CK41 Tours

Amazing trip! Bella and her team were all wonderful and so easy to work with. All the local specialist were great to be around and made the trip enjoyable. Would definitely visit again with Bella and her team. Fulfilled a destination on the bucket list and made fantastic memories for our 20th wedding anniversary.❤️❤️❤️

Everything worked out well and we got to custom our experience to what we wanted to spend time more on.

I would say that the planning for Phuket was the least successful because traffic from the landing day was not taken into account which changed the first day Itenerary. The island hopping was also not anticipated to fill the whole day. If we knew, would have been fine skipping this. The tour guide did amazing with all the changes though!

Bangkok tour guide lady was exceptional! She was very accommodating and took all of our wants and really catered to how we want to spend time on.

I was a little hesitant to use Kimkim because I hadn't heard of it and couldn't quite tell even what it was. First, I want to assure anyone reading this that it is a totally legit site/service! I think people from different agencies can sign up on the platform, and they receive the benefit of Kimkim marketing and receive inquiries from the Kimkim site. Meaning, our agent was not "from" Kimkim but rather used their platform. This is not a bad thing! We got a local agent but with a really good communication platform and app.

For the actual trip planning, we first thought we would use Kimkim for our entire trip, but I ended up wanting more direct say over our flights and hotels. So I planned those myself. But even after I did that, Bella asked if she could still help to plan our trip. She was mostly responsive (delays over the weekend and of course due to time zone), and we had our final plans a number of days in advance (maybe a bit late for anxious planners, but I am not so that was fine for us).

As for the actual activities:

Pickups/dropoffs: They were hit or miss. It was a little tough finding people at the airports, and there was some waiting involved. (Find them, wait around, be walked to a door, wait for the van.) In my other trips, a person met us coming out of security and walked us straight to the vehicle. BKK is a much larger airport, but there were even some delays in Phuket (where the transportation service went to the international terminal instead of the domestic terminal, even though we had arrived from Bangkok). The vehicles were also hit or miss -- some nice and new, other older ones and one even with some cobwebs around the curtains. I liked that we generally had the same drivers each day so we could spot them and vice versa. I'd give a 3/5 for transportation.

Longtail Boat Canal Tour: This was fun, a nice way to see different parts of the city. We stopped at a cute market and got to see some sights from the water. Our boat was fine, and we enjoyed that we had a private boat so we could come and go as we liked. 5/5

Midnight Tuk-Tuk Food Tour (Bangkok): We loved this! Ice the guide was amazing - funny and informative. We covered a lot of ground, ate some delicious food, and got to see Bangkok in a different way than we had before. Highly recommend! 5/5

Half-Day Temple Tour: It was very hot this day, and we with our kids wanted to kind of speed it along. Our tour guide did not read the room very well. We kept asking him to go faster or leave certain sites earlier, but he kept on talking. SO much. Even in the van. This made the tour a little frustrating, as we wanted a more abbreviated version given the heat and our personal travel preferences. But we did see some nice sites, so we were glad for that. 3/5

Island hopper boat tour: We have done similar trips where we have a private boat and visit different locations in a number of different countries. We visited the Khai islands because we didn't want to travel too far from Phuket. I'm honestly not sure I would recommend this for travelers. We only got out of the boat at one of the islands. It was pretty but very commercial. The crew led us to their favorite vendors, and we did end up having a nice relaxing time. But I wouldn't call these islands "must see." The snorkeling is terrible, not even worth trying because there is nothing to see at all. I might have seen 1-2 fish. Also, in our prior trips, the boat itself was part of the fun. You could tan on a ledge, hang out on a swimming mat or tubes attached to the boat, dive, from its side. This boat was for "transportation", not fun. Its only purpose was to drive us around, very industrial and no amenities at all on or with the boat. (Life jackets and snorkels/masks.) We were disappointed. We did love the lunch on a floating dock, and the crew was quite good. Funny and engaging. But there was no food and no place to even lay outside on the boat. 3/5.

General: It was easy to work with Kimkim. I did really like their app and the convenience of having everything in one place. Bella communicated well with us and reminded us for things like travel documents. We had local contacts everyplace we went, so we felt well connect and knew whom to contact if we needed anything. I would probably use them again, but I would be more specific about what we wanted, to ensure that the services met our expectations in real life.