The following was written to Conde Nast Traveler, as a review of our services;

Dear Christine,

I apologize for a rushed review on Wanda but as I mentioned in my earlier email we are leaving for Hong Kong in a few hours and I still have much to do before I leave.

To give you some background on me –so that you know I have some credibility with my feedback – my husband, Roy, and I have traveled to over 110 countries and our daughters around 80. I have used travel agents in the past to help with our many trips and at least 8 of them were on your Top Travel Specialists list. I have just returned from a stay at the 5 Amans in Indonesia and am presently planning a family trip to Namibia in December. As it is our 30th anniversary year Roy and I are indulging ourselves with at least one international trip a month – mainly to revisit places we went on our 3-month honeymoon back in 1987. In fact, we only decided last week to go to Hong Kong when I found a cheap flight on Scott’s Cheap Tickets.) So, you see we love to travel and explore and have a good idea of what constitutes a successful trip for us.

Last year I had planned and paid for a trip to Ethiopia over the Christmas Holidays. However, the declared State of Emergency in Ethiopia made us postpone the trip to another time and look for somewhere else for Christmas (we typically surprise the kids with a trip presented to them on Christmas morning for departure that day or Boxing Day; we pack up a gift under the tree which is their clue for them to guess the destination. A fun tradition which sadly we have had to curtail the last couple of years now we they have to juggle time off work).

It was tough finding a substitute for Ethiopia very last minute that was as exciting a destination. In the end, my daughters looked up best spots to spend New Year’s Eve that were a little off the beaten path and came up with Dubrovnik- so we rented a place in the old city. However, it soon became clear that there might not be much to do in winter in Croatia, typically a summer destination, as it was cold and lots of places were closed for the season. Therefore, I needed to get help on filling up time from someone who knew the country and could suggest some unique activities.

I found Wanda on several top list, including Conde Nast’s and gave her a quick call expecting not to get hold of her in the office or to get a response of “it’s too late at this stage to organize anything”. Instead, I ended up talking to a lovely, warm lady who engaged me at every level. She listened to everything I said I needed to make a trip successful, she asked me lots of questions to get a detailed understanding of how my family functions and she then told me about herself and her love of Croatia and why it would make a great NYE destination, as long as I was aware that it would not be the typical holiday spot for most tourists and had some limitations –which she thought she could get around by substituting other interesting options.

I mentioned to Wanda that we had an interest in seeing as many countries as possible in that part of the world and she said no problem and that if we were interested in history and culture then Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro were perfect destinations and she could set up day trips from Dubrovnik. Plus, she suggested we threw in a night on the beautiful island of Korcula which we would be sure to have almost to ourselves. Wanda then set to work and over the next couple of days sent me lots of information and options to have a look at and choose. I loved her interest in my family, her determination to make sure the trip was tailored to our specific interests and most of all her infectious love and enthusiasm for her country. She was available at any time of the day to answer my questions, got responses from people on the ground very quickly and was able to suggest luxury experiences when I asked for them and or cut back on items I did not think worth spending money on. Altogether, what could have been a stressful trip to organize turned into an enjoyable one with Wanda’s charm and warmth giving me confidence that it would be a success.

In the end, we had a great trip but there is no doubt in my mind that if I had not had Wanda set it up we would have been wandering around an empty city wondering where all the action was and how to access it.
Furthermore, everyone we came into contact with on the tour, whether guide or driver, had a genuine respect and admiration for Wanda and took pride in the fact that she had selected them to represent her as they had personally been interviewed by Wanda. We distinctly had the impression that they took special care in looking after us because of their relationship with Wanda. It was impressive how they all knew her and spoke so highly of her.

