Kimkim Trip Reviews

Lize did such a good job putting together this custom trip for my husband and I. We particularly loved that we had a private guide (Andrew) in Capetown. It made our experience so personal and unforgettable. We also could not say enough amazing things about the safari lodge where we stayed (Arathusa). I could have stayed there for months! This is the very first time I have ever used a “travel agent” and I was so pleasantly surprised. I did not have to worry about a thing. Lize was great at making sure all transfers, rides, tours, etc were all taken care of. She was even great about checking in on us and being accessible while we were on our trip. Thank you, Lize!!

I feel that this trip most of the attraction is very repeating. Almost the whole of the 15 days we are viewing lakes and mountains. If want to do other activities,wr still have to pay extra, and the tickets are very expensive. Other than that the instructions for our bookings are also very blurred. Some places we are required to make advance booking but we are unaware in the end we have to pay extra inorder to visit the lakes tour. Thus, overall this trip was a very bad experience for me and my family.

Fei was very responsive in communication and provided a great snap shot of the western side of Japan. Going to the Japanese Alps was a great experience! Many itineraries leave this area of the country out in favor of the top cities and I think you miss a lot if you don't go to these areas. We enjoyed our bike ride through the rural areas as well as seeing areas from the Samurai and Edo time.
During our travels Fei checked in to make sure we were doing ok and having a good time. Was nice to know she was still available even after everything was booked.

Hotel Reviews

Kamikochi Lemeiesta Hotel

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

TOKYU STAY Hida-Takayama Musubi no Yu

Takayama

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hyatt House Kanazawa

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Activity Reviews

Half Day Cycling in Takayama

Takayama

We were actually in Hida, which is much smaller and different than Takayama. We got to see a more rural area that is not very touristy and it was a great peek into areas that still do rice and family vegetable farms. In addition we went to a beautiful shrine overlooking the farm land and the mountains in the distance.

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Full Day Shirakawa-go Tour From Kanazawa to Takayama

Kanazawa

I am very glad we got to see the smaller village before going to the larger more touristy Shirakawa-go. The museum part of this village was really good. There was hardly anyone over on that side and it was much more interesting than the main village. Eating at the soba noodle cafe was also good.

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Every service, every activity, every detail was perfectly planned by Bruno. He was highly communicative and helped us choose a great vacation fitted to our timeline, likes, and needs. We were able to visit Split, Hvar, Korcula, and Dubrovnik while we were in Croatia. He recommended wonderful restaurants and accomodations for us that left us never ever needing to worry. The accomodations were top notch, including traveling between them. He scheduled some activities for us that truly made the trip. One of them was a private tour /driver named Goran who took us from Korcula to Ston and then to Dubrovnik. Goran was friendly and quiet a lovely person. He gave us a great history of Croatia and took us to Ston for a oyster fishing boat experience and to walk the walls. In Dubrovnik, we had a private tour guide named Paulina who was also quite lovely. She walked us all over the city and showed us the hidden secrets that I'm sure none of the big tours received. This trip was amazing and it really is all thanks to Bruno. If you are on the fence about booking with Bruno or with the site, please take my advice and do it. 10/10 I will recommend to anyone who wants the trip of a lifetime

Yuri was so helpful and accommodating throughout the entire planning process. I had very specific things that I wanted to do and he was able to help me plan the perfect trip to Spain.

In all fairness, it seemed Stephen, not Sarah, did the planning. Unfortunately we encountered many issues with our itinerary. We were in frequent communication with staff since Stephen was on holiday during the majority of our trip. A few issues included tours ‘not paid for’, car rental issues ( wrong car, no gas in car), insufficient coordination time between tours. The staff worked feverishly to make course corrections but this is not how an expensive trip is coordinated and managed, it created much stress for the 4 people traveling. In addition, we were 2 couples traveling and there was significant disparity in rooms. We consistently had a lower quality and level of room and to date no compensation has been made from the tour company. In fact, all communication since the tour ended have gone unanswered. Very dissatisfied and I would not recommend the local company nor will I use kimkim again, which is quite disappointing since I really thought they had a good business model.

