Editor's note: An SA Tours spokesperson had given the agency's side of the story, we have included it at the end of the article.

A honeymoon is supposed to be a gateway.

A sort of special hybrid trip that combines the newly-attained status of marriage without the added responsibilities that are soon to follow.

It is perhaps that expectation that made this failure of a trip all the more painful for Facebook user Wei Lun and his wife on their honeymoon trip across Europe.

He wrote a Facebook post highlighting his problems with the tour agency.

The trip was planned around spotting the Northern lights.

In case you've not heard of them or seen any pictures of them before, here's what they look like:

Now, over their course of their 12-day trip, they encountered 2 major problems:

- itinerary changes, and

- a really inexperienced guide.

Unannounced itinerary changes

The Northern Lights are as unpredictable as they are beautiful.

And unfortunately, some who travel all the way to Europe aren't lucky enough to catch it.

Which is why SA Tours' offer of a "safety net", which consisted of an extra night in Tromso (Norway) to catch the Northern Lights, was so appealing.

Trouble was, they cancelled that safety net.

You must be wondering what this safety net is about? It is a night in Tromso where they will arrange an additional Northern Light hunting excursion if we did not get to see it by then.

Sounds promising right? I was very impressed by this “promise” myself, thinking i had indeed made the best decision in my life.

What he failed to mention was that this Tromso night was removed from our itinerary! I went down to SA Tours/LGE office twice to make payments for the trip and attended this briefing by Ken See, but nobody informed me of this itinerary change.

If you enjoy paying for a tour agency’s services and scrutinizing their itinerary then you must definitely sign up for their tour package! You will have a fun time playing this “spot the difference” game!

Inexperienced tour guide

This complaint forms the meat of Wei Lun's beef with the agency:

Back to the tour itself, we were assigned a tour guide, Peter Oh who did not have any prior experience in leading a northern lights tour. SA Tours/LGE were kind enough to train him by assigning him to our tour group at our expense!

And that anger is understandable.

The main perk of hiring a tour guide is to make up for the lack of experience you might have (or research you might have done) in navigating the area you are travelling to.

If both the guide, and the tourist have absolutely no experience with that particular destination, then it is less of a guided trip and more of a very confused road trip with strangers.

So how exactly did the guide perform on the job?

Not well.

Northern Lights

Editor's note: Wei Lun has clarified that the small group including him managed to catch the Northern Lights

Needless to say, Wei Lun and his wife were not able to catch the Northern Lights... but the tour guide did.

On the only night where there were lights activity, Peter went out on his own to capture the best shot of the northern lights and left the entire group at the hotel, scrambling to look for a suitable spot to view the lights.

He even shared his northern lights photo on our WhatsApp group chat to show those whom he left behind at the hotel! A considerate and wonderful tour guide!

Yup, not only did the guide go by himself to catch the lights, he sent the pictures of the scene the tour group DID NOT get to see.

Dope.

Cruise ship

Another incident where inexperience came to play was during New Year's Day.

On New Year’s Day, we had signed up for a day tour to Estonia from Helsinki. But he forgot to inform the tour group to bring our passports (he himself forgotten to bring too!)

As a responsible tour guide, he suggested for us to board the cruise to Estonia without our passports and lie to the customs officials that we had lost them should we get checked! In the end, we disappointed him by refusing his suggestions.

Some of the tour group members brought their passports along and managed to board the cruise to Estonia (lucky them!) without a tour guide.

And what happened to those with no passports?

Helsinki was a dead city with a lot of places closed on New Year's Day. Peter decided to train us to be independent by disappearing, leaving us by ourselves to look for our own meals, despite knowing that my wife was sick.

Silver lining

Perhaps the one positive from a thoroughly underwhelming trip was the independence it fostered upon the couple.

In the end, we decided to accept his training and not wait for him in the icy cold weather. We appreciated his evasive and irresponsible behavior because we never knew that we could be that independent in a foreign country despite being sick!

That's right, if you want to be independent in a foreign land, hiring a tour guide seems to be the best method to achieve that.

An SA Tours spokesperson had provided the agency's side of the story, which Wong subsequently responded to:

Top image: Wikicommons

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.