Group of travellers posing on a hiking trail with sweeping green mountain ridges in the background under a cloudy sky

Seek Sophie
Reviews

4.9

573 reviews

512 reviews

1033

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Louisa Ho

Aug 2024

Rina was very helpful and prompt in assisting with my registration, thank you!

Response from Seek Sophie

Thank you for the review, Louisa! Do let us know if we can do anything better next time to get a 5 star review 🙏

Vincent Oliver

Jun 2024

I booked a day hike up mount Fansipan, in Vietnam with Seek Sophie online. The tour options, process and payment was smooth and simple. Follow-up communication by Michelle was effective and all worked out well for an enjoyable hike up the highest peak in the region! Special appreciation to our local guide to walk with us in the pouring rain, but fun! Only 4 stars because the lunch stop facility is filthy - I know not part of this company but an influence to improve is possible.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Vincent, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review. We are glad you had an enjoyable hike to the summit of Mt Fansipan. We will flag the lunch spot to our partners in Sapa and see if anything can be done! Thanks for the heads up and happy travels!

Pieter Clemens

May 2024

Booked 3 days 2 nights Komodo trip on Navilla. Fantastic crew!! (all of them), Very nice boat (lots of deskspace), very good food. Worth five stars!But don't book the Master Cabin. During the night an extremely loud generator next to the master cabines will keep you out of your sleep. Book the smaller cabin in front. Or sleep on the deck (as we did 2nd night). Promises were made by Seek Sophie that a solution for the loud machine will be implemented on short term so check this at moment of booking.

karim deba

Apr 2024

(Translated by Google) Michelle was very responsive; I hope you'll have the chance to be in contact with her during your stay. (Original) Michelle a été très réactif j espère que vous aurez la chance de l’avoir en contacte pour votre séjour

Response from Seek Sophie

Thank you, Karim 😊

pthorne 1710

Jan 2024

The booking was easy and customer service was very good. I only give it 4 stars because it listed an add-on that the tour guides no longer offered service for. So I was charged for it but Rina at customer service managed to issue me a refund for that very quickly.

Response from Seek Sophie

Thank you for the review. I’m sorry to hear the add-on was no longer available. I hope you enjoy the experience nevertheless 🙂

Andreas West

Jan 2024

Booked a eFoil experience for my daughter through SeekSophie. There was a 404 error during the booking and as a consequence I was thinking that the booking didn’t go through. I then went and signed up some 15 minutes later for it again and this time it worked. The event was great and she liked her birthday present. However, to my surprise I was charged twice for this. So I had to contact them and was guided by Michelle who could identify that my CC was indeed charged twice. While the process took some days Michelle did refund the second booking. I can recommend this aggregator service, they answer very promptly when problems arrive.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Andreas, I’m sorry to hear you had this issue while booking with us. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will be sure to look into this. Hope your daughter enjoys efoiling!

Zacharias Zakaria

Feb 2023

Mega was very helpful to assist me when my confirmation email was not well-received. Kudos!

Response from Seek Sophie

Thanks so much for taking the time to review us! And glad Mega was able to help ☺️

Esther Lee

Dec 2022

While I haven't engaged in any of their activities yet, this review is for their customer service support. Their website doesn't allow bulk purchase with the option to send individual gift cards to different recipients hence I had to write in to ask for help as making payment for over 14 gift cards for my team would be an inefficient use of time. I hope their product team takes this into consideration especially if they want to entice "corporate gifting". Rina Christina attended to my query by sending me a customized payment link as well as asking for the details so she would send it out individually within the same day. She was very helpful throughout this whole experience. Appreciate it, thanks Rina!

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Esther, thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback on the bulk gift card buying experience. We will most certainly let our product team know and see how we can make corporate gifting easier. We are also glad that Rina was able to assist with your purchase. And thank you for choosing Seek Sophie 😊.

serene chen

Oct 2022

Thank you, Deria, for your prompt answers to my questions.

Response from Seek Sophie

Thank you for taking the time to leave a review, Serene!

