We are in Koh Samui for one week, and overall having a great time and enjoying Thai culture. We had one horrible experience with a local tour company that I would like to share.

We booked our tour with this company through the guy at "Essential nightlife and Leisure Guide." I don't know how his advice would be on nightlife, but this trip is definitely not luxurious. The fee for the "Angthong Adventure Tour" leaving out of Petcherat Marina was 2200 bhat per person, plus an additional 200 bhat per person to get into the marine park. This was one of the most expensive tours on the island, so I expected it would be relatively nice.

The advertisement boasted breakfast, soft drinks and fruits, and a luxury speed boat. When we arrived the company informed us that they did not take credit cards. I had been told on the phone that they did take credit cards, and we had already reached our atm limit in the prior 24 hours. When we told them we didn't have access to cash, they told us there was a 3% fee for using a credit card. Ultimately, we were able to contact our bank and take out cash for the trip.

After paying we were told to enjoy breakfast and relax. Breakfast consisted of white bread, jelly and bad coffee. I wasn't expecting much, but being a tropical island I thought they would at least have fruit. Then, the last straw was when I saw 30-40 people piling into a small speedboat. It was half the size of the boat in the advertisement, and considering the rough water and full load of people, it looked sure to be uncomfortable.

I went to the front desk and told them that we were not comfortable getting onto the boat, and would like our money back. We offered to pay them for the "breakfast" and hotel pickup, generously valued at perhaps 500 or 600 bhat. The tour guides seemed friendly enough, but the woman who appeared in charge was not. She insisted on charging us 1200 bhat for our cancellation.

We tried contacting the guy we booked through at Essential Nightlife and Leisure Guide. He seemed to find our qualms with the company amusing and said he couldn't do anything about the 1200 bhat cancellation fee, that that was the company's policy. This policy had been no where written and not mentioned to us. I even went to the extent of threatening to call the police. Eventually, I was exhausted from fighting with them and decided to leave and salvage the rest of the day. They refused to refund our money. The whole ordeal cost us 1200 bhat, plus a 500 bhat cab ride back to our hotel, almost three hours out of our day and substantial aggravation.

In short, if you're uncomfortable with this company's misleading advertising and policy of having too many people pile into a small boat, it is going to cost you 600 bhat per person. I was very disappointed in their overall attitude. Customer service is a concept not yet fully developed in Thailand. I would encourage anyone to research the companies they travel with very thoroughly, and to definitely not travel with this company.

Thanks for the tip.
I have watched these speed boats in Samui and in krabi fill up to over flowing and always thought that I am glad that I am not on that. They look so unsafe.
Almost everywhere you use a CC in thailand they now bump on a charge for using it we have noticed this more over the last couple of years.
Hope that it did not spoil your stay.

__________________
Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

With my most Experience about Speedboat Services in Pattaya City, If you over load with passengers, the alighment of the boat will be unsafe while touching the surface of Wave. You can get sea sick easily. I mostly use speed boat at Pattaya beach when going to Koh LAn. Just tke cre

sounds like your initial post is a load of ......
they give complimentary continetal breakfast and it was with ornage juice and pinapples.
Seems to me you just thought you would be better of not going on the tour and tried to get a lst minute refund..
i wonder if you would do the same to an airline company.. i wonder if they will refund you if you refuse to go and ask to leave 5 minutes before...

i have used this company on many occasions and i am a frequent visitor to samui this company is well known on the island and your post of "not to use them is not hing short of slander... shame on you..

I've let the above post stand in the interests of free and open debate about this company, despite its rather aggressive undertones towards what I felt was a genuine complaint by someone who felt they had been mislead.

The reader can then make up their own mind who to believe.

just a thought - but could the guest have some interest in said company - maybe he/she could let us know - in my experience if you dont agree about a third party you say so - but to mention slander etc smacks of first person involvement - could be wrong of course

Also sounds a bit like someone writing in "Thinglish".

Another thing that struck me as suspicious, the OP made no mention of "complimentary continetal breakfast" AND "..it was with ornage juice and pinapples"!

It is a common thing that takes place on every such forums with one poster condemning one establishment be it hotel, tour company etc. and another poster praising the same establishment. Unless we have multiple posts by different posters with majority in favour of one of the two view points an information seeker is left confused.
Here are my observations:
1. A continental breakfast is rolls, preserves, fruit/fruit juice and a beverage tea or coffee I guess. OP's breakfast had all except fruit/fruit juice. Quality of coffee is very subjective though. Here I would like to state that on our speed boat tour of Phi Phi island from Phuket we were pampered with delicious pineapples and melons.
2. A cancellation fee demanded in case of last minute pull out is fully justified. But Jax who is an experienced long time visitor says that over loading is a common thing in those parts. So if you are opting out because your safety is compromised you would not feel cancellation fee to be justified.
3. I am sort of newbie(pls note that earlier I used to write newbie now I am writting sort of newbie!!!) to this site and so I am not sure how much is the exposure, i.e how many Thai tour/travel companies look up this site on a regular basis. So as Steve says, we don't know whether the second Travel forum Guest is a genuine traveller or one from the travel company.
Let us hope we have some more posts here.

These were my initial thoughts too, Phil, especially as the post was "dead and buried" and the poster just happened to arrive at the site from a search of "Petcherat" (the company name) on google.co.th, from an IP address in Bangkok. The company just happens to be foreign-owned, too. But regardless of whether that is the case or not, I think it's important to give a "right to reply", as well as for the visitor to this site not to place too much importance on a single person's experience (everyone, including companies, has bad days, after all) - just as, conversely, it's important for every company to place a lot of importance on every customer's experience. If a customer has genuine gripes - as he or she seems to in this case - then the best course of action for the business would be to take action that they do not happen again, by ensuring advertising claims and reality are in line with each other, refund/cancellation policies are transparent, etc.

spot on my man - only after a few bacardis I can't put so elequently (sp)