Go Real TravelReviews of gorealtravel.com

Just came back Prague, Vienna, and Budapest and used Go Real Europe to book hotels, most of the local transportation, and 4 guided tours. It wasn't entirely friction less as we did have a few minor issues, but the few bumps in the road we had got resolved timely. The hotels were great, we had no transportation worries, and the guides helped introduce each city with personal walking tours. It would probably be cheaper if we took care of all of these things ourselves, but not having to deal with all the little details helped make the vacation more relaxing. Their suggested itinerary is well done, and while we only followed maybe half of it, what we did use was helpful. It was a great vacation.

GRE has totally lost my trust, and this is even before my trip has begun. So I find myself in the horrible situation of having to go on the trip with GRE because I have made both the deposit and balance payments, while praying hard that there won't be any more nasty surprises. There are 3 serious issues with their service: 1) Transparency 2) Honesty 3) Reliability My friend and I have been planning for this trip since June, and I made the deposit for my itinerary on 2nd July to "seal in the hotel rates", as I was advised. So I made the deposit of $430 to the quote of 7K for 2 persons, and informed the travel consultant to cancel all rail tickets and guided tours for Western Europe as I had I had Eurail passes and only needed help for booking of hotels. I wanted to retain the suggested itinerary only for the Eastern Europe bit of my trip as I was exploring cities I had not been to previously. Fortunately, I downloaded the PDF version of the itinerary with the quotation price and the list of hotels I would be booked into for each of the cities, though not all of them were listed at that time. I reconnected with GRE on 14th of July to to check if my hotel bookings have been confirmed, and I did not hear back from my travel consultant until 18th July when someone in operations sent me an email to make the balance payment by Jul 22nd for my trip coming up on 4th Aug. I did not want to make the balance payment because 1) the itinerary had NOT been revised to remove the rail tickets for the Western Europe leg, and 2) the travel consultant had not confirmed that all hotels were booked. My travel consultant only managed to confirm all hotel bookings on 21st July, and that he had removed the rail tickets from my itinerary and quote. On 22nd July, another consultant sent an email to me, to inform me that if I did not make payment by 24th July now, that they would be cancelling my trip (no information what would happen to my deposit for 2 people - there was no such notification during the time of payment that my deposit would be forfeited if I didn't make my payment by the 22nd, and now the 24th). And she quoted me the revised quotation AFTER removing the rail tickets, which came up to $7,492! I wanted to know why my quote went up instead of down after removing the rail tickets, and she told me she would check with the original travel consultant who couldn’t be reached at the moment and urged me to make the balance payment first. I told her that the new quote was over my budget, and that I wouldn’t be going ahead with GRE at that price. On 23rd Jul, I was sent an email that she had sat down with the original consultant, and had managed to bring my quotation down to $6,993. So I told her that it still did not make sense to me, that if I made a deposit to seal my price at 7K, why after removing rail tickets costing $400, that my cost is still at $6,993. Until this was sorted out, I was prepared to let my deposit go and just make my own hotel bookings and local tours. On 24th Jul, today, my “deadline”, she finally told me that they managed to sort it out. The system had accidentally booked 2 unlimited Swiss rail pass for in Switzerland instead of normal rail tickets, and that my new quote was now $6,664. That sounded reasonable, and as they sounded sincere, I was relieved that things were sorted out a week before my trip and that I would not have to make my own bookings and plans as I was clearing work to go for my holiday. After I had happily made the balance payment for the trip, I went back to my itinerary to check the locations of my hotels so that I could figure out where the nearest u-bahns, metro stations, etc were, I realised to my horror that a number of my hotels had been downgraded by 1 star. The 4 and 5 star hotels that I had paid the deposit for on 4th July, had been replaced with 3 and 4 star hotels. And in my itinerary I had indicated that I would like a minimum of 4 star hotels to be booked. The feeling in the pit of my stomach cannot be described. Its the feeling where you know you have been skinned. You hope, and do not want to believe it to be true, but you know it. And my trip hasn’t even started yet. So, I have gone back to them on this issue, but both travel consultants cannot be contacted because they have left for the day. I requested for the travel consultant who answered to relay my message that I expect the hotels I paid for to be reinstated at NO additional cost. Hopefully they get back to me tomorrow, now that I have made the balance payment and am stuck with them. Will keep you posted, but DO be careful and take note of the prices you were quoted on, and in checking any changes in your itinerary if there were changes made to your hotels and transfers!