Jimmy s.p. Kwong

Oct 2022

Recently I booked hike up to Sapa peak with Seek Sophie , I received very good advise from them and made the booking . Everything is alright until the payment . They asked me to scan the QR quote and make payment with certain app ? For which I do not know how to do ? I was thinking of give up the booking and wait to try my luck once arrived Sapa to book with the hotel or someone along the road side ? . Miss Rina Christiana is so kind enough telling me to try another payment platform and finally it is successful . I would like to thank her for her great service and help . Thank you . From Mr Jimmy of Thailand.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Jimmy, our apologies for the inconvenient payment process that you experienced. It looks like you clicked into the PayNow option which is only available for customers with Singapore bank accounts (regular credit card payment is also available for all customers). We are glad Rina was able to help resolve the issue for you. Thank you for choosing Seek Sophie and enjoy your trip to Sapa!

Felicia Lim (Felly)

Oct 2022

Rina was able to tend to my enquiries and rescheduling of my yacht trip as it was cancelled due to covid related situations. Looking forward to the trip!

Response from Seek Sophie

Thanks for the kind review Felicia! Glad Rina was able to help - we know this has been a stressful time with all the Covid rescheduling. Hope you have a great trip!

Xin Ying

Jul 2022

Booking platform is easy to use with description. But they really need to improve on their reply rates, especially on “live chat”.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Xin Ying, thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We really appreciate your feedback. I'm sorry that your experience with our LiveChat was not great. We will be working to improve this going forward. We hope you give us another chance in the near future!

Jan verdaasdonk

Mar 2023

Was great, but quality of selection in Singapore has reduced

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Jan! Thanks for the kind review :) Do let us know if there are any experiences you’re looking for in Singapore, and we’d be happy to help!

Anonymous

Dec 2019

Went on a 2 day, 1 night boat trip through Seek Sophie in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. The stops along the way were seriously incredible! The responsiveness of the company was swift and helpful.However, we had a bad experience on the boat itself. Unfriendly staff, guide was not informative, not a single woman crew member on the boat (they claimed to be "women-led") and it was not sustainable (they claimed to be, but they gave us plastic water bottles). The boat was overbooked, so there wasn't enough food or drinking water on the boat. Toilet clogged. Not enough beds for everyone. The company did give us a 20% refund, which was nice, but such a shame all of this happened. Also, they did bring us extra food and water during the trip, which was great, but the woman who brought it didn't even apologize for what happened when she did. Hopefully, they won't do business with that boat, crew, or guide again.

Response from Seek Sophie

Dear Customer,

We are very sorry that you didn’t enjoy your experience with one of local businesses on our platform. We really appreciate your feedback and will share this with the local business so they can improve their services in the future. As you might be aware, Komodo National Park is far less developed in terms of tourism (compared to places like Bali), so your feedback is incredibly valuable in helping local businesses refine their offerings and improve.

We also wanted to address each of your concerns in turn. We hope that this way, other travellers can also benefit from knowing what to expect from a basic boat in Komodo National Park:

For your trip, we regret that the crew hadn’t brought enough outdoor deck mattresses onto the boat. To remedy this, the boat upgraded their guests who didn’t have a outdoor deck space to the more expensive cabin room.

As for the food, we understand that the crew underprovisioned for the travellers on the boat, and we are very sorry about that. As soon as the boat operator heard that there was an issue they delivered new supplies immediately.

On the toilet, the basic wooden boat toilets are very sensitive and do not handle any tissue (which is usual for old toilets in Asia). Too much tissue is often the cause of the malfunction. We try to do our best to keep our partner operator’s crew aware of the cultural differences, and they will do better next time.

Although you may not have seen any women crew on board (as that is still not a very culturally acceptable practice in Indonesia) the local business you booked through is owned by a woman and a phenomenal one at that. Not only does she organise these trips, she also volunteers to teach children in the community and is the leader of the Labuan Bajo chapter of Trash Hero an organisation which gathers volunteers pick up trash in the city on a weekly basis.

Finally, while our platform does focus on sustainability, particularly on ensuring travel dollars go toward local businesses and economic inclusion, we note that this particular operator does not have the badge “refuses plastic”. In a remote location like Labuan Bajo it is quite difficult to deliver fresh water in a safe and environmentally friendly way. So while you’ll be able to find hotels in more developed parts of Indonesia with distilled water from the tap, none of the boats in Komodo National Park (whether basic or deluxe) have those facilities. We want to make sure that we focus on our customer safety first and in the remote places, plastic water bottles is the only way to ensure that.

