simplytrip.in

Incompetent driver and unhelpful customer care

Hello ,This to let you know of our experience using SimplyTrip Bus services . We had booked a SimplyTrip bus from 21st April 2023 till 24th April 2023 for a total of ₹71000 . We had mentioned at the time of booking that our route of travel was from Mumbai -Kashid -Panchgani -Mumbai .The bus which was provided to us was well maintained and very comfortable throughout the journey . Unfortunately, our experience with the driver was very bad . The primary concern was that he was not aware of the route and on couple of occasion he was asking the passer bys on the road for direction . He did not refer to GPS on his mobile. Due to this we had to take a detour 20 minutes before we reached Prakruti resort at Kashid. That detour took us more than 3 hours . There was bridge repair work going on for more than 4 months which he was not aware of . If he would had told us that the detour route will take 3 hours we would had got down and taken local transport to Prakruti resort and driver could had come to resort later with the luggage . We are also surprised that being a travel company you all were not aware of road closure which apparently has been there for the last 4 months. Alibaug being a popular destination it should have been common knowledge for travels and drivers.We were suppose to check in at the resort at 1pm , instead we checked in at 5:30 losing out on the days meal and activities planned for 21 guests . Because we had such a bad start, I had informed the customer service of SimplyTrip about this incident and asked them to give the driver proper direction for the next destination Panchgani . Inspite of this our following experience was even more horrible . Kashid to Panchgani is approx 183 KM . This route is through Murud-Mahad-Poladpur. This is the old route to Panchgani , frequently used by State transport buses and other heavy vehicles .Instead, this bus driver took us back to Lonavala to use the Express way saying that the bus was too big to go by the old route . So instead of 180 KM we ended up travelling 290 KM , taking our travel time to almost 10 hours . Instead of reaching at 3 pm to 4 pm we reached canyon resort in Panchgani at 8:30 pm . Here also we lost half day sightseeing and meals . While we were en route we had shared the live location details to the resort owner who immediately called me on my mobile and asked me why we were travelling in the opposite direction. He also told us that Murud - Mahad route was frequently used by buses as big as ours and there was no question of roads being too narrow . Needless to say we were in a sorry state by the time we reached Panchgani.Couple of things we observed about this driver was that he was always hesitant to go into by lanes even if they were wide enough to accommodate big buses on both the direction . He would drop us 1 km away and we had to hire local vehicles to reach where we have to go . We noticed that there were big buses which were passing through the roads which he had refused to drive .Later on I had to sit next to the driver with my GPS on to ensure that we are going through the right route .To summarise , we were not able to enjoy our trip as most of the time we were in the bus . Because of this inexperience and incompetent driver, we lost on our valuable time and money . We booked Simply Trip because we had read good reviews and we felt assured that the overall services will be good . But sadly, our experience was exactly the opposite of what we expected . I will like to have an explanation on why proper due diligence was not done while assigning this driver for our trip . While we had shared our travel itinerary well in advance , why did SimplyTrip not prepare the driver with routes? Also, as a practice do you not periodically check the travel time with the driver when your buses are plying?Hoping to hear your reasons for our inconvenience faced. Thanking you A.C.Santosh

Date of experience: Apr 21, 2023