Hi There, Thank you for your review! I would like to acknowledge firstly that as you purchased this tour from us we feel totally responsible for the fact you were not happy and any problems you encountered on the day you deem us responsible for.
As a small Day Tour Operator, however, we work very hard to maintain our good reputation and therefore I feel it necessary to explain that as well as a problem with our vehicle, there were other factors at the Port of Portland and Stonehenge which compounded your experience on the day.
On Tuesday 11th, we had 3 coaches at Portland, 2 of our own and one that we had hired in because of the high numbers, a total of 128 passengers.
We experienced a breakdown with one of our vehicles in the morning which meant that your coach was running late. You and your group of 5, as well as many of the other passengers due to travel on that coach, were transferred immediately onto another of our vehicles. 28 passengers were left on the dock awaiting our replacement vehicle which arrived 30 mins later.
Aside from the breakdown, our other two vehicles arrived at Portland at 6.15 am ready for pick up at 7.30am as per our schedule. All of our vehicles and Drivers had been pre-registered with the Portland Port Authority as per security requirements.
On arrival at Portland and since having confirmed numbers with the Port Authority, our coaches were three of 71 coaches/excursions leaving Portland that morning. 50 of these coaches were scheduled by the Disney Magic itself and having spoken to to the Port Authority since, to ascertain why there were such delays, they explained that coaches scheduled by the Ship itself take priority over all of the others. They also acknowledged that this was the largest number of excursions/coaches they had ever encountered for one ship, the previous largest number being 50.
All coaches before being allowed on to the dock, are first brought from the road, into a security area where they are subject to checks. Each of these checks takes up to 20 minutes. Despite our arrival at 6.15 am, all 50 of the Disney Scheduled coaches were allowed through and security checked before ours were allowed through. We had Guides on the other vehicles who were asking the Port Security to let them through, so we could explain to our waiting Passengers why there was a delay, they were not allowed through.
Our Managing Director was on the phone to the Cruise Director who was asked to get a message to our waiting passengers.
Eventually you boarded one of our vehicles, I believe around 8.30am. This delay was not caused by our company.
As a company, we take passengers to Stonehenge (SH) at least 4 times a week. The procedure is to book a slot for the number of passengers we are bringing and then the SH Team can reserve the correct number of Audio Guides and Coach Parking.
On Tuesday 11th of July, we had booked in three coaches at 11.30am and had received booking numbers/confirmation. On arrival at SH at 11.20 am the first two coaches, of which you were passengers were made to wait in 20 minute queues to catch the bus to the Stones. In addition there were no audio headsets available.
I have written to the Guest Relations Manager at SH and asked not only for a refund for our passengers but also for an explanation a to what happened, I await their response.
We sent two experienced guides on the day, believing that passengers would get the Audio Guides at Stonehenge we concentrated our efforts on guiding in and around Salisbury Cathedral.
Clearly the Port Authority and Stonehenge had not experienced numbers this big before! It is a learning curve for us all.
The third coach we had hired in, ironically, was the one that broke down on the way home. We were able to put passengers on to our other vehicles and hired a vehicle in from SH for 16 people to return them to the Port. Everyone arrived back in time, albeit just. Again our MD was in contact with the Cruise Director to keep him/her aware of the situation and timings, at no point were told by the Director that the Ship would leave with out them.
Kamilla's communication with the Driver was to reassure him that things were 'sorted' not asking him to 'sort it' as per you review.
Please do accept our sincere apologies, it is safe to say we have had better days. I hope this goes some way to explaining what went wrong.