As you mentioned, as a platform we pride ourselves on providing the best customer service - which is why we respond quickly and do our best to make up for any inconveniences. On the other hand, we really do believe that travel is the best way to effect positive change in the world. We want to make sure that we give locals a way to take part in the local tourism industry and improve and grow. We can help locals do better for the environment as we help them grow their businesses. Please do be assured that your feedback will go a long way towards helping the local businesses improve and step by step hopefully they can grow and improve as the tourism industry develops further in Komodo.

Szu-Han Pamela Chen

Jul 2025

I sent my question about booking payment to customer service and after 2 days still no answer, the automatice respond email said that they will respond to me within 24 hours, but it has been more than 48 hours, and they charged the payment to my card without resolving my request first, it is really not a nice experience.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Pamela, we are so sorry to hear you've had a negative experience when corresponding with us. Our team has made an honest mistake in overlooking the email. They have now contacted you and offered a small discount to cover the first time booking promo code discount you initially missed out on. I hope you will give us a second chance to do better.

ymae

Jul 2025

The tour is misleading - title alone suggests 3 day tour when day one starts at 3pm and day 3 ends at 1pm.Farmstay was good - Mr Yu is was funny and welcoming but cooking experience was over pretty quickly when were expecting 4hours worth of activity based on the itinerary.Food at the second accommodation was dire. All meals were flavourless and most dishes were served stone cold. I understand it's a remote place with limited resources but the least you'd expect is hot food. 'Set breakfast' was one pancake and one banana on the table with flies when we returned from the morning safari. Day 3 lunch was a box of watery rice and vegetables that had some questionable black marks on it.I totally understand that you can't predict what is going to be seen on the safari but we only saw monkeys and none of the animals listed in the itinerary which again is misleading.The staff at the raft house were not welcoming, felt like we were an inconvenience. The tour guide was friendly, chatty and knowledgeable.What I will say is, the customer service team at SeekSophie have been great and have responded to our feedback and dealt with our complaint well. I do hope they review the descriptions of this tour and the suppliers.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Yanah,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback with us — we truly appreciate it. We're really sorry to hear that parts of your experience didn’t meet expectations, especially with the food and hospitality at the raft house. We understand how disappointing that must have been and have provided a partial refund in acknowledgment of that.

Regarding the 3D2N listing, we want to clarify that the tour is described as 3 days and 2 nights because it takes place over the course of three calendar days. This helps ensure that guests are aware they’ll need to set aside time across all three days. We also make sure to indicate the specific timings for the start and end of the tour in the listing so that everything is transparent.

We’re always looking to improve and have shared your feedback with our local partners to address the areas that didn’t go well. We're also reviewing the tour description to see where we can make things clearer.

Thank you again for your kind words about our customer service — we’re glad we could support you. We genuinely value your feedback and hope to have the opportunity to offer you a better experience in the future.

Seek Sophie Team

Yanah Arden-Scott

Jul 2025

Khao Sok 3D2N Farm to Floating Paradise - The tour is misleading - title alone suggests 3 day tour when day one starts at 3pm and day 3 ends at 1pm. Farmstay was good - Mr Yu is was funny and welcoming but cooking experience was over pretty quickly when were expecting 4hours worth of activity based on the itinerary. Food at the second accommodation was dire. All meals were flavourless and most dishes were served stone cold. I understand it's a remote place with limited resources but the least you'd expect is hot food. 'Set breakfast' was one pancake and one banana on the table with flies when we returned from the morning safari. Day 3 lunch was a box of watery rice and vegetables that had some questionable black marks on it. I totally understand that you can't predict what is going to be seen on the safari but we only saw monkeys and none of the animals listed in the itinerary which again is misleading. The staff at the raft house were not welcoming, felt like we were an inconvenience. The tour guide was friendly, chatty and knowledgeable. What I will say is, the customer service team at SeekSophie have been great and have responded to our feedback and dealt with our complaint well. I do hope they review the descriptions of this tour and the suppliers.

Response from Seek Sophie

Regarding the 3D2N listing, we want to clarify that the tour is described as 3 days and 2 nights because it takes place over the course of three calendar days. This helps ensure that guests are aware they’ll need to set aside time across all three days. We also make sure to indicate the specific timings for the start and end of the tour in the listing so that everything is transparent.