Great trip to Prague, Austria, and Budapest! Go Real Europe had all hotel accommodations, travel vouchers, transportation pick up and drop off organized. I had some organized trips and explicit travel instructions for self guided trips! I told them the countries I wanted to see and what activities I like and they did the rest! Nice job!

We came across Go Real Europe a little by chance as I was looking for ideas for a European Holiday. The easy website navigation was an excellent staring point. Once we had an idea of our route and possible interests we were able to leave the rest to them. Paul came up with a draft itinerary and then we tweaked it a little as things came together. Later in the piece we were also easily able to amend some of the tours after we discovered that we would be meeting up with some friends in Vienna that could only be there one day. The adaptability and flexibility made this very easy. The accommodation in each place we visited were all very well located with our only gripe being that some of them did not have air-conditioning. All the hotels provided breakfast. Even when our starts were early they provided us with something or a takeaway. The transport arrangements were flawless. It is great to arrive in a location and know there is someone to pick you up from the airport, bus or train station and also to get you to those places on time. The local tour guides were fantastic, Jana in Prague, Kate in Budapest, Angelica in Vienna, Helmut in Salzburg & Nicola in Český Krumlov were all excellent and able to give us local insights and adapt the walking tours to meet our needs. My personal favorite guide was Myles in Prague who took us on our beer tour! The pre-arranged tours were suitable with only one minor hiccup in Český Krumlov but a few phone calls were made and this was quickly sorted out. The self-guided walking tours and information packs, not to mention the tickets provided for all local transport were very useful. The whole process was extremely well organized and Paul, our tour planner, could not have done a better job. I would have no hesitation in recommending Go Real Europe to any of my friends.

We enjoyed our trip to Poland and Austria. The detailed instructions were a plus. There were a few mishaps but overall the vacation was excellent! The 2 hotels were each fabulous. The tours were very informative and personalized. Our favorite event was a day cruise along the Danube River. The boat, drinks, wait staff, etc. were great. The views were breathtaking! So glad I took chance on a company that I found on the internet. I checked the reviews and we were very happy with our trip.

My wife and I just complete a vacation in Czech Republic and Poland. Being retired military I usually drive around Europe but this time we used Go Real Europe. Justin Brinkerhoff set everything up for us. What a great vacation! I would highly recommend Go Real Europe. Everything went perfectly. All the private tours were great. Definitely book a tour through Justin and Go Real Europe!!!

Our holiday in Eastern Europe was organized impeccably by GO Real Europe. We did not have to worry about any logistic as everything was taken care by them. We had no problems whatsoever and strongly recommend them. THere were many highlights of our holidays, but we would like to mention two. The first one, it was a great bike tour of the Viennese countryside with Teena, who was the most lovely guide, very friendly and easy going. The second, was the Prague Castles and countryside tour with Petr Skarka. Petr was an exceptional guide, not only very knowledgeable, but incredibly friendly and easy going. During the tour, my husband broke his sun glasses. Petr was kind enough to take them with him, fix them and drop them to the hotel the next day! We will never forget his kindness. We give him more than 5 stars!!!

Our experience with GoRealEurope was excellent. Starting from the beginning we were proved suggestions on the itinerary and all of our to prior to the trip were answered. The final itinerary was incredibly detailed and provided everything we needed to feel comfortable within each country we visited. The hotels selected for us (Small boutique) were excellent and all provided excellent customer service. Our favorite was Hotel Casati in Budapest. The guided walking tours in each location were also a highlight of the trip. Marta (Prague), Nikki (Cesky Krumlov), Simone (Bratislava), Kate and Edith (Budapest) were all fantastic. Having a local guide share the history of each location and be able to answer your questions was a wonderful experience. I also wanted to comment that all means of travel between each location whether bus, train, or private transport was perfect. If going to Central Europe I highly recommend working with GoRealEurope. You won’t be disappointed. I hope they expand their services further into Europe.