St Petersburg weekend break

We've just booked our honeymoon with Audley. Emily was brilliant at listening to the kind of trip we would like, answered all our questions by drawing on her in-depth knowledge and personal experience, and has put together the perfect itinerary for us. We're so excited! Also, a shout-out to concierge specialist Sofya Jasmine who took our initial query, helped us hone our options and connected us with Emily.

We have just returned from an amazing holiday in Thailand. Suzi,one of the Thailand specialists ,put the holiday together for us and did a fantastic job. After really asking about our expectations and previous holidays , she put together a bespoke holiday full of activities,tours and plenty of time for relaxation too! The holiday itinerary pack was so useful.I cannot recommend this company highly enough.

We recently visited Barbados through Audley Travel. We have used this company many times visiting South Africa, Mauritius and Borneo to mention a few. We have always felt they are a safe and gentle pair of hands when visiting more exotic destinations. We have never had a problem, all the arrangements and transfers etc were always professionally done and exceptionally smooth. However, through NO FAULT on Audleys behalf, the hotel we had chosen, The Tamarind was awful, filthy with damaged flooring, and not of the standard we have become accustomed to. We had asked for an alternative room, but the one we were offered was inappropriate due to my mobility issues, which they were well aware of. As usual we received an email from Isabelle at Audley, kindly checking that we were happy with our room allocation. I explained the situation and sent her pictures. She was appalled, and this is why we would never, ever contemplate going anywhere without the confidence of have Audley behind us. Amazingly, within 3 hours we were expertly whisked away to our new boutique hotel, the Little Good Harbour (Isabelle's favourite) We had an amazing time, and we are just relieved we took the leap of faith with Isabelle's suggestion. Audley (and Isabelle) are amazing, they not only offer tailor made, bespoke holidays, but have endless patience when arranging travel options, but what is priceless, you have the insurance behind you to know that if anything does go wrong, despite not being their fault, they are like a fairy godmother and will work their magic and place you back in paradise. I cannot thank Isabelle enough, she is an asset to Audley Travel and an amazing representative protecting their reputation as being 'top of the game'. We are looking forward to our next holiday with them to South Africa on safari and then onto Mauritius.

Sarah was so great and really understood what was important to us about our trip. She was helpful, upbeat and endlessly patient. What great customer service...felt like I'd made a friend and that nothing was too much trouble.
Thank you Sarah...what a star! You made this process easy from beginning to end :)

Where do I start. Twice we have booked with Audley and twice we have reason to thank our lucky stars that we did. The first was a safari trip that had to be cancelled because of Covid. We were offered or money back with no quibbles.
The second and more recent time was on a trip to Vietnam organised by their Indochina expert Ross Cleary.
We were on the final day of a 19 day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia which given the quality the hotels and excursions arranged by Ross was shaping up to be the best holiday we had ever taken.
Unfortunately my wife developed breathing difficulties and I had to take her to hospital. The hospital decided to admit her and we were left very frightened and wondering what to do about our flights which were due to leave in 4 hours time. There is a 7 hour time difference between U.K. and Vietnam so it was the middle of the night in the U.K. However, one phone call to the Audley duty manager had me connected to him via "whatsapp" so that he could update me real time on the situation without the £7 per minute phone charges. The flights were postponed, I was put up in the closest hotel to the hospital and Audley took care of all the minutiae so that I could concentrate on my wife who was diagnosed with pneumonia.
Upon being discharged my wife was told she could not travel immediately. We spent a total of 8 days in a hotel arranged by Audleys local partners Vidotours. A fantastic hotel at a very reasonable price. The hotel bill was covered until I got home and the flights were re-instated for a tiny admin fee.
We don't always use a travel company to book our holidays, but visiting out of the way places where local knowledge and support can be invaluable I would thoroughly recommend Audley.
These guys are so much more than a travel agent.
No prizes for guessing that I will be using them on my next big excursion. Thank you. Pete

We were quoted an extortionate price for a holiday to Ecuador and the Galapagos, which we ended up booking ourselves like for like (if not for better rooms etc.) spending about £10k less than quoted by Audley. When challenged about the initial quote, the agent came up with all the “added value” they claimed to provide, when it had come across clearly to us that the agent knew less about the country than us after having read the Lonely Planet the week end before. In fact it felt like we were giving the agent information about the country/ option rather than the agent advising us. i.e. we were shown a cruise advertised as being suitable for retirees, when in fact we said we were a young couple on their honeymoon.

It might be different for other countries, as we have friends who have been happy with Audley’s service to the US, but we found it completely overpriced but more importantly unjustifiably so as we couldn’t see any added value.