We’re always looking to improve and have shared your feedback with our local partners to address the areas that didn’t go well. We're also reviewing the tour description to see where we can make things clearer.

Thank you again for your kind words about our customer service — we’re glad we could support you. We genuinely value your feedback and hope to have the opportunity to offer you a better experience in the future.

Seek Sophie Team

John Wall

Mar 2025

They don't really provide any value at all. They just do a better use of marketing at Social Networks. Once you contact the product, they do the same with a 3rd party which contract with the final provider. So you are paying to three companies instead of just one. I did a Klias River excursion. Olivia Kota Kinabalu was the local seller and Klias River Cruise was the real provider. Furthermore all the rest of Travel Agencies had a representative there except us....

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi John,

Thanks so much for sharing your honest feedback—we genuinely appreciate hearing your perspective.

I'm sorry if it wasn't clear upfront, but we do mention on our site that Olivia arranges logistics directly with local providers. Olivia is a local woman entrepreneur from Sabah, and we genuinely love supporting amazing local people like her who pour their heart into their businesses.

Olivia partners closely with trusted local providers (like Klias River Cruise) to ensure travellers enjoy a great experience at transparent and fair prices, which is why we work with her. For context, most other online platforms offer the same Klias River experience at around 235–290 MYR, and these prices typically don't include an in-person representative either—that service usually comes at an additional cost. Olivia keeps it affordable at 190 MYR by providing seamless behind-the-scenes organisation.

I'm really sorry we didn't fully meet your expectations this time, but your feedback helps us do better. Thanks again for letting us know!

Best regards
Jacinta
Co-founder, Seek Sophie

Romain Ospital

Jan 2025

This rate simply highlights the price gap between Seek Sophie and the tours that you can find directly in town. Indeed, for a 2D1N experience in Khao Sok National Park, the tour is about 2500 THB (3250 THB in Seek Sophie). And unfortunately, the price difference is explained by... nothing. We get exactly the same experience than people who booked with other cheaper tour operators. Some people can say that booking online is a good way to secure a date... But we had to delay our tour with one day. However, this is important to highlight that the tour is really great, location, GUIDES<3, food, activities. This bad rate is simply because you should avoid using Seek Sophie and directly book in town.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Romain

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback—we really appreciate it. We’re so glad to hear that you loved the tour itself. That’s exactly the kind of experience we want every traveller to have!

We couldn’t find a booking under your name, but we’d love to learn more about your experience so we can improve for future travellers. Please drop us an email at chat@seeksophie.com—we’d love to understand what happened and make things right for you as soon as possible.

As travellers ourselves, we completely understand your concerns about pricing. We always strive to offer the best value and do match prices for the same experiences. The price difference you noticed isn’t due to hidden markups—it’s because we work directly with reliable local hosts to ensure a smooth, hassle-free experience. Some lower-priced options in town are offered by high-street agents who unfortunately overbook, leaving travellers without accommodation even after they’ve paid. We choose not to work with hosts who engage in such practices because we want every traveller who books with us to have peace of mind, knowing their experience is secure.

We’re really sorry if we fell short of your expectations this time, and we’d love the chance to make it right. Please reach out—we’re always here to help and want to ensure you have the best possible experience.

Best,
Jacinta
Co-founder of Seek Sophie

Robert

May 2026

We had a really bad experience with Seek Sophie. Their operator kept us waiting until the last moment (the evening before) that a trip starting at 8am the following day was cancelled when it turned out that they knew all along that they wouldn't be running it. This meant that it was too late to arrange an alternative and that we wasted a day of our short trip. Really upset and frustrated.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Robert, I'm really sorry to hear that your request to book with one of our partners was declined at the very last minute (our request to book feature allows our partners up to 24 hours to respond to requests, because many of our partners are away in the field, conducting experiences and may not always be able to get back right away).

As an avid traveller myself I know how frustrating it is when trying to make plans and not hearing back from experience operators in a timely fashion.

In this particular case, our partner, who are of an older generation and not great at technology, had forgotten to update their availability and had left for a team trip, being out of reach to respond to your messages.

Our customer service team had also tried to get in touch with our partner, but because they were out of signal coverage, were unable to do so.

