Adventures Abroad World Wide Travel

I just came home from a long-awaited trip to Central Asia. I was very disappointed. The "Tour Guide" was a lovely young woman who had only been to these countries once. She spoke none of the languages and needed to learn how to get anything done. That being said most of the local guides were not much better.
I expected an in-depth tour including the history of the Silk Road. When the guides were understandable for the most part the people in the group knew more than they did. The was one exception, our local guide in Kazakhastan and Kyrgyzistan. He was excellent. Everything I say below does not apply to our time in his 2 countries.
The tour is listed with a difficulty rating of 2. It should have been listed as a 3 or 4. At .3 mile border crossing turned into a mile. Buses were always as far away from the point of entry (border crossing or airport) as they possibly could be.
With a few exceptions, the food was tediously the same. Family style is served at the discretion of the restaurant, not those of us eating. The wine was frequently served as we were finishing dinner.
Everything was done as fast and easy, not as the best and most desired.
The advice given before the trip had many gaps and was not correct in many cases.
Suffice it to say this was my first and last trip with Adventures Abroad. I should have read more reviews.

SWITZERLAND-ON-FOOT
Tour Start Date: 06 SEP 24

The tour was a hike and rail tour through much of Switzerland. There were about 15 people in our group and we had a veteran guide from Costa Rica. The weather wasn't always favorable, but the guide and group were flexible enough to try and work around it, and when that failed, laughed and enjoy what we were dealt. Overall, it was a pleasant two weeks.

The very disappointing part was the Adventures Abroad office's lack of organizational support. I had booked a hotel room with Adventures Abroad for two extra nights before the tour and had paid my invoice in full almost four months before the tour began. I was shocked to receive an additional invoice for the two extra nights less than 2 weeks before the trip began because "the hotel costs for Zurich have increased quite a bit." Even though I paid my full invoice in May, the hotel wasn't booked until weeks before my scheduled arrival When I questioned this, the office responded, "The hotel room was an oversight that should have been caught but was not." They were admitting that it was their mistake but were not accepting the extra cost. Of course, at this late date, I had no other choice but to pay the additional $184.

Adding to this incompetence, I had been told that the Swiss Rail Pass that was part of the tour, would be sent to me 30 days in advance. I was considering a possible pre-trip excursion and taking full advantage of the rail pass. When it was about 20 days before the trip, I asked about the rail pass and received this curious response, "In the past we have had them ready 30 days prior, but due to travellers requesting early passes or extended passes, we have changed this to 2 weeks prior." I was never informed of any change. In the end, the Swiss Rail Pass didn't show up in my email until about ten days before the tour began and only five days before I departed from the States. Any additional benefit for the rail pass was lost. As bad as that was, there were some in the group who arrived in Switzerland and didn't receive the rail pass until after they got to Zurich.

One reason to take an organized tour is for the organization and confidence of having a professional watching out for all of the various parts of the journey. Adventure Abroad failed miserably. Adventures Abroad has a large portfolio of trips, but sadly, they seem to be unable to competently manage all of them. I've learned my lesson and will avoid any Adventures Abroad trip again.

Dealing with this company was one of the worst experiences of my life. It is clear that the company is only concerned with profit, and views customer safety as a secondary concern. Additionally, I never had a worst customer service experience in my life. AA should be embarrassed by the tone and demeanor of their staff. I am embarrassed to have originally chosen this company as my travel guides, and will never make that mistake again.

I am surprised and puzzled by the large number of negative reviews posted here. Since 2017, we have been on five Adventures Abroad tours: Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia; Spain; Ethiopia; Bhutan; and Central Asia (the "Stans"). Before 2017, we had been on tours with a number of other companies, but we have been so thoroughly impressed by our experiences with Adventures Abroad, that we now find it hard to imagine ever going back to any of those other tour companies.

We have always been treated well by head office, and have greatly appreciated the predictable features of an AA tour.

* Tour leaders (4 different leaders on the 5 tours) have been friendly and carefully attentive to everyone's safety and comfort. They have intelligently managed the details of travel, so that we didn't have to be troubled by them. Leaders have been noticeably adept at choosing interesting dining locations.

* The itineraries are perfectly pitched for their target market (travellers over the age of 55). Schedules are varied and interesting, with the right balance of planned activities and "free time." Daily itineraries are detailed on their website and generally match what actually happens on the trip. Of course, sometimes unforeseen events result in a venue being closed that day -- or roads being washed out -- but there has always been an appropriate alternate activity planned.

* With AA, all entrance fees and tipping (of local guides, drivers, restaurant and hotel staff, etc.) is taken care of by the leader, drawing from the total funds that we had already paid for the trip. Other companies we have used may have offered lower overall prices, but then we were left constantly having to calculate appropriate tipping out of our own pockets.

