Now that we have been traveling several times with those student trip organizations, pm2am student trips and Studifahrten, we decided to make a small comparison of them!
We will summarize all the trips we have been to with the companies and tell our opinion about the organizations.
The first trip we made was to the beautiful Amsterdam in the Netherlands! The trip was organized by Studifahrten and the cost was only 30€. We spent only one day there, but it was actually enough :) The organization of the trip went okay. We felt that there were too many breaks during the bus transfer to Amsterdam and we could have traveled there faster without so many stops. Otherwise everything went well except when we were supposed leave from Amsterdam. We were scheduled to leave in the evening around 11 and everybody was there on time waiting for the bus, but the most important thing, the buses, were not there :D We have no idea what was the problem, but we had to wait for them about half an hour in the cold..It wasn't so nice, but otherwise we didn't have any problems with the organizers!
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| Yes, we had fun in Amsterdam! :) |
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| Welcome to Oktoberfest! |
The Zürich trip was again with the pm2am Student Trips, for some reason we preferred this compnany and did all the other trips except the first one with them. The Zürich trip went again with no specific problems.
In all of the trips we have had the same problem and it is that there is too much time reserved for free time. Normally we have free time about 10 hours after a sightseeing tour where we already see all the most important sights. What can you do after that with 10 hours? Of course there is always something more to see and do, but not for 10 hours. With all the trip we could have left back 1-2 hours earlier in the evening. In the Zürich trip was specially seen since the city was not that big and it was really expensive so you really couldn't do much there :D
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| The beautiful Alps in Zûrich! |
With this trip we actually had bigger problems...We were scheduled to arrive back to Köln on Monday morning around 9, on Sunday afternoon we heard that we will not be arriving to Köln in the morning. We were told that we will arrive around noon, which would have been okay, but it turned out that at 13.30 we were still nowhere near Köln. We had a presentation in school at 16.15. so we needed to take a train from Bochum to Köln to make it on time! We were a bit nervous to say the least...:D Luckily we made it but this didn't really leave us with a good image of the company...
Not until today when I (Jenna) received a phone call from the pm2am company telling that we had complained about the Budapest trip...I wasn't sure what to expect :D He told me that as compensation we could participate to their Paris trip this weekend for free or get a 30€ discount on any other trip! This was a big surprise and a very good one. This made us very happy and actually this is the way companies should handle complaining customers :D Big thanks to pm2am to making the effort and offering this for us!
Now a more general opinion about the student trip organizations. The business idea that they have to organize these trips to international student is really great and this is an awesome opportunity for us to see Europe with a student budget!
Even though the idea is very good, we have some improvement ideas for the organizations. There is too much time reserved for free time in the evenings, we could always head back around 8 or 9 pm not at 11 pm. Also for Studifahrten, they could have less breaks during the drive to and from the destination. We think that pm2am is doing well in this aspect, they don't have too much or too long breaks.
Also to look at the images of the organizations. Pm2am is a much more professional company and it actually has professional looking Facebook page and flyers etc. Studifahrten on the other hand is less professional, it feels more like a "family company".
Hopefully this wasn't too heavy to read, for a change not so many pictures :D We have had an amazing time in all of the trips and we have seen so many places in just a few months! Such a good thing that somebody is organizing the trips for us!
Next post will be about our school!
Bis später!
Jenna&Maiju
Well it really depends on the person. I personally explored each and every thing I could think of on the trips and therefore appreciate that they gave us until 11pm to wander around the city. Leaving in the evening would have been too early especially when you arrive there around 11am already.
VastaaPoista