Best Things to Do in Ouidah

It’s a shame I can’t give this 5 stars as the itinerary is incredible and the local guides worked really hard Noah and Ben … so my score is not fair on them.

But I just get the impression that once explore take your money they don’t really care …: post sales pre trip admin is very poor, confusion over room types mid trip, takes 6 days for e mails to be answered and then they haven’t really answered your question so you have to wait another 6 days. Fine if you live in UK and can pick up the phone but for international customers it’s a deal breaker I am not going to make expensive international calls back to the UK to get answers.

Itinerary changes notified to us a week before departure when key unesco sites have been shut for years or there have been ongoing security concerns in regions that explore would certainly have known about earlier.

It’s just bad post sales customer service management.

Fortunately the itinerary was incredible to Benin and Togo but I still wouldn’t book with them again. Other companies such as G adventures and intrepid have much better post sales support.

For west Africa and more difficult regions I will continue to book with less main stream companies from now on like lupine who answer your emails in hours not days.

Feels like explore just aren’t good at customer service training or putting a solid process or infrastructure in place for post trip sales support. Or that they even acknowledge this as a weakness which I can clearly see other people have complained about now I have looked at other search and review engines. Their responses seem to point the finger at the consumer … quite clearly explore need to do a review of the quality of their customer service and make improvements as it’s ruining the perception of their overall product.

A great trip for experienced travellers. The mask ceremonies were brilliant and there were lots of opportunities to interact with local people. The stay at Ganvie stilt village was a particular highlight

Generally very well run trips
The highlight was the day at the stilt village..

We had many wonderful experiences on the “Cradle of Voodoo” trip including visiting a Bétammaribé village near Boukoumbé and seeing a Egungun masked dance in Abomey. However, we were bitterly disappointed by the much-hyped Voodoo festival.

Watching drumming and dancing visiting villages and markets history of voodoo and attending voodoo ceremony.