Completely understand that this matters little for you as it ruined your day, but I did want to make clear on why that happened. We do try to give an opportunity to many local small companies that offer great service on the ground, but may not be the best at online communication, so issues like this do crop up. But we are always trying to improve our service - if you have any ideas on how we can solve this one, let us know!

Our customer service has reached out to you and we hope we can make up for this incident.

Kind Regards,
Lina

Sean keisu

Apr 2026

Highly recommend not to book by seek by Sophie‼️Me and my best friend went for the kinabatangan river safari 3D2N. The add ons they have which we realized by the time we were there, are insanely overcharged‼️This company lives by thinking that people will pick these add ons like we did and not double check the price in person. Especially when they are so influencer friendly with fake reviews. We added the Sepilok urangutang center and 2 night cruises. Seek by Sophie took 100US$ per person for the urangutang center which is insane! Directly there they charge 100 ringit (around 20US$).We spoke with several people and even the center told us it was a scam price. The night cruise same thing, seek by Sophie took 60US$ each online and the camp in person (run by locals) took 20 ringit per person. We got the money differ back from the night cruises but no net even an answer back when we pushed on for speaking with the management about the huge overcharge they’ve made. Seek by Sophie is a sneaky resell agency, this is how they earn a lot of money by thinking tourist are stupid. Please check out the prices before from the specific things you want to see.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Sean,

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us back in July 2025, we’re really sorry to hear that parts of your trip left you feeling this way. We completely understand how frustrating it must have been to feel that certain activities were seemingly priced differently from what you later saw on the ground.

We’d like to clarify that the prices listed on our site are provided directly by our operating partners, and they often include bundled elements such as coordination, advance booking, and securing availability — which can differ from walk-in rates at the destination, which are often times only the entrance fees such as the fee to enter Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. That said, we recognise that this wasn’t clear in your experience, and we’re sorry for the confusion caused.

Regarding your booking, we did review your case carefully and responded at the time, including arranging a refund for the transfer fee to the rehabilitation center where there was a miscommunication with our operating partner on the exact nature of your add-on. We’re glad we could resolve that portion, but we’re sorry that you felt your concerns weren’t fully addressed — that’s certainly not the experience we aim to provide.

Your feedback is important to us, and we’re taking it seriously as we continue to improve how we communicate pricing and inclusions more transparently. If you’d still like to discuss this further, we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation and see how we can help.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts, and we truly regret that your experience didn’t meet expectations.

Sincerely,
Lina

Merlijn & Pleun

Nov 2025

(Translated by Google) I booked Khao Sok National Park, but I wouldn't recommend it. Seek Sophie offers no added value, so definitely book directly with an organization; it'll save you money! (Original) Khao sok national park geboekt maar niet aan te raden. Seek Sophie heeft geen meerwaarde, dus boek zeker direct bij een organisatie, scheelt je ook geld!

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Pleun

Hi Pleun,

Thank you for sharing your feedback. I’m really sorry to hear you didn’t have a good experience. We actually visit every host in person to make sure they’re doing meaningful work for the environment and their communities, and that travellers are well taken care of.

We also look into every review carefully and work closely with our hosts (many of them are small family-run businesses) to help them do better. I couldn’t find a booking or any email under your name. Could you please email us at chat@seeksophie.com? I’d really love to understand what happened so we can look into it and make things right for you, and also help our hosts improve.

--
(I also took the liberty to use GPT to translate the response into Dutch - hope it makes sense!)

Hoi Pleun,

Dank je wel dat je even de tijd hebt genomen om je feedback te delen. Jammer om te horen dat je ervaring niet zo goed was!

We gaan zelf bij al onze hosts langs om te zien of ze goed werk doen voor de natuur en de lokale gemeenschap — en natuurlijk om zeker te weten dat reizigers goed worden verzorgd.

We lezen ook echt elke review en werken nauw samen met onze hosts (veel van hen zijn kleine familiebedrijfjes) om hen te helpen groeien en verbeteren. We konden geen boeking op jouw naam vinden — zou je ons even kunnen mailen op chat@seeksophie.com? We horen graag wat er precies is gebeurd, zodat we het kunnen uitzoeken en hopelijk goed kunnen maken, voor jou én voor onze hosts.

