NORD DMC

Norway and Sweden are both fabulous travel destinations and the trip we planned with Julia's assistance was absolutely wonderful! Despite having a great time in both countries, I regret that, aside from Julia, who was a delight to work with, our experience with Kimkim was less than positive. At times it was extremely frustrating, not to mention that the service you provide is quite expensive and more time-consuming than if we had booked the entire vacation on our own.

First and foremost, I disagree with your business philosophy. Julia was wonderful. I gave her clear cut direction regarding the vacation experience I wanted, and she provided me with guidance and advice as to how my expectations could easily be achieved. Based on how well we worked together, I asked her to give me a quote, which she did. The price was high, much higher than I expected. I then took the time to price the trip myself, and discovered that Kimkim's mark-up was approximately 20-25% higher than if I booked everything on my own. Yet, I wanted to work with Julia. I felt she put time and effort into planning our vacation. I wanted her to get some remuneration, so I asked her to provide a quote, just for the transfers and tours, to which she agreed.

Even though it was still high, I accepted the revised quote because I wanted Julia to get credit for the booking. Then after paying a non-refundable deposit, Julia told me that she only worked as a travel planner. Since the planning process was now complete, one of her colleagues , a woman named Fenne, was now in charge of booking our trip. After a brief introduction, I never heard from Fenne again.

Five months later a new person, Jacob, pops up in the chat. He told me he was taking over for Fenne. Frankly, at this time I was somewhat worried that over five months had elapsed since my last conversation with Julia, and I had yet to hear from anyone at Kimkim confirming that our tours and transfers had been booked. I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to obtain the tour guides we previously had requested from Julia, despite having paid a deposit months earlier. Unfortunately, this delay created some problems. In both Oslo and Stockholm, the most knowledgeable and professional tour guides had already been booked.

In Oslo, Jacob booked a private guide for us. Her name was Ana Maria. Abby and I have visited more than 60 countries in the world. Never have we ever experienced a guide who was so incompetent. First of all, we never asked for a private guide. A group tour would have been fine. Secondly, Ana Maria was not Norwegian. She was an unemployed free-lance publisher from Columbia, South America who had lived in Norway for less than two years; only because her husband got a job in Oslo.

Our tour documents said we should meet Ana Maria at Jembanetorget, but we couldn’t find her phone number on the voucher. Jembanetorget is a main square in Oslo with lots of people milling around. Another tour guide was standing at the tiger statue holding a sign up for a walking tour, but our name wasn’t on his list. He phoned Oslo Walking tours on our behalf and was told that the meeting place was Oslo’s National Theater. Since we didn’t have time to walk there, he was kind of enough to ask us to join his tour, which we did. Ten minutes into the tour, my phone rang. It was Ana Maria calling to find out where we were. As things turned out, she had been at Jembanetorget all along, but she didn’t carry a sign with our name on it, so we could find her. BIG MISTAKE! We finally connected at the Oslo Opera House.

While Ana Maria is a lovely lady, she was the worst tour guide I ever had. She had no plan regarding what we should see, nor did she have any experience other than referring to a guidebook and then reciting what she had read, back to us. Fortunately, we were able to see the Opera House as well as Oslo’s new library right next door, but nothing else. As our travel agent, Kimkim made absolutely no effort to use tour guides with five-star reviews from other travelers. They simply subcontracted all of our tours to Nord DMC or to some other some other Destination Management company.

We also never requested a private tour guide in Oslo, especially a guide as inexperienced as Ana Maria. In our case, a group tour would have been far preferable. I blame this solely on Kimkim, as we were traveling during the peak season, and Kimkim waited five months before starting the booking process. Our tour guide in Stockholm, who also was booked through Nord DMC, was equally incompetent. I believe his name was Daniel, but I’m not sure.

There were two reasons for my dissatisfaction with the Stockholm guide. First and foremost, he was not as prepared nor was he as thorough as other tour guides who we observed walking a group of tourists through the Old City to the same sites. Other guides spent 2-3 times longer at each site than our guide and the information he dispensed was superficial at best. The other guides also provided their visitors with an audio headset to block out street noise so visitors, who were not standing right next to them, could hear every word they had to say. Our guide also seemed to be more interested in talking about us, who we were and where we came from, as opposed to engaging in an in-depth conversation regarding the history of Sweden and Stockholm in particular.

Unlike Visby and Bergen where we did have excellent guides, our guides in both Oslo and Stockholm were a total disappointment. Visby, on the other hand, was fantastic! But, I think this may have been a stroke of luck! Our guide’s name was Ronny Larsson, a retired Swedish Army Colonel, who commanded the last regiment on Gotland Island, before it was disbanded in 2005. We couldn’t have asked for a better guide. Not only was Ronny "au currant" on foreign affairs and Sweden’s current role in NATO, he also was a fountain of information about the historic role of the Hanseatic League during the medieval period, when Gotland’s many churches were being constructed. We had a great time with Ronny during the two days we spent together touring Visby as well as the surrounding north island vicinity.

