Down Under EndeavoursReviews of downunderendeavours.com

I selected Down Under Endeavours for my honeymoon. My, now, wife and I wanted to honeymoon in the South Pacific so we felt that an agency that specializes in South Pacific vacations would be ideal. Our thought was having a travel agent would make the vacation easier because we wanted to pay everything up front and not worry about many small payments after we arrived. Our requirements were tropical, international, all-inclusive, beachfront, and couples-only. I paid the $250 fee for phone and email contact with three itineraries. I was contacted by Katie and she set up a time for us to talk on the phone. When we spoke she asked what I was looking for and said she'd be in touch within the next week or so. Several weeks later I heard back from Katie with my itinerary. The itinerary was for a week at what appeared to be the most basic room at an all-inclusive resort in Fiji...for $7,500...without airfare. Basic economy airfare would be another $3000. Katie and I never spoke about how much I was willing to spend because I knew the South Pacific is expensive to travel to. However, I did not expect the price to be that high. When I told Katie the cost was too much her response was along the lines of "The South Pacific is expensive and there aren't a lot of all-inclusive resorts because the clientele is typically Asians and Australians and they drink a lot". I responded that I'd like to compromise on some of the initial requirements, like looking outside the South Pacific or not all-inclusive, etc. After a month of silence, I reached out to Katie because I hadn't heard from her and her response was she was waiting to hear from me! I asked what progress had been made on a second itinerary and she said "none" because she was waiting to hear from me. So I had lost a month of planning without hearing from Down Under, which was very disappointing. We then went through the same, "South Pacific is expensive" rigmarole. Katie agreed to look outside the initial requirements. So I went out and started researching on my own and discovered what ended up being a fantastic place in the Caribbean. That place at the time had a 40% off discount for the time period I was looking at. I contacted Katie with the details asking if she could book that location. Her response was, "We only do South Pacific and Australia" and that Down Under wouldn't be able to get better pricing than the 40% off. She didn't seem to understand that travel agent pricing isn't what I was looking for since 40% off was already a great deal. I was looking for someone who would take care of scheduling and planning the travel for me including excursions and visa requirements while giving me a single entity to pay. But since Down Under "doesn't do" the Caribbean, I was just left without a workable itinerary when the initial South Pacific itinerary didn't meet my budget. I still had two itineraries left to be constructed and I was willing to take a more active role in planning for the single payment benefit. Instead, my last communication with Down Under was over six months ago and they did not complete the second or third itinerary provided in my package. All of this is very disappointing and I would not recommend using Down Under unless you have an appetite for expensive vacations and then only in the South Pacific. UPDATE: The owner of Down Under Endeavours (Corinne) reached out to me and offered a refund. She also asked if she could personally plan a trip for my wife and I in the future and offered several incentives to do so. We feel much better after having spoken with Corinne and we look forward to providing an additional update after that experience.

Great experience working with this company! They took care of all of the tedious details and provided a step by step itinerary which made our trip easy to navigate.

Down Under Endeavours initial proposal for our trip to New Zealand was ridiculously expensive and didn't really respond to our style of travel. Ultimately, I did a great deal of research, eliminated one city from our trip and several activities and located five star hotels in two of the cities we were visiting. We paid the $250 planning fee to get this far. After we were told that several of the hotels which we requested were not available, when in fact they were readily available on-line, we canceled. Despite a couple of requests for information about the rates that we were paying at 3 hotels, DUE refused to provide this information, claiming it was proprietary. Following our cancellation it became quite clear to me that we could have booked this trip ourselves for a good deal less money. Obviously, Down Under Endeavours was more interested in their own financial interests rather than ours

Working with Down Under Endeavours has been so easy. Exchanging emails has been so friendly and personable -- more like planning a trip with a friend than a travel agent. A+!

Overall, an average experience. They try some gimmicky pricing and deals to get you into an agreement with them. Pushing you to spend more for the trip and then "giving you a fee waiver" for being under the amount they will book. Many of their reviews talk about this but I didn't pay enough attention. Doesn't seem like too much detail went into the trip and our flight (booked separately but planned with our agent) back to the states was missed because our agent didn't take the timing into account. Big deal when you are on international flights. Left a couple activities because they were so boring and after learning we could not get money back for them. One activity that was booked, consisted of taking a 5 hour bus ride, then 2 hours on a boat, then 5 hours back on a bus. Our best memories were impromptu and made outside of the plans set. Will be planning our own trip next time or using another travel agent.

This tour operator tailors your trip to your fanciesr dreams. Great service too! Our trip got interrupted and they were there to assist us and re- plan. Lovely staff and reasonable pricing. We will use them again

Great service in planning our trip to New Zealand. I'll be able to say more when the trip is complete, but so far Down Under Endeavours has been a fine partner.

We recently traveled to Austrailia with our family of eleven! Candice was incredibly helpful in planning for such a large group! She was easy to contact and always responded quickly. Down Under Endeavours was a wonderful company to work with. We couldn't have planned this trip without them!