Some aspects of the trip to point out. Please excuse the bullet point style:
• The guides and drivers were of the highest caliber. Everyone was a specialist in their area and spoke English well and paid great attention to making sure we were happy with what they were doing. We particularly grew fond of our driver, Marko, and ended up asking him to drive us to Albania last minute. He took it in his stride even though he had had never been there and attempted to drive us to Albania on the day that the coast line had it worst snowstorm in years. We were that confident in his driving that we were prepared to risk the cliff side roads. However, the conditions became so bad that we had to abort our trip. In the end, he took us to a very lovely mill restaurant in Montenegro where we spent hours enjoying the warmth of an old historic building with superb food while the storm raged outside. It was wonderful!
• Wanda has her contacts in Dubrovnik that represent her while we were in the country. They did an excellent job of contacting us, keeping up with our itinerary and dealing with any questions we had about the itinerary. This was a very helpful addition to Wanda. Furthermore, if I had a question or a guide sensed we were not happy about something, within minutes we would get a call from Wanda or her rep asking if they could help. This too was impressive- especially since we are talking about the holiday period when most of them would normally have been off work during the low season. We definitely felt that Wanda was managing the operations from across the waters and keeping a close eye on us. However, she is so conscientious and detail orientated that nothing went wrong.
• New Year’s Eve in Dubrovnik was a huge surprise; one moment the old city was empty then the next it was full of glamorous, people dressed to the nines and crowding the streets until late into the morning. A huge stage had been assembled in the main street and hundreds of locals turned out to enjoy the free music, the spectacular fireworks and the other celebrations. The city came alive and it was fascinating to watch the crowd sing along to popular songs in Croatian and give any stranger a hug. There was hardly a tourist in sight. Wanda made it even more special for us by booking us a prime seat at the nearby Pucic Palace Hotel where we had the table all evening long so could join the crowds in the streets in between courses and drinks. Wanda also, had told us to go to a Christmas music concert in a Franciscan Church which turned out to be very moving with the locals singing traditional Christmas hymns. We would not have had this experience if Wanda had not told us to go. On NYE day itself, the main streets were still alive with people as the city offered free champagne and oysters (yes – FREE champagne and oysters) to all the crowd while listening to the Symphony play. It was a wonderful way to spend the day, especially as the sun came out and the place was sparkling.
• Both the trip that Wanda organized to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro were a success and it was great to have everything taken care of and running smoothly, like all the formalities of the border crossings, the guides ready on arrival and the comfortable transportation. Our guides were very informative and the historical education side of the trip was one of the best aspects of the trip. We found that though the history is so recent we were unfamiliar with most of the details, therefore we spent a couple of evenings in our rental place (overlooking the Cathedral) watching the excellent 10 hour BBC Documentary on “The Fall of Yugoslavia”.
• Our trip to Korcula would have been a disaster if it wasn’t for Wanda. The stunning little gem of an island was closed up and it was drizzling and grey. However, Lea, our guide was extraordinary. She is from Korcula and pulled out all the stops to ensure we were happy with our visit: she organized the museum and church to be opened up for the day just for us and had people of consequence meet us to explain some of the history of the time. She took us up into the mountains for the most incredible meal at a picturesque, tiny restaurant which was closed for the season but she had the chef and his brother open it up and roast the meat for 8 hours just to ensure that we had the best food on offer on the island. She even had them open up the last bottle of their best wine. We were most impressed.
• Wanda suggested that we spend the day in Konvale at a traditional NY festival when small shop owners open up to the public for a day to let visitors have a taste of their products. We visited a small museum of local artefacts which showed a farmer’s lifestyle, sampled homemade spirits and liqueurs, and had the traditional green soup only made at this time of the year. It was a heartwarming day as we interacted with a lot of the locals and everyone was genuinely welcoming – and surprised to see us turn up. It was another totally unexpected and unique experience that we would never have known to do if Wanda hadn’t set it up.

I know there are things I have missed saying that would continue to emphasize what a great job Wanda did for us – but unfortunately, I am out of time. So, I hope that the above will suffice. Bottom line, I loved working with Wanda. She is the kind of person I would enjoy having dinner with or as a friend and it was easy to leave it up to her to organize the trip. I highly recommend her to anyone thinking about traveling to this part of the world.

Let me know if you need anything else from me. I have lots of photos. Also, feel free to use and edit any of my comments.

Best of luck in getting the list finalized.

Eva Strasburger & Family – Austin, TX
December 2016

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Photos by Dubravko Lenert