Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Jack and along with four of my friends I recently had the misfortune to partake in your company’s three day tour of Niagara Falls and Toronto. Why, may you ask, did we choose you? Well, it was just so cheap. Little did we know that “It was SO cheap!” would become our mantra. Each time we were let down we would cry “It was SO cheap!” Maybe it would be more informative for you if I described my experiences.
We left New York City at 8am. Imagine a coach full of tired travellers all preparing for restful naps. These hopes were bludgeoned to death when the tour guide grabbed the microphone and screeched “MY NAME IS MAY…WE ARE IN CHINATOWN…HOLLAND TUNNEL…CASINO…CHINA TOWN…”, ad nauseum.
Her spiel went on, and on, and on. Having this information barked in your direction at 8am would be bad enough. But May added her uncanny ability to make things worse. She informed us that we were not to use the coach’s toilet. These are toilet facilities which are advertised on your website. But this didn’t matter to May. May wasn’t so much a tour guide as an elderly dictator. She had lots of power, but no idea how to use it. She was confused and lost. Add to this May’s inability to demonstrate any hospitality whatsoever. I have seen more acceptable behaviour in prison showers. May was something of a Robert Mugabe and Charles Manson hybrid. And she had a microphone. I didn’t think I could dislike a piece of technological hardware, but I soon had a psychotic hatred of microphones. The microphone was May’s weapon of choice. Her favourite catchphrase was “WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!” No matter how early May always thought it was appropriate to bark this before her random musings.
The coach eventually drew up to Howe’s Caverns. Everyone rushed off the coach simply because at least outside May didn’t have access to her microphone. At the allotted time we got back on the coach, ready and enthusiastic to get to Canada. And then we sat there a little longer. And a little longer. After 50 minutes May returned. We raised this lateness with May and she reacted with offhandedness. She then picked out one member of our group and decided to have an angry rant about how we should be visiting the attractions. This startling show of stupidity concluded with an amazing leap of logic where we were blamed for her lateness. But seeing that her attempts to bully had not had the desired effect of making us part with $150 May tried a new tactic. She picked up the microphone (always a bad sign). “There are some students who aren’t doing the attractions. It is stupid isn’t it?” she implored to a bewildered audience. Needless to say this belittling didn’t make us change our minds any more than bullying had.
And so the coach headed to the northern border. Pulling into a Chinese buffet for dinner was a welcome break. A welcome break that would soon become as repetitious as constantly burping up a bad spring roll. By the end we had gone to three Chinese buffets in three days. At points I wasn’t sure if this was a tour of Niagara Falls and Toronto or of Chinese buffets.
We finally pulled into Niagara at around 11pm. As we hadn’t paid for attractions we got to discover the real Niagara, while nearly everyone else had to go to a film about the falls and then sit in a geographically-removed restaurant for lunch. I think you have bewilderingly created the first tour to Niagara Falls where people never actually get to see the Falls. So my friends and I went to the coach to meet up with May. We were happy to be only kept waiting 40 minutes this time. A whole ten minute improvement! It was almost as if May didn’t like us… What I witnessed next was possibly the craziest episode ever seen in the history of tourism. The planned attraction in Toronto was a boat tour. However, May announced “The boat tour man hasn’t rung me back. I don’t know why he hasn’t rung. So we can’t do the boat tour. What do you want to do then?”
It was odd that May denied all responsibility for having to solve the problem. People were confused, but suggestions started to be shouted and the most popular was “free time in Toronto.” May looked disgustedly at those who had proposed such a vile idea and replied “We need to do an ATTRACTION!” May’s incompetence had gone from humorously tragic to simply tragic by this point.
The next morning we were all on the bus at 7am, sleepy and hearing May screech “WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!” After this she decided to put on a movie to entertain us – “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.” Why she thought this was a good choice for an audience where the average age was around 35 is something I will never understand. She then put the volume so loud that the experience was akin to being hit in the face by a cuddly toy for 90 minutes. We were left with a harrowing choice – watch a movie so simple our minds would turn to jelly or listen to our MP3 players at full volume to drown it out and induce migraines. I choose the latter. A few centuries later we arrived in New York City. For the first time everyone seemed relatively happy. We had been liberated from the camp, released from the basement and we were now free once again to think independently of May and her microphone.
So why I am writing to you? First, for an apology. The tour was comparable only to being sexually assaulted for 3 days solid, and having to pay £77 for the privilege. Please give May more training. I, maybe wrongly, believe she could be a good guide. But she has been given no support. And lastly, May’s incompetence is not helped by the most poorly organised schedule ever. How have you organised a tour of Niagara Falls and Toronto where neither are visited? That is just dumbass stupid.
I know you have not enjoyed reading this letter, but I didn’t enjoy my holiday.
Regards,
Jack Knight
” The tour was comparable only to being sexually assaulted for 3 days solid, and having to pay £77 for the privilege.”
“The tour was comparable only to being sexually assaulted for 3 days solid, and having to pay £77 for the privilege”
That’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever read in any article, anywhere, ever.
“I have seen more acceptable behaviour in prison showers.”
Have you now?
How is this any different to the way society budgets are distributed. Sports who require more money just to run because of equipment and the like should get more money. I don’t think it’s a question of Octopush etc being OVER funded but of Badminton etc being UNDER funded.
“The tour was comparable only to being sexually assaulted for 3 days solid, and having to pay £77 for the privilege.”
Fucking hell, you are an ignorant fool.
Should we be reading anything into knowing extensively about rape and prison shower behaviour?
“We had been liberated from the camp, released from the basement and we were now free once again to think independently of May and her microphone.”
This is written 2 sentences before the sexual assault comment that seems everyone cannot morally stand. Why is it that sexual assault seems to damage some people’s moral compass so gravely, but jokes about Nazis and Joseph Fritzl don’t?
I assure you, most of the offensive babble you’ve written in that article damaged my “moral compass,” I was just picking out a specific example.
Your ignorance regarding several subjects was concerning, but I felt that the rape comment was especially poor, hence the comment.
Hang on, you’re taking the moral high ground by saying your crass and insensitive prose should be treated equally?
I am saying that some people who have commented on this article feel they should be offended by a particular joke, instead of actually being offended.
My personal take on the matter is that a number of people feel that certain attempts at humour on your part are at best insensitive and at worst plain ignorant. However rather than apologise for any offence caused, you have attempted to deflect issues of morality back towards the reader with breathtaking disregard for other people’s opinions. Bottom line – you are not Frankie Boyle, so please stop trying to derive humour from these kind of lines.
I agree with the comments of “Oh Cmon” – the entire article smacked of offensive “babble”, and highlighting specific cases to back up a general point of view is what any good journalist does. Not that you’d understand this, apparently.
“I am saying that some people who have commented on this article feel they should be offended by a particular joke, instead of actually being offended.”
Not content with being a poor man’s Frankie Boyle, you also seem to think you’re Derren Brown too.