For years I have been trying to solve the puzzle of how to have guests who are only spending two or three days at our Lodges effectively help local kids learn English.

I quickly found out that the methodology for teaching was simple enough to learn in a few minutes, but what has had me stymied has been how to keep track of the kids’ progress with a different teacher every couple of days.  If the guests did not have a way of knowing how much English the kids knew, the effort was bound to fail.  If the guests knew what the kids knew, it seemed to me that there would be a good chance of success.

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Yolanda and I are in New York City for the next 3 weeks.  One of the highlights this week is “Fleet Week.”  Over a dozen ships from the US and Canadian Navies and thousands of sailors and marines are have come to visit. 

What I’ve always loved about Fleet Week is that it embodies the generous exchange of kindnesses that makes travel so emotionally nourishing. This is made possible by the fact that the visitors bring their homes with them.  So the sailors and marines invite New Yorkers on their ships and treat them like royalty, and New Yorkers invite the sailors into their city and treat them like royalty. I must not be the only one who feels this way, because Fleet Week started in 1984 and has been going strong ever since.

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In last weeks post I said that the 5 Borough Bike Club is one of the main reasons that I think that New York City is one of the world’s best bicycling destinations. 

My Plan for this weeks post was to talk about the other things that I really enjoy about biking in New York, like the Hudson Greenway Bike Path and The 6 Mile Loop in Central Park and The Weekday Cyclists.

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Meena emailed me the account below of her trip to Galapagos and gave me permission to share it with you. 

Dear Michael,  

Thought I would share my  wonderful vacation  experience of my recent  Galapagos trip ., especially in the thread of the travel agent  going the extra mile .  We chose KleinTours , and it  turned out to be a great  choice .   My travel  agent, Ximena, was extremely prompt in  answering  every litttle question I had, from arranging vegetarian meals to the choice of hotel .  

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Obviously there is a good deal of interest in this topic.  I am going to wait to comment until I have posted one more actual complaint this Tuesday. On July 20 I’ll share who we handled this complaint.

In the meantime I am posting Chris Parrot’s comment because it gives a typically well thought out perspective on handling complaints in general. Chris is a founding partner and director of Journey Latin America, http://www.journeylatinamerica.co.uk/ the UK’s top tour operator for Latin America.

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The week before last I posted a complaint from a guest at Monteverde Lodge who spent a miserable night because of a series of maintenance problems.  Management at the lodge neglected to offer adequate compensation on the spot and the guest wrote us asking for, “a full refund of at least one night.”

Twelve of you responded to my request for feedback on how the complaint should be handled with very clear well thought out suggestions.  There was general agreement that a considerable refund was called for and it would have been better if the refund were offered at the Lodge.  I could not agree more with both points.

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To conclude with this topic I am going return to a few of the comments and responses and explain how we see these issues. There was general agreement on Case # 1 so I will mostly comment on Case # 2.

Chris Parrot wrote:

“Refunding the cost of this meal/excursion would be fine if it had gone wrong in some way, but a straight refund is probably insufficient where they actually said they didn’t want it in the first place.”

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Dear  Guest Name ,

My name is Nadya Shaw and I am delighted to see that you plan on coming to Costa Rica for your vacation. As your personal Travel Planner it is my goal to craft an experience for you that measures up to what we have been doing for the past thirty years – providing “Legendary Service, Unforgettable Memories”.

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