Tiram Travel Sdn Bhd

Assalamualaikum to my Muslim brothers and sisters!

I'm back and bouncing here in Malaysia and mentioned that wanna share my first experience of me performing my umrah on early February this year cuz I was oh-so-very mesmerized with EVERYsingleTHING there! Howsoever... Before I start, 

on a serious note:

Please consider this as a piece of advice to make sure that you will be able to travel in peace without having any dissatisfaction like how I (and my parents AND the rest of the group of 300 people!) had been through, nothing more or else.

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We went there under this traveling agency, Tiram Travel Sdn Bhd and took the package that costed us RM6,000++/head (family per room stay at the hotels). My dad made a full payment on October 2013 and Tiram Travel called him and said it was confirmed that the three of us will be going on 11/01/2014 and didn't get back to us in seven, four, three, two days before the date. In fact, my dad was the one who had to continuously called them up, confirming our departure and all. Oh, a day before we were supposed to leave to Tanah Suci, MY DAD CALLED THEM again to confirm, and apparently our names were crossed from the list. *one thumb up and one mid finger up*

So, why did we chose Tiram Travel Sdn Bhd instead of other realistic-well mannered-proper-full of awesomeness traveling agencies? Basically the package offered two major deals that made my dad who has been a loyal Andalusia "customer" agreed on changing agencies, which are :

1. A return flight with Nas Airlines, from KUL-JED/directly to MED (JED cuz we've been told that we'll be going to Makkah first, then the traveling agency had some changed of plans and said we'll be going to Madina first).

2. Four days, three nights stay at Zamzam Tower/Hotel while we were at Makkah cuz it's so near to the Masjidilharam mosque.

Yea, we didn't get neither either nor or both of above stated. We went to Jeddah with another airline, and our placement of seating was scattered. My dad was a few seats away from me, my mom was at the tail of the airplane and I was in front. But we managed to get a one row seat -_-

We landed Jeddah at 5:15pm (local), took the bus to Jeddah (six hours ride+waited for one group that went missing at the airport for almost three hours) and reached Madina approximately 4:00am (local). But, it didn't end there! Our group was placed at Al-Ansar Hotel and the mutawwifs there told my dad that everyone will be located in different rooms, despite the package that you took. My dad was in a room of four, my mom and I were separated as well. Seriously, Tiram Travel? THAT easy, ay? My dad just couldn't hold his anger ever since they had already screwed a lot of things so far and kinda yelled at them. They kept on saying that there's no other room available yada yada yada, but in 15minutes, we got ourselves one room with four beds. M-A-G-I-C! On the third day, we had to drag our luggages and bags to stay at the Al-Fayroz Hotel, a night before heading to Makkah, located approximately 300meters away from Al-Ansar. Reason of shifting? NO REASON.

It wasn't that far, really but that is if and ONLY IF they had a logic reason on why. Just say something like... "cost exceed" or "the building's haunted". Well... That's the least you can go figure out something. Oh, and tell EVERYONE THAT WE NEED TO SHIFT! Ini cakap dekat few people yang ada dekat dining hall masa tu je. I think I took this situation the hardest thou considering that I had to stay at the lobby for four hours just to wait for our keycard while staring at our luggages yang bersepah banyak-banyak tu incase orang curi. I didn't get the chance to solat at Masjid Nabawi :( I asked the mutawwif, "is this normal?" he replied, "No. This never did happened before". -> please refer to my few next paragraphs.

Cutting this superlong story short.

At Makkah, we obviously didn't get to stay at the hotel as promised and stayed at a hotel located one kilometer away from Masjidilharam. The road was getting higher, so we had to kindalike "climb" our way through as we go head towards the hotel from Masjidilharam. Tiram Travel Sdn Bhd had tons of bus delays for several of hours (two to three hours delay!) during our ziarahs at Madina and Makkah, which kinda sucked cuz twas very time consuming. Had to skipped historical places like Gua Hira (that I was so looking forward to go to btw!), Masjid Terapung and the Red Sea and etc. Since our bus from Madina to Makkah was delayed by four hours, we arrived Makkah at 1:00am (local), checked in our bags at the hotel, walked to Masjidilharam and performed our first umrah.

***If this is your first time performing your umrah just like me and had registered your name under Tiram Travel, please be sure that you have someone who had done his/her/their umrah before cuz firstly, face it. The crowd is so packed that you will not be able to see your mutawwif's head as soon as your tawaf started. However, if you have multiple brain sections like me, you'll wonder why other groups of people from agencies all over Earth are able to zikir along with their mutawwif ramai-ramai, unlike you who went with Tiram Travel.

So, back to the point where I hi-lighted the text in black with gold colored font above, I was walking around Makkah all alone one night and stopped at this kebab shop. There was these two Malay guys there and we started chatting. One of them asked me, which agency was I with and I said "Tiram Travel". He burst laughing out loud and asked me, "berapa kali tukar hotel kat Madina?" and I was like, "ehhh, you pun tau eh?". He replied me with giggles, "I agent under Tiram Travel dekat sini... Mesti lah I tau. Berapa tahun pulak I dok jaga Tiram".

Okay, bro. Chill. 

But 5 stars given to Tiram Travel on the food served. Kudos!

Nevertheless, rezeki memang dekat situ. Harap ada baik yang datang daripada Tiram Travel ni and the reason why I'm sharing this bukan nak tutup periuk nasi dorang or nak burukkan dorang sangat. I just want you guys not to I was grateful for the fact that I was able to see the holy Kaabah in front of me and performed my umrah three times while I was there. Alhamdulillah.