Reviews

Perfect trip for experiencing new countries, cultures & ways of life. Hotels in both countries were excellent. Transport between locations was comfortable. Food (lunch & dinner) always came as a set meal but was very tasty & good variety.
The guide in Thailand was very nice & helpful but could have given more in depth history & info about the country & places visited. The 2 day trip on the Mekong slowboat gave relief from the noise of cities & the many tourists & was very enjoyable.
The guide (named Somsack) for Laos was fantastic. He was very keen to tell us anything about his country, the ways of life & had lots of information on sites visited. The places visited were very interesting & really highlighted the qualities of Laos.
A brilliant trip. Would definitely return to both countries.

This will be our 6th trip with this company their service has always been excellent

Excellent tour and brilliant guides. Only downsides, the hotel in Bangkok was too far away from any tourist sites and the atmospheric pollution there was dreadful. Any one with any respiratory issues would have real problems. I think that you should advise potential customers with these issues not to travel at the end at the end of the dry season when the farmers burn stubble in the dried out paddy fields. Otherwise, very enjoyable.

Comprehensive tour with knowledgeable guides. May be beneficial to have a bit more downtime.

Excellent tour Well done Wendy Wu
Great itinerary, food,& guides.
amazing value

Overall a very good holiday, guides were excellent and all arrangements worked well. The only suggested improvement was to the chosen hotels in Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Both were located too far away from the city centre and night life.

The tour was very good and included a variety of experiences. Just a few small changes needed to make it excellent.

Very Helpful, Easy to book, lots of advice & ideas
Thanks Wendy Wu

Very helpful and spent a good deal of time helping me with flight upgrade options. The only reason i didn't give 5 stars was that some of the tour details sent were incorrect as they had not been updated for the 2023 tour.

We really loved Thailand and Laos, the accommodation was great and the trips excellent as were both our guides the only reason for not giving 5 stars is because when we arrived in Bangkok early morning after a sleepless flight we were told our room would not be ready till 2pm. We were exhausted but had to wait in the reception for 4-5 hrs even though the hotel was half empty due to coronavirus. The boat journey down the Mekong seemed to go on forever, in the itinerary it suggests the second day will be just to visit Pak Ou caves and then check into hotel but in reality we were on the boat longer than day one. Everyone on board agreed they had had enough cruising by then. Unfortunately because of the pandemic we were stuck for an extra 3 days but I would just like to say that our guide Ken was exceptional and would not leave us until we were at the airport with tickets in hand, I really do hope that you recognise his dedication and professionalism.

Overall the tour was near excellent with a great itinery, good hotels and restaurants, and with both guides ('Joe' in Thailand and 'Ken' in Laos) providing a very creditable service, especially Joe who looked after us as best he could when a few 'cracks' appeared in the arrangements in Thailand.

The problems in Thailand were as follows:

1. Seven of the group, including my wife and I, had an overnight flight from London and arrived at the hotel in Bangkok at 07:00 to be told our rooms would not be ready until 14:00. The itinery states we would 'transfer...to your hotel and check-in to your room.' This largely wasted our first day in Thailand although, to our guide's credit, he remained with us and helped fill some of the time.

2. On our third day in Bangkok half of our group, including my wife and I, had to check out of the hotel room by 10:00 (the others in the group managed to arrange a room extension) although we were scheduled to travel by overnight train starting at 22:00 and not checking in to the next hotel until after lunch the next day. Fortunately our guide again stepped up to help by getting the first hotel to allow us to shower at the sauna in the afternoon.

For both the above situations, had we been aware of these before booking we would have been happy to pre-book room extensions to allow us to shower and catch some sleep rather than just killing time in some rather sweaty clothes.

3. The information in the suppled Wendy Wu Travel Guide concerning the Overnight Train is wrong or out-of-date in many respects including luggage arrangements, what can be taken on board (e.g. drinks), sleeping berths, etc. As it happened, the arrangements and facilities were better or more convenient than expected and nearly all of us in the group enjoyed the train.


Putting aside the above, my wife and I really enjoyed the tour and expect to book more tours with Wendy Wu in the future.

Emirates did not provide gf meals at all on the fist long return flight, and 1 breakfast and 1 gf meal between us on the second long flight. They blamed blamed Wendy Wu, despite having communicated internally about the second flight. They said the second person’s meals were waitlisted which translated to unavailable. We feel the lack of gf meals was an Emirates problem, especially as we had documentation from WW saying our gf meals were confirmed throughout.

The trip was excellent. WW guides were excellent. They really went the extra mile. The gf , no chilli food they arranged was good. We are left with great memories.
Improvements
The sound system on the Mekong boat was not good. The first meal I n Vientiane was meagre. The last gf meal in Vientiene was lacking meat or chicken.

Great trip. Well organised, good size group of 18. Excellent tour leaders

From when our guide picked us up at Bankok until we left Laos the holiday was well organised and with a good range of activities. The fellow travellers provided good company and both guides were very knowledgeable.The only drawback to the holiday was that being vegetarian we seem to have well cooked but rather bland tasting dishes. Eating at different restaurants meant that we quite often had similar dishes throughout the holiday.

Yes I would recommend Wendy Wu and use again. The person who helped me with my booking was friendly and efficient and took her time to sort out any queries I had.