History Tour & Trip Reviews

I would love to write a review about our meticulously planned out trip, but as our $12000 week long trip to London and Dublin was cancelled due to a global pandemic, I cannot. This company has made it not just hard but nearly impossible to help out their customers who are in awful situations during this time. They are completely unwilling to budge on their bottom line even a little.

We had to cancel due to boarder/country closings and this company is trying to keep 100% of our money. We were booked to fly with British Airlines, and BA refunded $700 per person and that is all that this company has given us.

If by some miracle we get a representative on the phone they are condescending and degrading. I even spoke with the VP of the company and he was the worst. He made me feel small and unimportant. This whole company is taking advantage of the situation and unless people get lawyers involved they are completely unwilling to refund any money.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! If something goes wrong on your trip, which let face it, multi country trips often have at least one thing go wrong, this company will NOT HELP! Do yourself a favor and go with someone else who has much better customer service and company values.

I bought a trip package from Great Value Vacations via Groupon (9-day trip to Greece, departing from JFK). Great Value cancelled the trip, citing the pandemic as the reason for cancellation. Groupon advised that GVV could readily refund the money based on GVV's cancellation of the trip.

GVV repeatedly refused to refund, claiming that they "didn't cancel the trip, just postponed it" and stating that I had a travel credit to use between APRIL AND DECEMBER 2020 (as if they control the pandemic's end date, my work and travel schedule...)

After horrendous customer service experiences with GVV in an effort to simply get my money back and to resolve the issue, I was forced to file a small claims lawsuit.

In summary:

GVV is truly disreputable. I do not recommend using this company for any reason no matter how tempting their "deals" may be. The customer service is impersonal, scripted, and unaccommodating to its customers. A horribly run business.

I have to believe the 5 star reviews were posted by their own staff.

Ich kann von Buchungen bei diesem Unternehmen nur abraten ! Le Boat sagt gebuchte Reisen (wegen der aktuellen Pandemie berechtigterweise) ab und bietet dafür aber nur zeitlich begrenzte Gutscheine an, die danach automatisch verfallen. Man weigert sich strikt, die bereits gezahlten Gelder zurück zu erstatten und verstößt damit ganz bewusst sowohl gegen die eigenen AGBs als auch gegen § 651h BGB. Nach außen spricht man davon, wie wichtig ihnen die Kundenzufriedenheit ist. Eine zufällig an mich weitergeleitete interne Hausmail belegt aber, dass denen die Kundenbeschwerden in Wirklichkeit am A.... vorbeigehen. Leider musste ich inzwischen den Rechtsweg beschreiten, um an meine Gelder zu kommen.

Achtung! Warnung! LeBoat hält seine eigenen Vertragsbedingungen nicht ein !!
Unsere gebuchte und bezahlte Bootstour vom 01.05-04.05.20 wurde uns seitens LeBoat 4 Tage vor Abfahrt !!! am 27.04.20 abgesagt weil LeBoat sich entschieden hatte die Basis erst zum 15.05.20 zu öffnen. Laut deren eigenen Vertragsbedingungen stehen Kunden im Falle einer Absage oder Verschiebung durch LeBoat auf Wunsch des Kunden die Rückerstattung zu ! In unserem Fall knapp 2.000€ ! Nun weigert sich LeBoat beharrlich trotz mehrfachem Telefonischen und schriftlichen Kontakt das Geld zu erstatten. Nur ein Gutschein bieten Sie an obwohl eine Erstattung ausdrücklich in den eigenen Vertragsbedingungen steht !!
Wir sind offensichtlich kein Einzelfall wie die Kommentare hier zeigen! Bei so einem Verhalten ist zu fürchten das die Zahlungsfähigkeit von LeBoat nicht gesichert ist!? Wir werden nun ebenfalls klagen und können aufgrund unserer Erfahrung nur dringend Abraten bei LeBoat zu buchen. Wer seine eigenen Vorgaben in ihren Verträge nicht einhält ist absolut nicht vertrauenswürdig. Solltet auch ihr diese Erfahrung machen schließt euch gerne den Klagen an !

My trip was late March and was cancelled a few weeks prior by EF Ultimate Break. They won't give me ANY refund even when I begged for a partial refund! The travel insurance didn't cover a pandemic. So disappointing and frustrating!

In 2019, I booked a trip thru O.A.T. to Mongolia for 2 weeks starting on July 1st to, among other things, go to the Na'am festival. It is usual and customary to prepay these international trips because of the technicalities involved, such as booking air and hotels. I travel internationally usually two times per year, so I am aware of this practice and have never had a problem with it until dealing with O.A.T.

The first week of March, O.A.T. called me and cancelled the trip, not even departing until July, because of the coronavirus and said they would be returning people's money on April 5th. They did not! They had said they would return it to the form of payment it was made on. For me, $350 was on my credit card and the remainder through a personal checking account. Altogether, it was nearly $8,000.00 US.

Please note O.A.T. had all of my money for at least 6 months, so there wasn't any issue of a check not having cleared. Also please note it was O.A.T., and not me who cancelled, so it wasn't as if I wasn't entitled to a full refund because of late cancellation. I didn't cancel at all.

I have called and called and no one seems to be answering the phone. A message says go to the website because of then coronavirus, but obviously, my payment details will not be there. I have received no money back by mail or credit! I have received no phone calls. No apology letter clarifying their refund procedure. No acknowledgement of my money at all except the receipt I was send months and months ago. Nada. Nothing at all. I cannot reach anyone, despite having waited on hold for hours with their Musack.

