History Tour & Trip Reviews

The country tour was very good. The guide was very knowledgeable, very friendly, helpful, and amazing. My only problem was the flights. We had a lay over in Hong Kong going to Japan which for me doesn't make sense. We pass Japan going to Hong Kong. Then coming back to USA a lay over at Taipei. The lay overs make the flights very long. Why not going direct flight. That's my only concern in our tour. That's the reason why I am giving 3 stars only

The Trip from Hell
Avoid Intrepid Travel!
My daughter and I recently returned from a tour in Central Asia booked through Intrepid Travel. After about 24 hours of travel, we were not met at the airport nor did we have a room. After getting that straightened out, the next morning we were informed that the vehicle we would be traveling in had no air conditioning. The temperatures were over 100 degrees to about 115 degrees or more. The heat was unbearable and no one inquired about how we were coping or their health. Our welfare was ignored. So ww left the tour early so we wouldn’t have to camp in the desert for two nights.
The tour leader booked our flights to Istanbul but neglected to tell us we would have to rebook our flights to Los Angeles. Upon arriving at the airport in Istanbul, we were told we couldn’t get on the flight. New tickets cost us $1800 EACH!
Intrepid Travel has refused to take responsibility or provide any satisfaction in this matter.
BEWARE!

The trip was wonderful. It was wonderfully managed by the greatest guides ever: Leo in Beijing and Jenny, who was with us the whole time.
These two people deserve a huge recognition for how hard they work, how much they care, and how well they can deal with people and help them.
It was just amazing.
Highest recognition.
Bravo!!!
THANK YOU!!!

The perfect itinerary allowed us to efficiently visited all the top sites with great lodgings. Unfortunately, the guide cut short stops at the Bahai Gardens, Acco, Tel Aviv, and Jerrico on days when we got to our hotel room in the early afternoon--all group members were upset by this. This Palestinian Christian guide emphasized unimpressive churches and minimized all sights that were secular, Muslim, Jewish, ancient, or other faiths. He made bizarre strident political comments about how great Mao Zedong was, praised Putin, said Palestinian people "had never done anything wrong in their history," talked about the Jews killing Jesus--all with a lot of anger. He knew a lot of about Christinaity, not much about anything else. He did a lot to make what could have been the perfect trip, mediocre.

(I would recommend the trip, but only if I knew it was a different guide.)

Lillian Li was excellent from the very first time I spoke with her.
She is very good in listening to my needs and making changes when I requested them.
Our tour guide at Singapore Andrew Ong was the Best tour guide we have ever had. He was very knowledgable of Singapore and it's history. Since we enjoyed the movie Crazy Rich Asian, Lillian Li of RitzTours must have arranged this guide especially for us. He took us to a lot of the scene and locations where the movie was taken. Mr. Ong has a awesome personality and spoke English and Cantonese fluently.
In our opinion the Hotel Copthorne Kings Hotel was not 4 stars hotel.
The house cleaning in the rooms were not up to par and were dirty.
The bath rooms arrangement wasn't set up properly, where as the bath tub were too high and dangerous to get in and out. There was a lip from the hall way into the bathroom which was also dangerous which stood out and easily can be trip on. In my opinion I would give this hotel a 2-1/2 stars.
The hotel in Hong Kong, Intercontinental Grand Stanford was excellent, I can say it is a 4 stars hotel. Their daily breakfast were a excellent treat each morning.
We will definitely use Ritz Tours again in our future travels.

This trip is a great opportunity to visit the less touristy areas of the Balkans. Less crowded, friendly locals, great food, interesting history, very cheap destinations (except Dubrovnik) and a well paced itinerary are just some of the reasons why this is a trip to consider doing. Don't let the 'Comfort" tag fool you; there is plenty of walking and physical activity involved.

Simply an amazing trip - so much seen and done. Each country is uniquely different and it has been great to experience them all. This trip provides a complete Scandinavian immersion - from the big cities of Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki to some surprising great smaller locations like Bergen, Gudvangen and Lillehammer.

We did “Complete Scandinavia” trip and had a fabulous time. We enjoyed every place we stayed, from the capital cities to smaller towns like Lillehammer and Gudvangen (fjords). The tour leaders were knowledgable and well organised so we were able to relax and enjoy the trip without worrying about transfers and tickets etc. Highly recommended.

We expected to have a calm and pleasant week on a boat. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a nightmare. On the second day, the boat we got withheld by coastal police, who arrested our boat due to lack of insurance. It is important to notice that we even paid for an extra insurance policy to ensure that everything was okay. But apparently, Le Boat is the most unprofessional and lousy company I have ever encountered. We called Le Boat many times to try to solve the issue, but they were reluctant to help and did not act on this highly critical issue.
Since we were not allowed to stay at the boat from the police authority, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere having our original plans disrupted due to unacceptable service of Le Boat.
To make it even worse we have been in contact with Le Boat and they are still treating us poorly, offering no compensation at all for their mistake and our disrupted vacation. 
It is mind-boggling that a company can exist treating customers who have paid a lot of money for rental and insurance. I don’t understand why we as paying customers should be punished for Le Boat not having basic formalities (insurance) in place? 
We are shocked and we strongly advise others NOT to choose Le Boat!! We basically just paid for getting our vacation disrupted by police due to lack of insurance from Le Boat’s side. Where Le Boat offered no compensation or help.

Wonderful tour of Beijing with Vivian

My two days of tours in Beijing was amazing, Vivian the tour guide was so knowledgeable and friendly. I can’t believe I actually got to spend time touring the all these amazing places. Thanks so much Ritz Tours!

Our tour to China was outstanding. Each one of our local guides were great and Jenny our dedicated guide was phenomenal. She managed our group well, balancing individual needs while carrying out the groups well planned itinerary. She added so much value to the trip with her knowledge and her extraordinary efforts were evident daily. I would definitely recommend the tour and would suggest that you request Jenny as your dedicated guide. Family 5 appreciated all of Jenny's extra effort.

Jenny was an amazing tour guide. Very knowledgeable and full of information , ideas and facts. She was also so patient with our large group of kids. I would recommend her to any group.

We joined the Gem of Europe in early June 2019. Weather was comfortable with light drizzle but that's much better than the hot sun and 90 degree weather. We did experience heat on later part of trip in Italy. Natalie, tour guide, took good care of us. The only suggestion is she needs to make seat rotation clearer. Fortunately nobody in our group of 40 ppl complained. We been in tours where ppl fight over that. Overall it was a fast pace tour and the days went so fast that we forgot what we saw sometimes. But we still went to everywhere the itinerary promised.

Western Balkans Uncovered is a fantastic way to experience this part of the world. You will find out so much of the culture of each country and how they coped during communism/socialism and will get to see how they are moving forward. Local guides fill you in on unique details you won’t hear about through other means and the Intrepid experience is the best way to do this. Responsible travel is helping these countries move forward so visiting them is doing more than just opening your own eyes to a different part of the world.

Western Balkans Uncovered is a fantastic way to experience this part of the world. You will find out so much of the culture of each country and how they coped during communism/socialism and will get to see how they are moving forward. Local guides fill you in on unique details you won’t hear about through other means and the Intrepid experience is the best way to do this. Responsible travel is helping these countries move forward so visiting them is doing more than just opening your own eyes to a different part of the world.