点评:Our three night stay at Regua was, sadly, disappointing.
The reforestation efforts are clearly impressive and some of the community engagement and volunteer work looked good from the outside, albeit we only saw it briefly.
The situation and aspect of the lodge is beautiful, with mountain views, and the trails are extensive and very quiet.
The guest experience is not impressive, however.
The lodge is run by the project's son, Thomas, whom we found not to be effective. As a result, perhaps, the broader lodge team does not feel engaged, proactive or helpful.
Overall, the experience could be much improved.
A few snippets.
Our driver was 2 hours late collecting us from Rio - such a delay was highly foreseeable in busy morning traffic and no doubt avoidable.
When we arrived we were taken to the wrong room, and then the replacement room had no beds made up (and one was not made up until we asked much later in the day).
It is a small lodge - only 10 rooms - and yet nobody came to welcome us or show us around / inform us about birding or guiding, or even give us information about local trails so that we could head off for a walk. This despite the fact that, in communication prior to our arrival, we were told we could not book any guiding in advance and could only arrange that when we arrived. And yet when we arrived, we discovered that the specific guide we had requested over email had somehow been pre-booked by other guests. This kind of frustrating disorganisation was indicative of our stay.
Discussions about activities were consistently vague and inconclusive - it was never clear what was possible and whether it was included in the basic rates. Other guests seemed to be offered birding with an in-house guide but we were not.
The birding - the main reason we visited - without guides was disappointing with far fewer species (and much more difficult to spot) than we'd anticipated (and we have bird-watched extensively in South and Central America). We saw only a fraction of the species we'd anticipated, and saw only one bird on the feeders in the garden. We walked all the main trails around the property (this can easily be done in two days) and saw (and heard) very few birds. This made the difficulty in navigating the guide situation even more frustrating.
The food was another significant issue: despite there being two vegetarians out of 5 total guests when we stayed, no vegetarian food was provided in a number of meals beyond white rice, tomato and lettuce. The food overall (my companions were meat-eaters) was just passable. Two of our party got stomach upsets on our final day at Regua.
We were pleased that the money we paid to stay there was going to the conservation objectives.
Regua has the potential to be a great haven for guests in the mountains but under the current management it is instead an overpriced, underwhelming and disappointing experience. We do hope it improves so that money continues to flow into conservation efforts.
翻译:我们在雷瓜旅馆住了三个晚上,可惜体验令人失望。
其植树造林工作确实令人印象深刻;从外部观察,社区的参与情况以及志愿者活动也开展得不错,尽管我们只是稍作了解而已。
旅馆的地理位置和环境都很不错,可以欣赏到山景,周围的步道也很多且十分幽静。
不过,客人的体验却不尽如人意。
旅馆由该项目的负责人之子托马斯负责管理,但我们觉得他并不称职。或许正因如此,才导致了这样的结果吧。整个旅舍团队显得缺乏积极性、主动性和乐于助人的态度。
总体而言,整体体验还有很大的提升空间。
几点细节:
我们的司机迟到了两小时才来里约接我们——在早高峰时段出现这种延误其实是完全可以预见的,也本可以避免。
到达后,我们被带到了错误的房间;后来安排的替代房间里也没有铺好床铺(其中一张床直到我们当天晚些时候提出要求后才被整理好)。这是一家小型旅馆——只有10间房——然而却没有人来欢迎我们、带我们参观,也没有人向我们介绍观鸟或向导服务的相关信息,甚至连当地步道的信息都没有提供,好让我们能去散步。尽管在我们抵达前沟通时,对方告诉我们无法提前预订向导服务,只能到了之后再安排。可当我们真的到了之后……我们发现,我们通过邮件特别要求的导游服务不知为何已被其他客人提前预订了。这种令人沮丧的混乱状况恰恰反映了我们此次入住体验的整体质量。
关于各项活动的讨论始终含糊其辞且毫无定论——我们始终搞不清楚有哪些活动可供选择,以及这些活动是否包含在基础费用中。其他客人似乎都能获得由酒店提供的观鸟向导服务,但我们却没有。观鸟——也是我们此行的主要目的——在没有向导的情况下令人失望:我们看到的鸟类种类远少于预期(而且很难被发现)。(我们曾在南美洲和中美洲进行过大量的观鸟活动。)我们只看到了预期中一小部分种类的鸟,在花园里的喂鸟器旁也只看到了一只鸟而已。我们走遍了庄园内所有的主要步道(两天时间就能轻松走完),但看到的(听到的)鸟却寥寥无几。这使得在适应这里的服务流程时更加令人沮丧。
食物也是一个大问题:我们入住时,5位客人中有2位是素食者,但除了白米饭、番茄和生菜外,其他餐食中根本没有提供任何素食。总体来讲,食物水平也就勉强过得去(我的同伴们都是肉食主义者)。在雷瓜的最后一天,我们一行人中有两人出现了肠胃不适的情况。我们很高兴自己支付的费用能够用于保护工作。
雷瓜本有潜力成为山区的绝佳度假胜地,但在目前的管理下,它却成了价格虚高、品质平庸且令人失望的去处。我们衷心希望情况能有所改善,这样资金才能继续投入到保护工作当中。