Ole Ole Travel Company

If you read my "Bus Odyssey" blogs last week, you'll know that I'm not a fan of our tour group Ole Ole (www.oleole.com). Frankly, this company is disorganized and just moronic (although many of the people working for them are extremely nice). If you recall, it took us six hours to drive to the USA vs. England game; a drive which should have been 2.5 hours. The straw that broke the camel's back that day was when the tour leader had forgotten to bring the parking permit for the bus. This made us have to wait an additional hour+ to get into the stadium. That tour leader has since quit or been fired but that hasn't stopped the constant mistakes by Ole Ole.

For the USA vs. Slovenia game, we were scheduled to leave our hotel at 12:30 for the 4PM game. As soon as we got on the bus, I said to the tour leader, "Do we have a parking permit?" The guy said, "I don't know" and turned to the bus driver and asked him if he had a permit. The bus driver said that the other Ole Ole worker had it. Well, the other Ole Ole worker didn't have it. Nobody had it. Once again, our tour company didn't collect the permit from wherever they were supposed to get it. This meant that our bus wasn't allowed through the road block set up near the stadium. This wouldn't be a problem if they let everyone off at the road block. It was only a fifteen minute walk from there to the stadium. However, the tour leader instead tried over and over to find an alternate way into the stadium which meant aimless driving for thirty or more minutes down roads which are not meant for big buses. Finally we convinced the guy to drop us off on the street and we walked. The point is though, they had four years to prepare for this event and continually are making idiotic mistakes. They say that insanity is when you try to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. That is exactly what Ole Ole is doing; this company is insane. So if you stroll on to my blog looking to book World Cup tickets for 2014, I highly suggest you find a different tour company.