However, the reason I say Ronny was a “stroke of luck” is I don’t think Kimkim had anything to do with assigning him to us. The reason I say this is according to Kimkim’s trip plan and tour documentation, Gunilla Laustrøm was assigned as our guide for both tours. Ronny Larsson was a last-minute substitution. We just lucked out!

While overall, we had a wonderful experience touring Scandinavia, I can’t really say that our experience with Kimkim measured up. At the beginning of my review, I said that I disagreed with your business philosophy, namely, having a person other than the trip planner with whom you were used to working, book our tours. The booking person, in our case Jacob, had no idea as to our likes, dislikes and travel interests. He simply dumped our tour requests over to a Destination Management Company, Nord DMC, and let a third party do the heavy lifting. Then Nord DMC selected various tour operators located in each city visited to assign our guides. (i.e. Oslo - Fjord Tours, Oslo Walking tours; Balestrand – Glacier Tours; Bergen – I Love Bergen Walking Tours; Visby – Gotland Guide Service; Stockholm – Tours of Stockholm)

I was under the impression that Kimkim would book our guides directly, based on the information I previously had given to Julia. Obviously, this was not the case. For this reason, I cannot give Kimkim a five-star review. Aside from the information Julia provided while we were planning our trip, I don’t see any added benefit to using Kimkim as a travel agent. I also suspect that Julia Mattos is actually an employee of Nord DMC, and not Kimkim. Julia lives in Kristiansand, a city in southern Norway where Nord DMC has their home office. However, this could just be a coincidence.

Kimkim is also not the first time Abby, and I have used an online travel agent. Last year we booked a 4-week safari vacation, visiting three countries in Africa: Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. The agency we used was “go2africa”, one of Africa’s leading safari destination companies. Our travel arrangements were extremely complex, involving multiple countries, hotels, plus internal flights between six different safari camps using scheduled plus non-scheduled private airlines where we were the only passengers. Our entire vacation was booked electronically, and all services were personally handled by “go2africa” employees. Nothing was subcontracted as is the case with Kimkim. Similar to our Scandinavian trip, this also was an unescorted private tour. I think Kimkim could learn a lot from them.

Sincerely,

Jim Brown and Abby Everson

Activity Reviews

Stockholm Archipelago Tour with Guide

Stockholm

The scenery was gorgeous. I was under the impression that lunch was included when we booked this tour. Other passengers had lunch. We didn't. Big disappointment! I thought we paid for lunch.

Quality of Experience

Transport

We booked this because it was a luncheon cruise. Somehow Kimkim dropped the ball regarding this. That's a problem when you have someone other than a travel planner book your itinerary.

Walking Tour Stockholm

Stockholm

Our tour guide was not very knowledgeable regarding the sites we visited.

Quality of Experience

Provide headsets to all participants

Welcome to Visby

Visby

Excellent transfer. Our driver was a retired Olympic athlete.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Day Tour of Gotland

Visby

Ronny Larsson was our guide.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Walking Tour of Visby

Visby

Ronny Larsson was one of the best guides we have ever had.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Past & Present City Walk

Bergen

Excellent tour guide but too many people were booked on the tour. Future tours should be limited to 15 passengers, maximum. As a tour guide we had in Amsterdam once said, "any tour over 15 people is not a tour; it's a parade. Headsets should also be provided, so you can enjoy the experience without being immediately next to the guide.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

The tour guides knowledge, what I could hear of it.

Fjærlandsfjord Cruise & Bøyabreen Glacier Visit

Balestrand

This was an excellent tour but should be expanded to a full-day program. We didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore the Glacier Museum and also see the film.

Quality of Experience

You don't get to see a glacier in most parts of the world. However, you need a full day to really make this tour worthwhile.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide was more of an escort than a knowledgeable guide.

Transport

The boat to the glacier could have more amenities.

Grand Tour and Fjord Cruise

Oslo

Our tour guide was excellent. We especially enjoyed our stops at both the Fram museum as well as the Norsk Folk Museum. However, the downside was traveling on a bus with a large group of cruise passengers having so many people on the bus, not only slowed things down, it made it impossible to hear the tour guide where we did stop unless we stood right next to her which was not always possible. Vigeland Park is a perfect example. Our guide had lots of interesting information to convey, but because of the size of the group, most of the time we couldn't hear her. Knowing our interests, Kimkim should have recommended we take a private tour instead of booking us on a bus tour where the majority of passengers were part of a cruise shore excursion. We also lost half an hour picking up passengers at the port of Oslo. The fjord cruise portion of the tour was a complete waste of time. A recorded explanation of all the sites we passed was not what we expected. This was a big disappointment compared to the Archipelago Cruise we took in Stockholm.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Knowledgeable and interesting guide. With a group this large, headsets should have been provided.

Transport

Get rid of the cruise passengers. Charge more and use a small van. Delete the fjord cruise and spend more time at the Folk Museum as well as the Fram museum.

Essential Oslo Walking Tour

Oslo

Ana Maria, our so-called private tour guide which we never requested was the most unknowledgeable guide I have ever experienced. (see my general write up for more detailed information.

Quality of Experience

Our Walking Tour Guide was a complete waste of time.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Ana Maria, our guide, added absolutely nothing to our experience in Oslo.