Hotel Reviews

The Glasshouse Hotel

Edinburgh

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Kingshouse Hotel

Glen Coe

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Redwood House Hotel

Greshornish

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Royal Hotel Stornoway

Stornoway, Isle of Lewis,

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The Albannach Suites

Lochinver

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The Royal Highland Hotel

Inverness

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Malmaison Aberdeen

Aberdeen

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Angel's Share Hotel

New Town, Edinburgh

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Activity Reviews

Culloden Battlefield private tour

Inverness

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Cairngorms National Park Wildlife Tour with a Specialist

Scotland

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Dunnottar Castle Tickets

Scotland

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St Andrews Walking Tour of the Old Course

St Andrews

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The Military Tattoo Show

Edinburgh

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Secrets of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile - walking tour with castle tickets

Edinburgh

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Full day from Stornoway - Westside Historical Circle and Uig and Bernera District.

Stornoway

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Wildlife Spotting Boat Tour

Lochinver

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Cruise of Mull, Iona and Staffa Islands

Scotland

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Rhomtrip drivers were excellent and arrived in very clean vehicles. They were on time and very courteous. The gentleman who picked cass and Stacey up on October 5 was delightful and shared much about the city on our travels to the airport.

Madrid wine tour excellent, fun informative. Would definitely recommend.

Prado museum visit and lunch at Botin was incredible. Our tour guide was an absolute delight. Cassie’s art history was extensive and we gained knowledge of Spanish history as well. The experience of the oldest tavern for vermouth and dinning at the oldest restaurant made for incredible memories and storytelling back home.

Local market and cooking class. Excellent chef , easy to understand. You’re of the local market for food most interesting. Amazing recipes and food. Exceptionally clean facility.

Park Guell La Sangrada
Incredible history as told by our guide. A must to visit when in Barcelona.

In terms of hotels
Petit palace Posada Madrid. Liked this hotel best if the three we stayed in. - very clean, best beds and pillows of the three hotels we stayed at. The location was right down in-the walkable city. Excellent stay. Super shower. Excellent hotel breakfasts. Great coffee. There was a food attendant overseeing the breakfast which made for a personal experience.

Hotel Silken Seville was my least favourite hotel due to location. Too far from the downtown area. It is right next to the football stadium if you were to attend a football game. The beds and pillow though clean were not as comfortable as the Petit palace Posada. Coffee not so good. Very large hotel.

Astoria Hotel -Barcelona Good location to the walkable shops. Excellent breakfast. Has a roof top with a small pool. Nice to have a drink and see city lights. Closes at 900pm. Bed/pillows good.

Hotel Reviews

Hotel Astoria

Barcelona

Good location, excellent breakfasts. Super shower. Beds and pillows good. Nice roof top area to have a drink sit in smaller pool or exhort the city lights.

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Hotel Silken Al Andalus Palace

Seville

The beds and pillows not very comfortable. My daughter had to use an antihistamine with in 30 minutes of entering the room. Must have been something in the air. The hotel is large. The hotel is quite a distance from the tourist places to visit.

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The people at the tourist desk were very helpful

Cleanliness & Comfort

Bed and pillows

Petit Palace Posada del Peine

Madrid

Best beds and pillows, so comfortable best I have experienced. . Super location. Amazing hot and cold breakfast. Lovely hotel front desk gentleman named Jon-So helpful. Will definitely stay there again.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Close to the shops and cafes and the plaza

Staff

Jon was so pleasant. So helpful.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Beds and pillows

Activity Reviews

Park Güell & La Sagrada Família Experience

Barcelona

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Local Market Visit & Cooking Class

Barcelona

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Prado Museum & Cultural Walk with Lunch at Botín

Madrid

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Day Trip to Madrid Wineries

Madrid

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Saed is an excellent organizer. We enjoyed his company. Noor UD Din. Great Guide. Very well informed and knows how to keep the group busy. All of the people who stayed with us while in Morroco were excellent. And we will sure to return

I just completed a 6 day tour of Morocco highlights. Hakim was very helpful planning several site visits in Fez, Marrakech, Essaouira, and Casablanca despite my limited time. The riad stays were beautiful and guides knowledgeable. Thanks for all your support.

What an amazing trip and experience. All of the details and transportation were arranged perfectly. My guide (Bhim) and porter (Budha) were very helpful and knowledgeable. I can’t say enough positive things about them. I will definitely use Kim Kim again for my next trek. Thinking about Annapurna Base camp next year! Thanks again to the local representatives for welcoming me to their country. George

Tortuguero was full of great nature, although the heat and lack of fans and air conditioning can be brutal at times. Puerto Viejo/Cocles was our favorite and it was great to see the Caribbean side of Costa Rica; all of the experiences there were fantastic as well. Overall, we enjoyed our honeymoon and hope to make it back to Costa Rica to visit the other side of the coast in the future!

