AGH        Skills Coaches             (their details at the bottom of this page)                22 Nov 2008

Skills Coaches of Nottingham area a superb company.  They do all sorts of holidays, and all by their own coaches.  Beryl and I have had one or two excellent holiday with them.  I always say that one can tell the quality of a company when things go wrong.  Every business has problems at one time or another, and it is the judge of the company as to how they handle those problems.  Let me tell you a story:

A couple of years back, Beryl and I had a Rhine Cruise laid on by Skills.  We were taken down to Dover and across the Channel by ferry.  We drove through Belgium and Germany to a place called Konigsburg where we embarked on a river cruise vessel.  We sailed along the Rhine and had a couple of stops ashore.  One of stops was to a vineyard that produced its own wine.  I ordered a case of red to be delivered to this house a week later.  The Germans specialise in white wines, but their red was passable.

On the passage along the Rhine we passed a piece of the Berlin Wall.  That really put me in a spin.  My geography of Europe is not very good, but it didn't seem right to me.  I learned later that there are pieces of the old Berlin Wall all over the country.

We disembarked at one of the very well known cathedral cities (I can't remember its name).  The coach back home took us through Germany into Belgium where it pulled in to a fuel stop to refill with diesel.  The driver took the vehicle away from the pumps to a spot where he would not cause an obstruction.  We went into a small on-site cafe and had a coffee, and returned to the coach.  We were then told that the coach had broken down and that the driver had contacted Nottingham and awaited a mechanic.  The mechanic arrived about four house later.  That cafe had more business than usual.

The mechanic told the driver that he could get the coach engine started, but that as soon as it was switched off on the ferry, he wouldn't be able to re-start it.  So we followed the mechanic's car back to Brussels where a more permanent frig was arranged.  To properly repair the coach would have needed a replacement PCB, and that would have to come from Germany early next week.  We waited another four hours in Brussels while the local fitters got the coach going well enough so that it could be driven home.

We missed umpteen ferries and got to Leicester Forest East by 3AM the next day.  And lo and behold, there were taxis an a minibus waiting for us.  We were ferried home.  The next day I wrote to Skills saying that I did not blame Skills in any way as the coach was almost new.  I got a letter by return of post.  It was not a copy of a multiple letter, as it replied to one specific point I made.  In the envelope was a cheque for over a hundred pounds "to apologise for our inconvenience".  I immediate replied that I would be cashing the cheque, but they would see that money back very soon as part of the money for another holiday.

We have since had a holiday in Wales and will be Christmas-ing in northern Scotland, courtesy of Skills.  We did have one other incident with Skills that I record in an essay in cdcnottingham.co.uk/ADA.htm  I imagine that young driver has not lived his experience down.  I mentioned the incident the the driver who took us to Wales and he knows the chap and the incident. It'll go down in Skills folklore, no doubt.

Tel    0115.977.0080    Reservations 0845.666..5544    Fax = 0115.977.7439
Tel   01623.633.300
Skills also have a freephone number that they do not publish widely; it is 0800.316.1777

Skills seem to have two parts to their business: Skills Coaches and Skills Coachstyle.  I don't really know what the difference is.

Update on 22/11/08        We've just returned for a few days in Oban.  The hotel is the Columba Hotel.  See AJK for my blurb on this holiday