, and even a trip to the Black Market in Ulaanbaatar. While I'm happy they got such a good experience, I'm sad that my tour-mate and I missed the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of Mongolia. I feel a little exploited and dissatisfied with the experience. If the quality of the tours is not consistent, I find it difficult to recommend the tour, even though many aspects of it were enjoyable.
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  Trip date: July 2023
• ST

  Susanna

  · July 26th, 2023
  Mongolia is a a beautiful country and it was an interesting experience to stay with such warm and welcoming families during the homestays. Our driver was very safe and I am in awe of him as to how he managed to drive our car over muddy tracks and not get stuck! I did, however, write an email to the company to complain about our guide. I was not impressed with her attitude towards her guests. She lacked enthusiasm, interest and it was difficult to get information out of her. She seemed more interested in chatting with the locals than us and more concerned about getting coffee and cigarettes and scrolling through Facebook than making sure we were comfortable of had any questions. I felt her lack of interest and constant distraction actually could have caused safety compromises at times. I gave some examples in the email to the Tour Mongolia company. I feel I would’ve enjoyed this tour, and got a lot more out of it, had our guide been more professional. I was quite disappointed, especially considering the money that I paid. The other guest on my tour also felt the same.
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  Trip date: July 2023
• JJ

  John

  · July 7th, 2023
  The guide and driver were great. Unfortunately, the amount of time driving is significantly higher than what is advertised in the brochure. The first night feast isn’t. There are minimal alternative food options even when at a tourist camp. Two of the locations did not provide an extra bed as previously agreed upon.
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  Trip date: June 2023