Help! are all travel agents here crazy?

[imalone]

Hi has anyone got any advice for me. I want to travel out of town for a few days, maybe ten, with my 6 year old, in the first week of the October break.

I have tried using a travel agent but to be honest she seems to be of the opinion that I should bring her my itinerary and she will boook it. She has made no helpful suggestions at all.

Everywhere she did suggest, she mentioned would be 'not guaranteed' ue to the monsoon season.

I am not that familiar with the area and I have asked a couple of other travel agents but they never even bothered to call me back.

I reently went to Bintan and stayed at the Beach Club. My son and I loved it, it was inexpensive but still well serviced and it was a very easy stay. That is the kind of thing we would like, or even something with some animals to see.

Ideas? Suggestions? Is just the wrong time of year to go anywhere? Are all travel agents here so... bad? (She booked us the Bintan trip, nightmare, she changed our ferry to 5pm from 8pm and 'forgot' to tell us until 3pm, then tried to say she had tld my friend, who had never spoken to her about my tickets.)

I am happy to look online but there is so much information I don't know where to begin!

[jpatokal]

Every single travel agent in Singapore is terrible. Every now and then, I forget my own advice and lured by a cheap package or something try one again, only to regret it later. Book everything on your own -- it's much less hassle in the long run.

As for finding places to go, there's tons of advice on this very forum, or you could just poke around Wikitravel:

http://wikitravel.org/en/South-East Asia

Thailand and Malaysia have lots of places that should fit your criteria.

[perplex_sheep]

why dont you tell us your budget, and your preference (i.e. what do you want to achieve in the vacation, e.g. beach, city, etc).

with 10 days, there are alot of places you can go, from nearby countries like malaysia and thailand, to further away countries like australia and china.

[audiojunky]

Every single travel agent in Singapore is terrible.

That seems to be the case generally with the "customer" industry as a whole - customer service seems to be awful (understatement) in Singapore!

[jamesy]

1st week of october is not the monsoon season which runs from nov to april. Best is to go with the big agencies like chan brothers, sa tours or tell us your budget here and we can make recommendations.

[tjbm]

the thorn tree forum on lonely planet is brilliant as is tripadvisor for honest reviews just search a country and browse comments.

[borneng]

Have you been to Bali ? There's a hotel in North Bali (Lovina) where they have their own little zoo and also dolphin pool. You can book swim with dolphin session. Never actually been there myself but I know someone who did and they said it was fantastic especially they have 4 year old girl. The little girl absolutely loved the whole experienced. I'm waiting for the next possible chance to go to Bali and will go there to swim with the dolphin. Apparently they also do dolphin sea tour. Try google search, Lovina + swim with dolphin