Hotel Reviews

Azania Bungalows

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

The bungalows were a fantastic blend of jungle environment with modern accommodations. The rooms were very spacious and the beds comfortable. There were ceiling fans for each bed as well as mosquito nets, all of which were very much needed. The location was also fantastic, as it was close to several nice beachside restaurants in Cocles. If you wanted to go into Puerto Viejo, its a short taxi or bicycle ride. Breakfast was also good and quite filling

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Laguna Lodge

Tortuguero

The rooms were a good size, but not the most well-kept. The biggest issue is there is only one small fan in the corner of the room pointed at just one of the beds. The room was in desperate need of a couple ceiling fans or an air conditioning unit. The grounds of the property were very beautiful and the staff were all very friendly. The food served was also fairly good, and changed up the menu just enough between days.

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Activity Reviews

Puerto Viejo - Zip lining

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

The zip-lining experience was great and a thrilling way to experience the rainforest! We did wish the guides would have talked a bit more about the nature as we went, but they were still great at making sure everyone was safe and enjoying the zip lines.

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Caribbean Cooking Class

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

The cooking class was a fun, intimate way of experiencing a part of Caribbean food and culture. Glenda was a fantastic host and made the experience special. Overall, it was the right balance of us getting to be involved in some of the steps, while not being stuck doing the more laborious tasks.

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Food

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Snorkeling & Hiking in Cahuita National Park

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

This was one of the better snorkeling experiences I've had as the waters were very calm and Kendall was a fantastic guide. We got to see many different schools of colorful fish and other aquatic life. The hike was a nice short walk through the park where we saw a snake, sloth, and plenty of monkeys!

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Tortuguero National Park - Boating

Tortuguero

The boating tour was a great and relaxing way to see a lot of animals in the park up close. The guide as well as person operating the boat were quite good at spotting animals and making sure everyone on the boat got a chance to see them.

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Tortuguero Village Guided Visit

Tortuguero

The town was very nice and enjoyable to walk through. It wasn't necessarily "guided" as it is mostly 90 minutes of your own time to explore the town

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We are so happy we used KimKim to organize our honeymoon. The trip was wonderful. Everything was organized perfectly. All the excursions were fabulous, the people were so nice and accommodating and it was very well organized. There was no one hiccup. THANK YOU!

Our trip to Japan was fantastic. Fei setup a wonderful trip and we went to a number of different locations which allowed us to take in various aspects of Japan. All of our guides were great, offering us insight to the history of their mystical country.

We had a couple of changes to our itinerary while on our trip and Fei was there to quickly handle them seamlessly. Thanks to Fei and wonderful guides we had a trip of a lifetime.

The whole organisation of the trip was very good. We saw a lot of things in quite a short time which was a bit rushy, especially that the gudies took us to some not incalculated places where you can buy local crafted souvenirs (which are the same quality as in the bazaars but way more expensive).
The guides were highly qualified and interesting. We would like to highlight the tour guide we had on our Nile Cruise 'Ahmed Moussa' for his easy going and friendly behavior while sharing and explaining tons of knowledge and answering all our questions.
Altogether we enjoyed the trip very much but the Hotel in Hurghada was definitely not the right choice for us as it was not that clean in our room. Also it is made for families rather with children which is not too enjoyable for a couple.
We quite regreted a bit that we were planning to go from Aswan to Hurghada by car as it was a very long ride.
We would also like to mention that our Airline lost our suitcase when we first arrived in Egypt and Habiba was very helpful and tried to call them and organise it back to us. Unfortunately the luggage is still missing but we definitely could count on Habibas help!

Hotel Reviews

Gravity hotel & aqua park Hurghada

Hurghada

Altough it is a very nice and huge hotel with beautiful decoration, the rooms are not even close to the ones on their website. The rooms on the ground floor the poorest ones, with not only super basic furniture, but also hygienic problems and canalisation smell. We had to ask several times for for a new room, which was better, but still not as on their website. It is more a quantity then a quality place, which might be a good fit for certain families with children, but not for anyone with higher standards (eventough we didn't expect western standards there)

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The staff is kind and polite but they were short in employees as they almost couldn't handle the people queuing up for questions and check in/out

Cleanliness & Comfort

M.S. Esplanade - Mayfair Cruises

Aswan

Very clean and nice boat. The stuff was super friendly. The pool on the upper deck is amazing but a bit small. A bit strange that you have to pay for the coffee and tea for breakfast. But the buffet was amazingly decorated and with high quality and delicious food!

