It’s no secret that I regularly emphasize the importance of connecting with your hotel’s concierge. These seasoned, well-trained professionals have one job: to find answers for guests’ requests. As soon as I have our flight information, I contact the hotel for transportation options. If what they offer is too pricey, I will investigate other options. But it never fails to bring happiness upon a foreign-city arrival to have that issue resolved. It is so worth the cost.
For our arrival into Bucharest, I did just that. The response from the Intercontinental Athenee was swift and informative. Transportation booked just like that. But what happened beyond that is the big story here.
While much of this trip involves driving from city to city through central Europe (i.e., on our own), I was uncertain how to manage our time in Romania. There is a great deal to see with the castles in the countryside, etc., that the idea of doing it on our own wasn’t ideal. Thus, I asked the concierge for guide recommendations.
Enter my now-bestie/miracle worker, Mr. Daniel Dumitru with the agency Romania on the Map. Any concerns I might have had as to his English speaking skills (critical for the hubby to understand clearly) were quickly resolved as we communicated. This is a find.
The value of this connection quickly became clear. It was a cinch booking essentially 4 days with Daniel, including a half-day tour of Bucharest, then driving/guiding us along the way with overnights in Brasova and Sibiu before departing from Cluj-Napoca. We will see a lot.
The biggest benefit was this: Our scheduled flight was cancelled from Belgrade (Serbia) to Chisinau (Moldava) for an overnight, before flying to Bucharest for our stay. The flights offered for this area are skant. The solution: leave Belgrade a day earlier flying to Chisinau. Done. But there is just one daily flight now offered to Bucharest, and it is 5:30 — in the morning. No thanks. I contacted Daniel. Not only did he graciously step in when I called “uncle” in dealing with Tarom (the Romanian airline) — he called them for me and executed flight refunds — but he is now DRIVING us from Chisinau to Bucharest. Seven hours of comfort from point A to point B, more sightseeing, and actually costs less than that single flight.
So that one single request to the Bucharest concierge for guide recommendations indeed yielded BIG benefits. Ask away.
