Nordic Adventure for Outdoor Lovers - 5 Days

Norway | Apr 10 - Apr 14, 2019

Overall really solid job with the trip planning and execution from the KimKim team and happy with their service - I would recommend it to others. (I worked with Andre and Ingrid.) I booked on short notice and they were able to turnaround a fun, cost-effective, well-organized trip built around the input I provided (interests, timeframe, preferences, etc.) Pre-trip communication was timely and thorough, they were quick to adapt activities based on seasonanilty and want made sense with thoughtful recommednations. Covered a ton of ground and saw a wonderful mix of natural and urban sites and activities in a Wednesday to Sunday window.

Though not significant enough to dock the ratings relative to all the wonderful things provided with the trip, the criticism I'll highlight is to provide more detail around some of the transportation for future trips with the below examples in mind for mine that were pain points:

1) "At 17:00 the transport to Aurland will pick you up from the Flam station (same place you arrived by train)": Didn't have any detail around which company and/or individual this was, any contacts for them, or what I should be looking for which would have been helpful. Eventually asked around and was able to find the cab driver that had been booked by asking various people in the train station lot if they were there for a , but we were both waiting for each other for awhile and eventually asked if he was there for a pick-up.

2) "You'll catch the five-hour ferry to Bergen through the stunning Sognefjord, arriving to the city in the evening." Ticket had a company name [Norled] and route cities listed, but no clear instructions on where to pick up the ferry in a city with extensive feasible port locations. (Booking company [Norled] was closed on the weekends for the departure day and no contacts were available here.) This was a stressful scramble when asking a dozen locals (including the hotel) were unable to help direct me to where I'd need to be to board the ferry based on the information provided. Ended up walking along a dangerous one-way road with my luggage before eventually hitch-hiking with a local that was more familiar with the ferry system and just making the ferry in time because of it. Situation was panicked and making my flight home would have been difficult with few alternatives if I hadn't gotten lucky finding a friendly local here to help me out in a significant way. Reached out to KimKim here, they weren't available immediately when the need was urgent, but they did eventually get back to me in a pretty quick turnaround that would have been otherwise fully acceptable had it not been an immediate need.

Otherwise, found the activities to be great, accomodations reasonable (and close to transportation), and trip thoughtfully planned/enjoyable at a solid rate. Enjoyed my time in Norway with a lot of special experiences that would be difficult to find without KimKim's service. The reps were knowledgable, kind, and thoughtful and would be a returning user after my first experience with them.