Thai Island Hopper East

great value for money 1234

Good value for money, would definitely recommend to others

Fantastic guide manager Fantastic scenery & tours. I can't fault the trip I had with Contiki.

It was Fantastic! So fun, our trip manager made everything a blast.

All places visited were great apart from the last hotel stop, rooms were terrible

This tour mixes adventure with free time and relaxation. Shan was an amazing TM and made the trip run smoothly. Accommodation on this tour was really nice, with a mix of hotels and bungalows. The date we picked was in Koh Phangan for Full Moon, which was a wild experience I would definitely recommend. The optionals offered were a lot of fun, especially the jeep safari day!

It was a great price and an awesome trip.

Good price and apart from the hotel it was fantastic trip and would recommend it to people

Ole our guide was absolutely fantastic. 100% would do another contiki tour.

This trip was great value for money!

Awesome islands to visit. Even though there was a storm that meant we couldn’t do some activities, we were well looked after and catered for

Absolutely Amazing trip!!! Our trip leader Nut was the best I’ve had. Nut went above and beyond his job role, by creating videos and taking group pictures everywhere we went. Nut was full of local knowledge and had so much time for each member of the group. Only downside is there should have been more inclusions in the trip.

Value for money and a great experience

Solid value for money, for sure.

I thought it was awesome, perfect balance between down time, exploring, experience and enjoying the night life!

In follow up of my complaint shared on the 20th September (where I have not received a response as of 2nd October) in regards to the rort that is the inclusion of Shiralea Backpackers Resort on the Thai Island Hopper East tour. I am extremely disappointed that I am yet to receive an active response in terms of next steps to amend x3 nights that were a considerable waste of money and time as part of this tour, leaving a considerably jaded experience of this offer. The damage to brand integrity in overlooking consistent negative feedback, positioning local Thai people in unhygienic and impossible conditions and allowing a monetary motivated agenda to override a true Koh Phangan experience is appalling. If you could please provide a personalised response with noted actions and proposed appeasement. In full transparency, I have documented evidence of the financial interest Contiki has in Shiralea Backpackers Resort, with media interest on the development of this complaint. My motivation is to improve this tour for future travelers, speak on behalf of those who feel like they cannot and rectify expenditure of my own on this tour that has been unashamedly and misleadingly applied to profit your brand as opposed to creating a 'like a local' experience for this island.

Everything went accordingly. The payments, the respective bookings that were included, the invoices. All went well. All my questions during the process were answered by the Contiki team very quickly, so I highly recommend them.

The Shiralea is a horrible place and experience. It’s a total cash grab that is openly known to be owned by Contiki, which is why they make you stay there. The last 3 nights are spent at Shiralea which is so far away from town on Koh Phangan that it makes it crazy expensive to even attempt to get into town by taxi. If you don’t do the optional activity while I’m Koh Phangan you are essentially stranded at Shiralea. Not to mention upon arrival, my bed had an infestation of termites all over my sheets and my friend had ants all over her bed. Our room had absolutely no wood anywhere so I’m not sure where they came from. On top of that they were fully booked( God knows why or how) so the workers told me I had to stay in the same bed and room. When the guy came to change my sheets I mentioned and pointed out all the termites he missed that were still crawling all over the mattress, which he completely dismissed and instead of cleaning them off, just put sheets on the bed over them and told me to still sleep there. Him and his manager promised that my roommate and I would receive free meals and drinks for all the trouble and then still forced to pay for all of our drinks and food that we purchased including the gross bbq the following day. The next day, we were told we were being moved to a new room(despite the property being completely full) come to find out that our Trip Manager was just being forced to switch rooms with us so that HE had to now sleep on the termite room because apparently the Trip Managers have a free room( because duh, it’s a contiki owned property). Overall, this trip is too expensive for what you get and don’t get. I went on the Northern Thai Highlights last year which was a day shorter and had more inclusions and cost about $100 USD more than this one and you stay in much better hotels and beds, have more included activities, AND you’re not staying in a total cash grab of a sh*thole that is Shiralea. This trip is kind of a total waste of money compared to other trips and honestly I feel like I was completely scammed out of $800. Did I mention that the only reason I went on this specific trip was because it was meant to be a reunion trip with my last Contiki group that I bonded with? And this trip was specifically picked out by my last Trip Manager to attend? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trip Managers were encouraged to sell this trip in this manner. My old Trip Manager ended up quitting contiki and couldn’t go on this reunion trip because Contiki made the change that the Thai Island Hoppers were only allowed to be led by Local Guides. The TM on this trip was amazing and was honestly the best part. I’m sure Contiki will make a false effort to address my issue with an automated, impersonal, template response, that doesn’t ACTUALLY address of resolve the issue so keep an eye out for that below.

I was very pleased with this trip