While I can understand the coronavirus has slowed things down, I also understand they've held my money a very, very long time and lied about when it would be returned! I'm afraid I've been stiffed and that other seniors will be, too. With this coronavirus thing, many of us have lost 30% or more in our retirement accounts and would like to have our refunds in our pockets.

This is not a company to do business with, assuming they are not filing for bankruptcy and/or going out of business. In fairness, I do NOT know that they are doing either one, it is only my personal fear at this point. They've been around a while, but I cannot help but feel extremely uneasy with them. Certainly, their corporate communications department could use a brush up on basic customer relations skills. I'm very, very worried.

This greedy and unethical company is being sued for keeping money from school children and their parents after the company canceled trips due to Coronavirus. They have a pattern of canceling trips and keeping your money and you get nothing! They only care about money and not earning it.

The Grand Tour of Ireland was such an amazing trip and I met so many great people! The landscapes were beautiful and I loved being able to just get to Ireland and have the entire trip planned for me already.

The Grand Tour of Ireland was such an amazing trip! I loved being able to meet so many new people on my tour and being able to book the trip and have the entire itinerary planned for me.

I booked this sort of last minute and wasn't sure what to expect. It was absolutely amazing! The hotels were nicer than I thought they were going to be and that was the biggest concern I had! Our Tour Director guy was incredible too and was always around to help out and grab a beer once in a while. Even though Innsbruck wasn't heavily advertised it was probably my favorite city! It was so gorgeous and we got some real good food. Definitely don't miss the chance to check out 4 great countries!

One of the best experiences of my life. Peru’s culture and sites were absolutely amazing. The tour director made the trip super stress free and I made friends for life. EF was amazing the whole time from start to finish. Already booked my next trip to Croatia with them!!

I had the pleasure of visiting Bangkok, Chiang Mai, & Phuket Thailand and Overall, the trip was good. Of the three places, we enjoyed Phuket and Chiang Mai the best over Bangkok. Bangkok felt a lot like NYC so going on vacation, I really did not want to feel as though I was still in the hustle and bustle of daily life. We were not that impressed with the hotel in Phuket and had to change rooms due to noisy neighbors and a malfunctioned AC unit. Our hotel stay in Chiang Mai Did not have the best breakfast offerings but otherwise, a good trip. The trip was well planned out by Ritz Tours and if I had it to do all over again, I would prefer nicer hotel accommodations in Phuket. The tours to the different temples were informational and an experience to remember. The elephant sanctuary was one of the highlights of the trip that was a pleasure.

I chose the small group China Sampler and paid in full in December 2018 for the April 2020 departure to get the $300 discount. After that it was just waiting and waiting and waiting. I was looking to start making airline flight plans to and return from China in April 2019. But when my travel agent contacted A&R she discovered that I was the only one signed up for the small group tour. This continued through the remainder of 2019. I actually called A&R direct one day to find out what was going on. I was then told about the 90 day out policy before they would cancel the trip. I asked a couple of times through my travel agent if A&R could just go ahead and cancel out the tour and refund my money, but was told there might be some last minute people to sign up for a trip to China. So basically A&R had my $5,000 plus fully paid fee to invest and use as they chose for over a year. January 10 or 20 was the 90 day before date I was told when a decision would be made to cancel. On January 9th I checked the website of A&R and saw by the small group tour for April 9-19 the words "Sold Out". So I'm thinking "Oh, maybe they did get enough last minute people to go?" So I sent my travel agent info on what airline flights I would like to take to China and back. The next day I was sent an email from my agent letting me know that A&R had cancelled the April small group trip to China for the dates I had selected. So the "Sold Out" descriptor apparently was an attempt to save face by not admitting they could not fill the small group trip with enough people to make the trip happen. Not a very "transparent" policy. About a month before A&R did offer to have me join the May China Sampler trip, but those dates did not meet my travel plans. I never received an apology directly from A&R. No offer for a discount on a future tour, nothing. Last time I will ever consider A&R for any type of tour.

Great tour in Taiwan.

When you make a booking you are not made aware of the actual diesel hourly costs until you arrive at the base. I booked Consul 22 so was surprised that I was not charged at the lowest rate. This extra cost, although small per hour but for x number of hours over a week, becomes substantial. So ask when you make a booking. You are also told at the Pre-departure briefing that you need to pump out the waste/sewerage tanks every 3rd to 4th day. You are shown on a map the symbol you need to locate when you need to pump out. You are not told that pump out cards cost £11 each, one per tank, or that they are only available for sale from lock keepers. Clearly if you pump out on the 3rd day you will return with full tanks. If you don’t take the expensive insurance then you do need to be able to put a charge onto your credit card of between £1.8k to £2.9k. If you take insurance then you must still put £250 excess onto your card. You are also asked to prepay £200 towards the diesel costs. I would advise working out your cruising route to avoid a staggeringly high bill. It is also diesel running not travelling so if you run the engine whilst stationary for heating or hot water you will also pay. Don’t leave the engine running whilst waiting to enter locks. If the lock is unmanned then turn off the engine whilst using the lock. For any problems on route, no matter how minor, call the base and tell them. At 11pm it is an answer machine until 8am so leave a message. If you cannot find a free mooring then expect to pay £10-15 per night. Mooring at Marlow for £15 gets you free use of the sports centre and showers.