Ulasan mengenai Ari Tour & Travel - Yogyakarta

Jogja-Bromo-Bali tour with Ari tour & travel Yogyakarta. SCAM - WARNING!

I don't even know where to start but i'm going to make it my mission to make sure this company goes bankrupt soon!
This whole tour was one big and dangerous scam from beginning to end. I booked the trip at their office on Sosrowjiyan street. A man told me it was a tour with an ac minibus and it would take 10 hrs to get to the hotel near Bromo and 10 hrs with another bus and ferry to Bali.
The entrance fee was not included and should be rp.200.000. The next morning I was picked up and turned out there was only one other guy on the tour, the rest had cancelled (guess these people were smart enough to read the reviews before leaving..)
To the journey begun: The airconditioning did not work and this is the worst driver i've ever been in a car with, and i've been in many buses all over asia. It was an incredibly uncomfortable and dangerous 11 hour ride to their office in probolingo, called "makhota travel & tour". Where an extremely rude man "greeted" us. Immediately he tried to sell us all kinds of extra's in a very agressive way. The entrance to Bromo was rp320.000 according to him because it was a holiday and when we asked about the day after it was also a holiday.. Yeah right.. Oh and it was also another hour by another minibus to our hotel near Bromo. When we mentioned the ride there was very long and dangerous he started yelling and said: then you should have taken the train!! It will take other drivers 15 hours so we shouldnt complain. Well I would rather be a few more hours in a bus than risking my life!
So after more then an hour we got in this bus, which was so old and crappy that i'm surprised it still worked. We get to the hotel and it was awfull, but I expected this and since it was only for a couple hours it was not the end of the world.
I was supposed to be picked up by a jeep at 4am but at 3.30 someone was knocking in my door that I had to leave NOW. So a few minutes later I walked to the jeep and a very agressive man came up to me to sell me a ticket for Bromo. I said no because at this point I didn't trust anyone anymore, he got mad and said I had to buy it from him because it would be more expensive at the ticket office. I was by myself in a jeep in the middle of the night with a driver that didn't speak english but pushed me to buy the ticket from "his friend" I said I'd rather go to the ticket office because at least I know its a real ticket. Later another lady went in the same jeep and she didn't want to buy the ticket from the man either. We passed by the ticket office and the driver didn't want to stop so we did not pay anything. When we left Bromo the driver only paid rp10.000 so no entrance fee for us. He took us back to the hotel and when we got out he said he wanted rp.250.000 for the entrance. I said: you did not pay for our entrance and if we give you the money now you're going to keep it. He got mad and "his friend" who tried to sell us the tickets before got involved. Started cursing at us and even grabbed my arm. I rushed to my hotel room together with the other lady. The guy was yelling outside; if you don't pay we will leave you here and you're not going to Bali! Obviously I didn't want that so we decided to go back to the ticket office ourselves to pay the entrance fee after all. He went there on his scooter and when we got there all the sudden he was soooo sorry for what happened. We paid the money and left. A few hrs later I was picked up by a public minibus back to probolingo where we had to wait an hour to go on the bus to Bali. This was of course not the bus that was promised but an old public one with no toilets and we stopped only once in 13 hours. I was put in the backseat where there were 6 narrow seats with 7 local people on it. I could barely move. Later I was talking to another tourist on the bus and she also heard stories about people beinig dropped at random busstations, we were hoping that this one would just drop us off at Denpasar as promised. But you guessed it; after almost 12 hours we stopped at a busstation in the middle of nowhere, it was dark and again very agressive men yelled that we had to get out of the bus. But this is not Denpasar!? I said to the guy that sold the tickets in the bus. He ignored me and a man came up to us and got our luggage and said: I will take you to Denpasar with minibus. Ok we said but we're not going to pay for it because we bought a ticket to Denpasar. He didn't respond. We get to his van and I said 3 times, are you sure we don't have to pay? He said: of course you pay. At this point I couldn't take it anymore and started crying. This whole trip is a scam I said! He started lauging; yes company's in Java no good. I was furious. I'm a girl traveling by myself and this is your worst nightmare; Being dropped in the middle of nowhere late at night. They felt sorry for me and took me to my destination for rp100.000 after a detour of 45 minutes through Denpasar looking for someone else's hotel. Now here comes the best part: We drive through the busstation in Denpasar where I see the bus that dropped us at the random station! With the same guy! So I get out of the taxi and walked towards him. You said you didn't stop in Denpasar!? He ignored me and walked away. I can't believe this happened. In the end I got to my hotel safely but this could've ended even worse. So please please don't EVER book a tour at Ari tours in Yogyakarta and be very careful with others because the other 2 tourists on the same bus had a similar experience.