History Tour & Trip Reviews

Excellent and efficient service

Nicholas Paulsen's service. If he did not reply and assisted, we would most probably not have booked.

What a great way to experience Peru/Machu Picchu! The coordinated transports from airports to destination, to the local guides - this was a memorable trip. We experienced a private tour and it was great; the local guides really provided a glimpse into the life in Lima and Cusco. Would definitely recommend this 8 day Peru trip to others!

My daughter and I throughly enjoyed our trip to Israel/Jordan. Our tour guide Nathan was exceptionally knowledgeable, friendly and we had an excellent time. The boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, as well as the Camel rides were fun and a great time was had by all! Experiencing floating in the "Dead Sea," is a once in a lifetime experience, and the trip to the "Treasury" in Petra, Jordan was spectacular and were so glad to have joined this tour.

Sehr freundlicher und hilfsbereiter Service.

Große Auswahl an Bootstypen, gutes Preis/Leistungsverhältnis

Excited about our barge trip booked for Sept 2022;
Very professional and helpfull company.

sehr freundliches , kompetentes und hilfreiches Personal

L'accueil à la base été excellente.
Le personnel et le bateau étaient au top Merci

The boat is in good condition and the staff is attentive and friendly.

a la hora de reservar todo han sido facilidades y buenos consejos

I’ve travelled with Ritz Tours in 4 occasions and each is better than the last. They have very professional people working for them from the travel agents to the guides and drivers. All of the are pleasant, knowledgeable, patient, friendly and trustworthy.

I love the fact that almost all of their trips are customizable, whether you like it to be a private tour, an upgrade on the hotels, the meals, etc. The whole experience with them is very pleasing and it completely adjusts to your budget.

I have no doubt that there are many trips for me in the future with them.

Firstly, it was my understanding, and confirmed in a phone conversation with the company’s representative prior to our departure, that the schedule of events would go at our pace. We found this to not be the case. For example; we arrived in Cairo on October 25th, from Tel Aviv, Israel, later in the night than scheduled due to an airline delay. We were met at the airport by your representative and taken to a hotel 45 minutes from the airport. We checked in shortly after midnight. The representative said that we would “meet at 4:00” to be picked up to fly to Luxor. I thought he meant 4:00 PM, but no, it was 4:00 AM!!! We had less than 3 hours sleep before we were whisked off to our next destination. (By the way, the representative spent those few hours waiting in the hotel lobby; he didn’t even get a night’s rest.)

We arrived in Luxor, were taken to the hotel, deposited our luggage (the room wasn’t ready), had breakfast, and then met our tour guide at 10:00 AM for our first tour. We were exhausted, but mustered our energy for the occasion.

Is there a good reason why Cairo wasn’t the first city on our tour? In retrospect, it should have been for many reasons, not the least of which was the logistics described above.

All right, so now we’re in Luxor, and by afternoon we’re ensconced in a luxurious hotel with a magnificent view of the Nile River. There’s a swimming pool that we’re looking forward to relaxing by the next day during some much needed down time during the free time described in the itinerary; exactly what we expected from National Geographic. But instead, that evening we were told by our guide that we needed to have our luggage ready to check out of the hotel the next morning to relocate to the Nile River ship Minerva (coincidentally, owned by the same company as the hotel). We obliged, and in the morning we were taken on a tour with the luggage in the car, and then brought to the ship in the early afternoon. Our four suitcases were put in a room that was barely large enough to contain the bed, but the view of the river from our room was good enough to overlook this inconvenience, at least for the moment. I looked forward to resting in our cabin in the afternoon because I was exhausted. In fact, I was so tired that I have little recollection of that morning’s tour until I look at the photos to affirm that I was actually where the itinerary said I would be.

We went to lunch in the ship’s dining room and returned to our cabin to find that our view of the Nile was obliterated by a ship that had tied up alongside our own. This is now our view (see photo) and the blackout drapes that were drawn to hide it made the small cabin a crowded, dark dungeon.

Furthermore, that ship’s bunker oil fumes were now in the air conditioning system of our ship and flowing freely into our cabin making me nauseous and giving me a headache. I complained but there was nothing to do about it.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, the sound of the neighboring ship that accompanied the smell was intolerable.

Other issues I had with our cabin on the ship included;
- The bypass closet door wouldn’t stay shut
- There was a leak under the bathroom sink
- The carpet in the area near the bathroom was wet
- The toilet seat lid came off repeatedly
- Wifi on board the ship was only in the main lobby area, and was poor at best

I talked to the ship’s desk clerk, and he assured me that things would be taken care of shortly. They never were.

This doesn’t take into consideration that the buffet style food served on board was repetitive if you didn’t take the offered main course, which was usually meat (I don’t eat meat).

Oh, and I didn’t yet mention that our ship wouldn’t be leaving its mooring until the next day! We had traded a luxurious hotel for this!

With that said, it begs the question of why we were taken out of a luxurious hotel 24 hours in advance of the ship sailing away from Luxor? No pool to sit by, no view of the sunset over the banks of the Nile, no quiet room in which to sleep, and no dinner of delicious food. Certainly not what we expected from a Nat Geo Private Tour for which we had paid a premium price!

Unrelated to these issues, NatGeo’s survey asked if we felt that our health was well-protected. “No” is the short answer. A fuller reply is that we both got Covid on this trip; my husband first, then inevitably, myself three days later. We had avoided catching it for more than 2.6 years, and now we had it. I realize that one takes risks when going out in the world, and I certainly don’t blame NatGeo for our getting sick. But their people weren’t wearing masks until I asked them to, mostly to protect themselves from us. One agent who met us at the airport when we arrived back in Cairo from Aswan, now openly sick with Covid, disappeared for 10 minutes to purchase a mask when I told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to wear one around us.

Overall, NatGeo profited from our illness as we were too unwell to utilize the dining allowance at the Cairo Ritz Carlton or to go to out for most meals offered with our guide. The one restaurant I was taken to for dinner without my husband was a touristy place with fake grapes leaves hanging from fake arbors. When a 35 person tour group trouped in past us it told me all I needed to know. My bowl of pasta with a tomato sauce not much thicker than tomato juice certainly couldn’t have cost more than $10, if that much. Then, the next day I was too sick to go out at all, my husband, who was feeling better by then, went out alone with the tour guide for the day, but it’s my understanding that they skipped all meals.

All in all, there were many aspects of the trip that were memorable for all the right reasons, but also memorable for the above mentioned wrong reasons. For us to have paid as much as we did begs the question, “Was it worth the expense for this private tour experience?” As seasoned world travelers, I’m hard pressed to reply in the affirmative.

Ich habe mehrere Buchungen als Eigner gemacht. Die Abwicklung und Betreuung durch Frau Wekenborg ist perfekt: freundlich, prompt, verbindlich. Kompliment! Herzlichen Dank Frau Wekenborg auch auf diesem Weg.

My daughter and I throughly enjoyed our trip to Israel/Jordan. Our tour guide Nathan was exceptionally knowledgeable, friendly and we had an excellent time. The boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, as well as the Camel rides were fun and a great time was had by all! Experiencing floating in the "Dead Sea," is a once in a lifetime experience, and the trip to the "Treasury" in Petra, Jordan was spectacular and were so glad to have joined this tour