Authenticity & Character

Probably the best ship on the Nile (according to our guide)

Location

Staff

Very friendly and polite

Cleanliness & Comfort

Steigenberger Pyramids Cairo

Cairo

Nice and clean place, food was ok.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Pyramids are seeable from pool, but a bit far from the airport and rather located in a not so nice neighborhood

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Activity Reviews

Diving Tour in Hurghada

Egypt

It was an amazing experience to discovery scuba diving but also a but scary as the safety instrucion was like a 10 minutes talk in a big group. We also could only dive once because some one of us had ear pain from the pressure change of diving so quickly. Also the communication of when who goes to prepare and dives was missing. But grat boat, beautiful reef, nice food and friendly stuff.

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Tour to High Dam, Philae Temple, and Obelisk

Aswan

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kom Ombo, and edfu Temples

Egypt

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Luxor West Bank

Luxor

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Luxor East Bank

Luxor

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Pyramids and Cairo Sightseeing

Cairo

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Irene was INCREDIBLE. I do not have words to describe how well she planned this trip for us.

Our guides in Tuscany that drove us around were some of the best. We laughed and learned and they kept us safe.

Overall A+++

Our 10 day trip to Italy was vey well planned out by Elena.
All corresponding E mails were answered quickly.
We visited Florence, Venice and Sicily.
Our transportation included, trains, and personal drivers. We arranged our own plane flights.
We were a party of 7, family and friends.
One of our flights was delayed. We texted Elena thru WhatsApp and an alternative driver was there to meet us.
The hotels she choose for us were top notch. All the hotels were centrally located.
Visiting another country is fun but can be stressful. Elena and her team removed the stress which in return let us
have all the fun.
Thank you!

Everything went smoothly. We were thankful to have knowledgeable guides so that we could make the most of our time. Our hotels were great. We would have liked to be better organized for the more complicated transfer to our more remote hotel in Hakone. Wonderful experience in a beautiful country!

Thanks Trang for organising such a memorable trip for us. It was a wonderful and well planned 5 days. Our guide, Mr. Huy was a knowledgeable person who helped a lot in understanding the culture, history and geographical details of vietnam. We loved the hospitality. The hotel rooms were all cosy. Halong Bay Cruise was wonderful.
Huy even helped us to give us ideas to spend our free hours, to fully explore the place. In total I will give a 5/5 and highly recommend Kimkim.

Audrey is an excellent collaborator, planner and overseer throughout the process. She is always available for the glitches that happened during our tour.

I am not as pleased with the accommodations chosen. Particularly the one in Marseille. Because of the unreliability of the flat owner, we had to be moved to another flat that was far, inconvenient in location, and sub-par amenities like no wi-fi and cable TV. We came out spending more in transportation because of its location that was far from the central location of the city.

The food tour by Oriane of Oai not Marseille is a must! So is the one by Laure of Paris A Dream where we discovered the Saint Germain des Pres area.

The cooking experience by Gilles while in Aix de Provence is a highlight of the trip.

Our honeymoon trip experience was unforgettable from beginning to end thanks to the planning efforts of our specialist Lucie. Having been our first time using a professional itinerary company, we were unsure what to expect. Lucie was great at customizing our itinerary based on our wants and budget during the planning stage, and used very good local tour companies and reliable drivers to take us around. It was such a relief not having to worry about every minor detail as she had done the major planning already, and gave lots of good recommendations for things to do with our free time.

Hotel Reviews

Mercure Nice Promenade des Anglais

Nice

Perfectly located hotel right off the Promenade de Anglais. Nice large king bed and room with spacious bathroom and Nespresso machine in room. Lovely waterfront view from 2nd floor.

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Central Hotel

Avignon

Charming hotel on the Main Street in Avignon, our privilege room was on the top floor (elevator access), spacious, and adjacent to a rooftop terrace. Very large bathroom and comfortable amenities.

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Le 9Hotel Opera

Paris

Good overall 3-star hotel in the 9th arr. the major con is the small size, which is probably the norm in Paris at this price point. Anyone over 6 feet height will need to bend to get under the room and bathroom doorway entrance, and cannot stand upright in the shower.

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Activity Review

Gourmet food tour in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Paris

This excursion was surprisingly one of our favorites. Floriane our tour guide with Paris A Dream food your company was so knowledgeable and you could see her enthusiasm for food, wine, and French history. She took us to hidden gems to taste different regional foods we would never have noticed on our own.

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