Tatra National Park Grand Tour - Self-guided

Hi Bara

We did inform Roman that we finished our wonderful trek on Thursday.
We are unfortunately back home to reality ?

The tour and all of your guidance and planning was great !
Would you be interested in some inputs ?

Thanks,
Gili

Dear Bara,
thank you for an amazing experience. All in all - it was great. the meeting with Roman was good and important, and we did many of his recommendations for changes in the trek. it was good to know about them ahead of time. he also gave us detailed information that was very important in knowing what to do, especially on the first day.
the length of the treks was good. again, we did modify them at times.
Several of the accommodations were good. of course the **** hotel in the middle was a treat. and thanks for bringing the suitcases to this location, it allowed us, as unseasoned trekkers, to adjust our backpacks and use a change of new clothes.
the first hotel, in Poprad was NOT good. the people were not particularity nice, the place was not clean, the location was good. the services provided were not sufficient - for example, even after requesting - we could not get a kettle to boil water.
the hut, in which we were part of a dormitory was very basic. the food was basic, and not very good, the toilets did not lock, so going to the toilet was a negative experience. the next hut was great.

so - thank you!!!
Yeela

Barbora,

We stayed a night in Krakow, so we just got home late last night. The trip was amazing! Thanks for all your help in planning it!

The ride from Krakow to Stary Smokovec was scary, our driver was constantly speeding and slamming on the brakes. It seemed there was only a few centimeters between our car and the one in front of us at all times, and we nearly got in an accident. She acted like we were late for catching a plane or something. I know you hired another company, so it's not your fault. But if we could give her a very bad review we would. Our driver from Slovakia to Krakow at the end of our trip was very good, however, no problem whatsoever.

We found the first hike (Day 2) to be very challenging, as neither of us are used to hiking on rocks in high elevations (our trails are dirt and relatively flat). So we took it easy on Day 3 and spent more time exploring the town of Stary Smokovec, which we enjoyed. Day 4 went well as planned, the difficulty of the hike was just right and we were happy to see our luggage waiting for us in our room. We had perfect clear weather on Day 5 for the trip up to Lomnicky Peak, so the views were awesome!
The only glitch was that our Gopass email didn't have a time for our cable car trip. When we got to the ticket agent at Skalnate Pleso, she had to do some calling and found we had just missed our scheduled time. We were very fortunate that she was able to slip us in at 12:40, as tickets were already sold out for the day (it was Sat). I'm not sure why our tickets didn't have a time on them.
Rain was forecasted for Day 6, so we didn't do the hike that was planned for that day (and it seemed a bit more challenging than we wanted).
Instead, I hiked the trails from Grandhotel Praha all the way up to Skalnate Pleso then took the chairlift to Lomnicke Sedlo while Bridget explored town, including the TANAP Museum. Clouds moved in and out that day, at one point on the chairlift all I could see was white in all directions, which was interesting.

We loved both hotels, they were great choices! They were beautiful, breakfasts were amazing, and the wellness areas were great. We appreciated having a balcony in each room. We enjoyed seeing the differences in the two towns, too. Overall, the trip was amazing and we had a great time!
We liked having an itinerary to start with and appreciated having all our hotels, gopass tickets, transfers, etc planned out for us. Thanks for everything!

Hi Barbora

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the High Tatras Grand Tour.

Although we had problems with the Gopass card on the day we visited Lomnica Peak, you did resolve the issue for us with enough time for us to get our booking to the Peak, so, although it was a worrying time, you sorted it for us, so thank you! The Peak was amazing, a good addition to the holiday!

Overall we thought the tour was very good, the 2 Grand Hotels were both amazing - great locations, staff, food and rooms and the Welcome Spa was very welcome after a day's walking!

The walks you suggested in the itinerary were nicely varied, with different degrees of difficulty and different views every day. We did make some changes to the walks suggested, to make them circular, longer or shorter.

The brief from the guide was short but useful. However he could have suggested we start the walks early to avoid the crowds, we learnt on day one.

The only real issue we had was the taxi transfer from Krakow airport. The driver was waiting for us with a sign with my name, which was very good, however we considered his driving to be dangerous, he drove far too fast and too close to the vehicles in front, and was texting on his phone while he drove. A few times over the week I wanted to phone you to ask for another driver for our return trip to Krakow, but my husband told me it was rude! However, the driver for the return trip was excellent, apart from being late as he went to the hotel in Stary Smokovec to pick us up.

So overall my only suggestions for the week would be to not use the first driver, to make sure the drivers know which hotel to collect us from and to make sure the Gopass tickets are valid for the Lomnica Peak.

Many thanks