Best,
Jacinta
Co-founder, Seek Sophie

Piers Hughes

Oct 2025

Con Artists happy to take your money, but unable to deliver any experience! My wife bought me a dining experience for Christmas. We tried to use the voucher in March but their website had technical issues. I am now trying to book before my voucher expires in 3 months, the problems now are: - the venue is fully booked or on holiday until past the expiry of my gift voucher - the website given by their own message leads to a “missing page” - the voucher code provided does not work - Customer services are unresponsive to provide any answers even when we asked them if this was a con Basically AVOID, use someone trustworthy!

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Piers, we’re very sorry for the delay in coming back to your email as we were working out the availability with our hosts. They’re taking some time off so we had to check their calendar before coming back to you on some dates that work. We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

We have issued you with a full refund. We would also love to make it up to you with a gift experience - please do let us know by email or WA some dates that work best for you. We’re very sorry once again - this is not the level of hospitality that we strive for. We hope that we can make it up to you.

Best
Jacinta

Sandra Schmidt

Sep 2025

unfortunately bad customer service :(

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Sandra, we have looked through all of our communications and have not been able to identify any messages or bookings from you.

Could you please get in touch with us at chat@seeksophie.com so that we can rectify what may have occurred.

Would love to make it up to you as we pride ourselves in the attentive service we deliver.

catherine thuez

Aug 2025

Overcrowded places to see ; lots of time lost because of lack of organisation ; really bad communication with the agency, received so many messages from different number and most don’t tell the same thing and worse, telling conflicting informations ; Komodo site’s to see the dragons is ugly and smelly thanks to the pound of urines and feces behind the toilets, we stayed there for half an hour waiting for people taking pictures of themselves with a dragon ; and to finish don’t pay for the boat with 10 places, they will move you to the one with 25 visitors without any refund

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Catherine, we are very sorry to hear about your experience with one of our partners. We are still trying to verify what exactly happened and but we want to assure you that we take this matter very seriously and you and your party should never have been switched to another boat. Our customer support team is currently in touch with you and will be providing you a refund. Once again my sincere apologies that the actions of our partner have upset your holidays and we hope we can make it up to you.

Anna

Jul 2025

I am puzzled by the positive reviews from this company. We booked a turtle rescue experience in Bali 2nd July. Neither the host or the website directly were contactable at any time. Multiple messages did not get any response, despite the automated "thank you, we will contact you within 24 hours". Would never use this service again. Such a shame to miss what was advertised as a worthwhile experience, and seemingly no refund available despite not actually cancelling the booking. It was made clear there were no refunds, which is acceptable, but to have no further communication with a customer is completely unacceptable.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Anna, we are so sorry to hear you didn't hear from us in a timely manner. Our partner missed out on the notification email after your first messages due to incorrect settings on their profile which they have now updated. And our team didn't respond quickly enough as they were trying to find out what happened. We have also gone over these procedures internally and have improved our SOP. We appreciate customer feedback and truly take the time to improve.

I will note that we have reached out to you directly and processed a full refund for the experience which you missed out on due to bad traffic.

We hope you will give us another chance on another occasion.

Happy travels!

Edward L Albino Torres

Jun 2025

Avoid Using Seek Sophie We strongly advise against booking with Seek Sophie, based on our deeply disappointing and frustrating experience with this company in Southeast Asia. Our trip was poorly coordinated by three different individuals, leading to confusion and miscommunication. Key parts of our itinerary were never arranged, wasting both our time and money. We traveled specifically for this experience, and it unfortunately left us with a negative impression of the entire destination. Going all the way to Ende isn't a small trip and we expected more. Prior to full payment, Seek Sophie was highly responsive and attentive. However, once the payment was made, communication completely broke down until just a day before our scheduled pickup. When we finally arrived, we were confronted by a local host who demanded cash payment on the spot and refused to leave our accommodation until it was paid. despite us having already paid the company in full. Attempts to reach the company during and after the trip were ignored. WhatsApp messages all left on READ. This experience felt like a deliberate scam. We urge other travelers to avoid Seek Sophie at all costs to protect your time, money, and peace of mind. Our hard working money was wasted by this company.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Edward,

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We are sorry to hear you had a poor trip with us 1.5 years ago. Shortly after your trip we stopped working with this particular operator to make sure that we don't disappoint anyone else during their hard earned travels. Although we do a lot of work to select our local partners, once in a while we have a mismatch with our partners, but we do our best to make it right by our customers.

