Down Under EndeavoursReviews of downunderendeavours.com

After deciding on a last minute trip to Australia, my family and I opted to use DUE as the agency after reading all the good reviews on the web. On the negative side, there were some issues with the tours - not all of them their fault (horrible service on certain tours), cockroaches in some of the hotel rooms. The budget was over what we had set out. I understand that they are a "luxury" travel group but when you specifically tell them certain things aren't needed, I feel that it should be honored. Our hotel on Kangaroo Island was booked for one of the penthouse suite. Again, I understand it's a luxury tour, but I specifically had told them that none of us need or want that sort of accommodation and would have rather saved the money to spend elsewhere. Probably the largest error was the last part of the trip out to Fiji. These are supposed to be customized tours to Australia and the surrounding areas. The trip was myself and my parents. So, the fact that we were booked on an island that seemingly catered to couples and honeymoons does not make any sense when there were other islands that seemed to cater to families. On the plus side, they were quick to respond to emails. Also, when the tour we booked at the Sydney Opera House was full because the Opera House decided to oversell their tours and refused to let us on the tour (despite that we had tickets for that day), they did refund us themselves for this tour when the Opera House refused to refund us.

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.