How we got to today\u2019s itinerary: a series of emails in all their typo filled glory that followed from the one I posted last night.<\/p>\n
March 3, 2018 \u2013 3:55 PM Tunisian Time.\u00a0 Email from Joshua, Tour Operator<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Kevin,<\/p>\n We are very sorry to hear about your negative experience during the tour. We will discuss with our Tunisian travel partner to follow-up with the issues mentioned in your email about the hotels, the driver Mohamed and tour guide Nader.<\/p>\n We want to assure you that we do not want your tour to end on a negative note. Having said that, I would like to propose the following schedule for tomorrow and would like hear your feedback. Khaled will pick you up at your hotel at 12 tomorrow. He will take you to La Goulette where you can enjoy lunch at a nice restaurant. The cost of your lunch will be covered by [REDACTED]. Afterwards, you will get a guided tour of panoramic Carthage and Sidi Bou Said before being dropped off at your self-booked hotel in Tunis.<\/p>\n Please let me know what you think of this schedule. Once again, we are very sorry for your disappointment and really hope you will have an incredible last day tomorrow.<\/p>\n Best regards,<\/p>\n Joshua<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ***<\/p>\n March 3, 2018 \u2013 5:44 PM Tunisian Time.\u00a0 Email from me back to Tour Operator<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I appreciate your email. \u00a0I\u2019m actually still so disappointed in the whole thing I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d enjoy more of the tour. \u00a0That might be cutting off my nose to spite my face. \u00a0I know I wouldn\u2019t need a lunch as I\u2019m probably better off skipping that and just eating dinner on my own. \u00a0I\u2019m tempted by the tour albeit I ran a marathon through Carthage and Sidi Bou Said just before flying to Djerba so that\u2019s probably not as intriguing to me.<\/p>\n My general feedback on my tour guides were that while the transportation was useful it was exceptionally pricey given the guided tour components. \u00a0At times I felt like I\u2019d have been better off with Wikipedia. \u00a0I did appreciate what I could glean from Nader (I thought that was his name but my info sheet said \u201cMondher\u201d \u2014 maybe that\u2019s pronounced \u201cNader\u201d). \u00a0He was capable of speaking several languages but clearly English was not his go-to. \u00a0As he and I discussed about my rudimentary French if one doesn\u2019t use a language it gets rusty very quickly. \u00a0Because he was speaking to Mohammed (his English by the way was on par with Nader and I want to be clear they both were good speakers) in French\/Arabic and to other people in those languages, I think it sometimes took time to switch over to English for me… and it sometimes wasn\u2019t worth the effort to fully switch over if it was just a one-off moment. \u00a0Sometimes I\u2019d ask a question and he\u2019d answer latching onto a keyword that wasn\u2019t THE keyword to the question and tell me something I\u2019d consider non sequitur. \u00a0But it got to be too hard to keep trying to ask a question and thus I grew quieter as they continued talking in Arabic\/French. \u00a0I obviously had nothing to contribute to those conversations. \u00a0One dinner in particular was beyond awkward; they had come to keep me company because they felt sorry for me being alone. \u00a0I already felt weird to have them sitting there watching me eat. \u00a0But then they were mostly speaking to someone they\u2019d just met at a neighboring table from Russia. \u00a0If you’ve been told it\u2019s sad you\u2019re traveling alone and so folks want to keep you company, there\u2019s nothing quite so isolating and humiliating as being relegated to the corner like a naughty child and told to eat his dinner while the grown ups talk.<\/p>\n Maybe though it\u2019s more humiliating to be told there\u2019s breakfast only AFTER you\u2019re leaving. \u00a0Or to have breakfast and it consists of a basket of bread, salt and pepper, and a packet of butter. \u00a0Or to be told you have to pay for the hotel as you\u2019re checking out but at least then you put your foot down and refuse after having paid thousands of dollars. \u00a0Or it might be more demoralizing to have no idea how long the day will last so on two days you fully expect to be all day both end by 1 pm (including this one). \u00a0Or maybe it\u2019s when you\u2019re told the night before that you\u2019ll be dropped off and \u201csomeone\u201d will take you the next day back to Tunis \u201cat some point; the boss will tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n Actually, it\u2019s hard to pick what\u2019s the most humiliating and demoralizing moment that made me think, \u201cgosh, I really got screwed paying for this tour.\u201d<\/p>\n No, no. \u00a0I\u2019m pretty sure it was being shown what I could have seen an hour AFTER visiting the Medina. \u00a0That was pretty terrible.<\/p>\n I know I haven\u2019t answered your question about tomorrow. \u00a0I guess really right now I feel like I\u2019ve been so beaten down by this tour package\u2019s disrespect for me as a person that I\u2019m hesitant to commit to more potential letdowns.<\/p>\n I know again this is being written in anger and disappointment but I suspect that feeling isn\u2019t going to go away any time soon. It was an epically bad way to end a very expensive tour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ***<\/p>\n March 3, 2018 \u2013 7:36 PM Tunisian Time \u2013 Email from Me to Tour Operators<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Dear Kevin and Josh,<\/p>\n Have you ever vetted or stayed at these hotels?<\/p>\n This one might actually be the worse yet.\u00a0 I\u2019m attaching an audio clip of the lobby.<\/p>\n I\u2019m at the buffet dinner now and I\u2019ve been yelled at for not using the right plate (they\u2019re out of the plates I\u2019m supposed to use by the way) and as people shove to get to plates as they\u2019re put out, children run past and spill food onto me.<\/p>\n If there is a tenth layer of hell, this might be it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n