We have sent you an email one week ago in hopes we could make it right by you, however we have not heard from you. Would love to make it up to you as well as to learn a bit more about some of the things you mentioned in your review, such as not being able to contact us during your trip as we do not have any record of messages being sent.

Once again, our sincere apologies for the negative experience and we hope we can make it up to you.

Kind Regards,
Lina

Kathleen Gosling

Jun 2025

My husband and I are back on the road again, and yesterday we found ourselves reminiscing about our last big adventure. As we talked, one particular stop came up - Kelimetu Indonesia with Seek Sophie - and it hit us that we never actually got around to reviewing it in Jan 2024. Nearly 1.5 years have passed, and honestly, at the time we were so drained and disheartened by the experience that we just wanted to move on. Especially as we’d had no response from them at the time. I always knew the post needed time and space to be written properly, but life took over and it kept getting pushed aside. Now, with fresh perspective (and a bit of distance), it’s time - because if our experience can help someone else avoid going through the same thing, then it’s worth sharing - so here it is. We booked our Kelimutu trip through Seek Sophie, hoping for a smooth, thoughtfully organized experience. What we got instead was one of the most frustrating and disappointing tours we’ve ever taken. Really my other half is still traumatized and finds it one of the worst 24hrs of travelling in a long time. To start with the good: Kelimutu itself is absolutely worth visiting. But everything else - from the booking process to the actual tour - was a mess. Seek Sophie was super responsive and communicative until we paid. After that? Radio silence. Even when things started going wrong and we reached out, our messages were ignored. It honestly felt like we were ghosted - they archived the chat and left everything unread. There was zero support or accountability when we needed it most. We were sold a private tour of Ende and Kelimutu, with a clear itinerary and the understanding that everything was taken care of. What actually happened was that Seek Sophie clearly subcontracted to a local operator, who then passed us off to someone who had no clue what had been arranged. When he picked us up, he literally asked, “Where are you going?” and then flat-out refused to go to the stops listed in the itinerary. Instead, he took us to two completely shut-down villages that were striking against the government - places we never asked to go and had no context for. Things only got worse from there. • At check-in, the host tried to charge us again, claiming we hadn’t paid. We had to dig up confirmation emails and make a call to prove it was pre-paid. Extremely awkward. • There was no running water in the morning, so no shower. • No WiFi, no phone signal, and a blackout meant we had to get ready in total darkness. • We had to wake up the host ourselves to get to the volcano, and he was grumpy and annoyed we’d done so. • He slept in the car while we hiked Kelimutu. ( I mean in a way we liked this so we had freedom to do as we wanted). • Also we had to set off in the dark with no torches or anything - which made for a comical situation - but also not cool to not have been mentioned in the booking. we could have easily prepared ourselves otherwise. We were completely dependent on this guy for the duration of the tour, which made the whole situation feel even worse - we were stuck, with no real way to leave or switch plans. The only positive moment came when we got back: he made a nice breakfast with fresh fruit and coffee. But by then, the damage was done. We paid a lot for this tour, assuming it was a necessary and well-organized way to visit Kelimutu. In hindsight, we feel totally ripped off and taken advantage of. We would have had a better experience renting a motorbike and doing it ourselves - the road is good, the hike is short, and it can easily be done in a day from a place that actually meets your needs. This isn’t just about a bad guide - it’s about poor vetting, zero follow-up, and a total lack of accountability from Seek Sophie. We expected better. I realise we’re late doing this, but just felt it was necessary for others so they don’t get into a similar situation. 02JUN I’ll be reaching out to Seek Sophie with my booking confirmation (which I’ve just managed to dig up!) following their response here.

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi Kathleen,

We are very sorry to hear about your experience and take your feedback seriously.

We do not have any bookings under your name. We also haven't been offering the Kelimutu trip for close to one year now. If you may have booked some time ago and under another name please do contact us at chat@seeksophie.com and we would love to hear from you in more detail about your experience so that we can take action to prevent any such future incidents.

We hope to hear from you soon!