* Some other companies advertised cheaper base prices, but then offered a long list of "optional extra" excursions... which turned out to be exactly the things most people realized they wanted to see, so again we had to plan to add quite a bit of expenditure onto that initial bill. With AA, on the other hand, the only optional "extras" have been a few evening theatrical or musical performances, which they correctly guessed might not interest everyone.

* AA has a policy that leaders must *not* lead travellers to stops where the *only* purpose is shopping. (On trips with other companies, it was obvious that we were being led to factory outlets in the hope of making sales. We understand that tour leaders on that kind of trip receive a pay-off from vendors for steering travellers to them.)

* AA tours are strictly limited in maximum size, usually 16 or 18 travellers. That makes a huge difference to the quality of the experience. We pity those other travellers who arrive in busloads of 25 or 30 people.

Our most recent trip was largely populated with repeat customers -- people who, like us, are experienced travellers, have dealt with other companies, and now choose to keep booking with Adventures Abroad. Having such a loyal customer base is strong evidence of the excellence of this business.

Due to the responses that I have rec'd from the company, and the great experiences I had on the trip, I changed my mind. I know many claimed that they wouldn't travel with this company again, but I have found several places I want to go to with this group. James was great, but with that difficult situation, and all of the gossip that she did, it made it more difficult to correct. Upper management contacted me, and told me that I did everything right, and she made a mountain out of a molehill. On to Turkey, hopefully next year and on to more adventures. Right now there are too many wars for my comfort. 2025 is my next adventure. I will go single supplement to avoid these situations.

We just returned from an Australian trip with them. The tour certainly covered all the areas of Australia listed in the itinerary. Generally, the hotels were fine although the hotel in Uluru had ants in the bathroom. I suspect this is a problem of the area and not the hotel as our room was ground level. I have to say the tour was too busy. We were gone for 10-12 hours a day with very little free time. We chose not to do a few things so we could relax and wander on our own. It was listed as a level 2 or active tour so I guess that is what they mean. Much of that time was spent on a bus or an airplane so not active in the sense of physically active, just time consuming. We felt that some minor things could have been left out to allow for more reasonable days. Often, we had 15-30 minutes after the long day to get ready for dinner. It was not enough time! The tour guide was not an Aussie and didn't know a lot about Australia. An Aussie guide would have been much better! Dinners were arranged by the guide and were often in noisy bar and grill type restaurants. Although the guide had a budget for meals and she referred to it sometimes, there was often way too much food ordered which resulted in waste. Only tap water was included with dinners, no coffee or tea. The temperature up in Darwin, Kakadu National Park and Uluru was very hot and not suitable for stomping around in the hottest part of the day. We did not go to Kakadu for that reason as it was going to be 40 C + out there which was too hot for us! Our local tour guide in Sydney even told me that nobody goes out there in October. We would not travel with this company again. It is not our type of tour.

I knew there was going to be a problem when on the first night the trip leader said, "Gee, I don't know where we are going to eat dinner tonight!" Constantly being told if meals were in the "budget" and if there was enough money left for beverages being included. (This was a very expensive trip.). Trip leader and local Saudi guide had a very strained relationship and trip leader was intimidated by Saudi guide and at one point made a serious cultural faux pas and Saudi guide screamed at him and the trip leader had to meekly apologize. When there was no opportunity for questions to the Saudi guide, the trip leader said that the Saudi guide was very difficult to control and wanted the trip run according to his directions. I asked the trip leader why AA has no control over the Saudi guide and I was told that the 2 previous Saudi guides were awful and we were stuck with the current guide. At one point the trip leader ran off to get an ice cream cone for himself and enjoyed it in front of the group. I guess there wasn't enough money in the "budget" to treat the whole group to an ice cream cone. (This would never have happened with the other tour companies I also use!). The most egregious is when the trip leader left an 86 year old woman on the trip,late at night, at a restaurant all by herself after the rest of the group had left. There was absolutely no concern for the well being of an elderly traveler's ability to find her way back to the hotel in the dark by herself. The whole trip was run by "the seat of its pants" with little pre-planning and no dry run to make certain that the trip would run with the foresight to realize that there would be problems in a country newly opened to tourism (e.g., bus schedules being changed; restaurants being closed, etc.). Adventures Abroad should be ashamed of itself to charge an outrageous amount of money for such a poorly executed trip.

Based on referrals from high profile, visible travel organizations , I decided to check out the website and the reviews, but, thanks to everyone who contributed reviews, I read enough negative comments to deter me from wanting to go further with this travel agency.

Adventures Abroad World Wide Travel
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I have visited over 210 countries.
This was the worst planned and executed trip of them all.

Linda Pastel

Help please! I have signed up with this company to travel with my daughter to Morocco in a couple of months and, so far, everyone at their office acts like this is the first time they have done a tour. I cannot believe why making arrangements is so difficult. Now I am getting nervous that I may be dealing with the wrong company. I've read the comments here but none for recent trips. Any thoughts from folks who have used them recently before its too late for me?...