Grand European Travel

THE WORST EXPERIENCE EVER…..We booked a flight to London and purchased flight insurance. Heathrow had to shutdown due to power outages. Our flight was cancelled and we missed our tour. We fought for 6 months to have our monies refunded and have been denied. We’re in our 70s and this was going to be the trip of a lifetime. It’s been nothing but a NIGTMARE!!!!!!!! DONT TRUST THESE PEOPLE or trip insurance.

GET Best of London Save your money. GET tours are a “Drive By Shooting.” If you are a bucket list traveler, then GET Tours are definitely for you! But if you a traveler who wants to spend some time at a location, get to know it, and experience it, then GET Tours ARE NOT FOR YOU! We booked a GET London Explorer Tour for June 2024 because we thought it would give us a nice experience and was recommended by AARP & Trip Advisor. But GET does not actually do the tours, they farm it out to vendors, in this case Trafalgar. We anticipated seeing wonderful sights and experiencing new places. While our tour did cover the places listed in its brochure, this Tour could be best described as a “Drive By Shooting!” Everyday, it is get up early, rush through breakfast, and get on the bus to travel endless hours and then see the particular place and quickly move on. No time to truly appreciate or experience each of the places we were seeing or visiting. Our hotel, the Tower Hotel, next to the London Tower and Tower Bridge is, “at best” a 3 star experience. The staff was pleasant and the concierge staff was very accommodating, but the facility seemed dismal and dank. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. He made himself available to our entire tour group and went out of his way to assist us because one of us had mobility issues. But the actual tours and visits were disappointing and way too short. There was simply too little time to appreciate any of the sights or places we visited! For example, on our first day, we departed the hotel at 7:45 a.m. on our tour bus. Our first stop was Stonehenge, a 2.5 hour drive. Once we arrived, it was off the tour bus to then wait in long line for another bus to take us and the hundreds of other people to the actual sight. Overall we were given 45 minutes to travel to and from the sight as well as to attempt to see or appreciate it. Later in our tour, we took a boat ride down the Thames River to Greenwich. Once there, again we were given an extremely limited time, before we had to board our bus back to the hotel. Thus we were unable to visit the site, the Greenwich Observatory, the location of the Prime Meridian of the world [0° 0' 0"]. Another example was the visit to see the “Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Place.” Our bus deposited us 3 blocks from the Mall. We then had to walk to the Mall, and then attempt to proceed down the Mall toward the Palace. But the crowds were so dense, we were unable to see the actual changing of the Guard because we were stuck behind the huge statute in front of the Palace. There was one really good day, when we went to the Borough Market for lunch. There we had ample time to look around and dine in an amazing place. Foods from everywhere in the world. In addition, each day there are optional experiences, for an additional fee. At the end of this tour, those fees amounted to a substantial sum. Basically, GET Tours simply are not worth the expense.

Booked a trip in June 2021 for a May 2022 bus tour in Spain and Portugal. GET cancelled the beginning of April, six weeks before our trip. We were five senior ladies. We ended up renting a car and had the best time ever. My complaint is the amount of time it took to refund my money. I called on April 3 and got my credit today, June 8. Will not use GET again.

I have traveled twice with Grand European Travel, and have a few more trips already planned. They are responsive, and very helpful. The trips are amazing and the tour guides are the best! In fact, the tour guides make the trips fun! The trips are not cheap (though they do have some cost saver trips), but the hotels are excellent, and the itineraries cannot be beaten (and I have traveled with other groups before). I highly recommend Grand European Travel, and especially travel specialist Barbara Gardner! She will go out of her way to help you get your dream trip!

Remember this name---GET---to be avoided at ALL costs! We had the unfortunate experience of using a so-called GET travel consultant by the name of Randy Fay. Remember this name if you still decide to use this company. Fay never returned telephone calls after receiving the trip deposit. He was really inexperienced, and did NOT care to help you in any way. He made excuses for months about not knowing why we could not register for the trip. He blamed it on his "tech guy". After 2 months, I was able to speak with another travel consultant for GET by the name of Daniel Pelletier. Daniel knew immediately the reason for the problem, and fixed it in 1 telephone call. He even returned my telephone call in a few minutes. Randy Fay greatly overcharged us for 3 additional hotel stays. The average charge by Priceline and others was $117.00 per night. Randy Fay charged us over $211.00 per night!! Fay was rude, dismissive, and uncaring--except to receive his commission. GET is owned by Trafalgar, and we booked a Trafalgar tour. Trafalgar constantly pushed expensive optional tours during the entire tour. Tourists on this tour had NOTHING to do for 3 days, unless you confirmed an overpriced optional tour. There were few meals included except for a buffet breakfast at the hotels. Trafalgar and owned-GET are abominations in the travel industry. Avoid both like the plague!

Booked a London, Paris tour in September 2022, Best decision I've made in a long time. Hotels were top notch, Our tour director was jim Mitchell, Jim was awesome, thank you Jim. Our agent was barb Gardner, she is very professional and delivered on all her promises, thank you barb, I will be booking all my future trips with grand European tours

My wife booked us a trip with Grand European Travel and paid in full in 2019 to travel in spring 2020. The Trip was cancelled and rebooked again in fall 2020. GET cancelled the trip again and moved it to spring 2021. They cancelled again and then rebooked again in August 2021. They cancelled again for the 4th time. We then decided not to continue to rebook again and again because we just couldn’t trust this company anymore. We then requested a full refund. They tried to give us travel credit at first. My wife then filed a complaint with the BBB on 9/1/2021. GET responded on 9/3/2021 stating that a refund will be applied back to the credit card in 45 days. It has been over 50 days and no credit was applied. They have had our money for two years now. This company cannot be trusted.

We were on the Greek Island tour in September. Was a disappointing disaster from beginning to end. We've been making every effort to have the so called insurance protection plan cover the loss. They are doing nothing but running us around. Grand European Travel could care less. Don't believe what you read in the brochure and AON is a joke.