Shop 1 (Glaste)

Nov 2024

(Translated by Google) We booked a boat trip to Ha Long in Vietnam, but the evening before the trip, the trip was cancelled, leaving us stranded in Ha Long without a boat trip… (Original) Schiffsreise in Vietnam Ha Long gebucht, und ein Abend vor der Reise wurde die Reise abgesagt und wir standen ohne Schiffsreise in Ha Long…

Response from Seek Sophie

Hi there!

Thank you for your feedback, and we’re really sorry for the confusion and frustration caused—we completely understand how upsetting this must have been.

We think we’ve found your booking, and it seems this was a request to book a trip, which was still pending confirmation from the host. As mentioned during the booking process, requests for next-day trips depend on the host’s availability, and unfortunately, the host wasn’t able to confirm your request, so it was declined.

If we’ve misunderstood your situation, please do let us know—we want to make sure we address this properly. In the meantime, we’d love to help you find another trip and will get in touch with you to arrange this as soon as possible.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and we hope to turn this around for you!

Abigail Cheam

Sep 2024

One day komodo day trip TL;DR: Do not recommend SeekSophie, especially for the Komodo day trip. They lack ESSENTIAL safety protocols and emergency preparedness, alongside unprofessional behavior. The food and boat arrangements were subpar. We found much better and cheaper options with local tour companies. Avoid this company, especially given the glaring safety issues. Emergency Preparedness Issues: Our experience exposed SeekSophie's incompetence in passenger and crew safety. Shortly after departure, one of our boat's engines failed, leaving us stranded in the ocean for an hour. Despite attempts to arrange rescue, we were informed no backup boats were available, and we had to return on one engine. This lack of foresight in emergency planning is alarming for a company reliant on boat trips. Lack of Professionalism: When we had to reschedule due to a flight delay (caused by the global microsoft outage which affected many airports and completely out of our control) , the local operator's response was hostile and unhelpful. They blamed us for the situation and refused to discuss alternatives civilly. This unprofessional conduct included gaslighting us about our flight delay's cause, rather than offering constructive solutions. Such behavior is unacceptable in customer service. Overall, SeekSophie's disregard for safety and professionalism ruined what should have been an enjoyable experience. Look elsewhere for reliable and respectful tour operators in Labuan Bajo.

Response from Seek Sophie

Dear Abigail,

We share your disappointment that your trip didn't go as planned. We know that travel disruptions can be really stressful, but please know that we did everything in our power to resolve the situation and ensure your comfort and safety.

We understand that your Komodo boat host offered a full refund on your trip. They also offered additional compensation, such as a free tour of Labuan Bajo's caves and surrounding areas. For guests who didn't want the land tour and preferred to return to Bali on the same day, they even offered free business class tickets back to Bali.

Addressing your concerns:
1. We understand the CrowdStrike flight disruption was a major inconvenience for travellers. While we always recommend travel insurance for unforeseen events like this, we understand that even with insurance, such disruptions can be upsetting. In recognition of the stress caused by the flight disruption, your boat host went the extra mile to find a replacement for your original trip, so that you were able to get a partial refund on your original trip booking.

2. We sincerely regret the boat's gearbox issue. Such incidents are uncommon, but we do advise our guests that Komodo's remote nature means occasional issues can happen. Please know that at no point was anyone's safety at risk. The crew acted swiftly and professionally, prioritising the well-being of all passengers. Everyone had life jackets readily available, and the boat returned to shore at a cautious pace to ensure a safe return.

3. We understand that your boat host did his best to make amends: providing full cash refunds to all guests, offering a complimentary land tour, and even purchasing business class tickets back to Bali for guests who didn't want the land tour and preferred to return to Bali sooner.

4. As for lower priced options in Labuan Bajo, the cheaper 1-day boat trips you may have seen are on slower wooden boats that visit 3 islands in a day. The option you booked was for a faster speedboat that covers 6 islands in one day. This is why it is more expensive. The speedboat options you'll find in Labuan Bajo are generally the same price or even more expensive than what you paid.

While we can't undo the events that occurred, we hope you recognise the genuine efforts made to address the situation and ensure your comfort and safety.

Exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations like Komodo comes with its own set of challenges, but we're committed to working with the best local partners to provide exceptional experiences, even when unexpected situations arise.

We appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best in your future travels.

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