TauckReviews of tauck.com

Our recent Grand New England trip was a huge disappointment from the quality of services provided by our Tour Guide, the quality of Hotels and services provided by them and food services at hotels and optional sites. This was our first and last experience with Tauck. Their management was advised in detail of our complains and their response was a verbal apology and a certificate for a $250 discount on future Tauck tours as an incentive to use their services again. I'm pretty sure they knew we would never book a tour with them again so they really offered nothing to compensate for their failure to provide a high quality trip that warrants the prices they charge for services provided. This company is seriously relying on repeat customers and the reputation they had in the past. If you want a 1 Star travel experience, book with Tauck!

We just returned from 14 days in Portugal and Spain. Overall the trip was enjoyable and the guide was superb. Though on that subject, after spending $15K for the trip, we were told we still needed to tip the guide and driver an additional $500 because they depend on tips for the “majority” of their salary. This is ridiculous; Tauck should pay them what they’re worth and not ding the clients extra, unless each person wants to give extra. HOWEVER, I’d say Tauck is for people who really don’t care what they see as long as they stay in 5-star hotels, don’t have to handle their luggage, and have plenty of time to shop. I sent a letter to Tauck outlining 10 major deficiencies in our trip, including a flight that we were supposed to take from Lisbon to Seville that was canceled—we took our bus for 9 hours—no refund; we were downgraded from a hotel in Seville we were supposed to stay in— no refund. There were numerous “must see” sites that were not included that we had to seek out on our own and pay extra for (e.g. Granada Cathedral, Royal palace in Madrid, the Queluz Palace in Lisbon). Poor scheduling had us in the Prado Museum during peak time—after the impossibly crowded tour, the guide told us when to come later when practically no one was there; we did and enjoyed it. Tauck doesn’t provide any meals on some days, and way too much food on other days—they should balance this. There were just too many cites missing, when it would have been so easy to include them (even if optional for those who didn’t want to go shopping). We were there to see the important cites. One whole day was wasted in Marbella doing nothing—and that’s at a cost of $1000. At least there should have been a guided option to go somewhere interesting—even a walking tour of the old town—but there was nothing except a mediocre beach. Then there were three times we were taken to uninteresting Jewish Quarters in bland areas. Why? We feel we did not get sufficient value from the experience considering the price of the trip. We had very high expectations that Tauck did not meet. We will not travel with Tauck again. We learned our lesson.

4th Tauck Tour and will never use them again. Booking my own trip was a nightmare. Inconsistent answers, long wait times on phone, and insisted they pick me up at Charles de Gaule...never showed up. Said there was a laptop for use by passengers...not true and my cell phone broke so I was out of touch with everyone. 2 Covid passengers and the worst was the raw sewage that came up from my shower the last day of the trip...no wonder my room stank the whole time. I never wanted to go anywhere this year because of Covid and disastrous airline performances all summer, but Tauch said I would lose my deposit from a cancelled trip last year and I had to book a European River Cruise. So, between Delta Airlines (Tauck booked me) and this cruise I came home tired, angry, upset.

Beware of the travel insurance that Tauck partners with from Aon. We bought this insurance specifically to cover a pre-trip positive Covid test. My wife tested positive 3 days before the trip. The insurance company asked her to get a PCR test which came back positive too. They are now denying the claim because she wasn't sick enough to see a doctor. Tauck now says they will not get involved. This insurance company is labeled as its partner. Terrible customer service. We will never again trust Tauck.

Right now waiting for any responses to problems with upcoming tour of Southeast Asia. Lots of call holding and bs. I would never recommend cibt for visas. Disorganized mess with no one ever responding and delays that are not explained and charges to credit card yea reversed but $1400 errors. And visas still not delivered and no explanations.

I recently enjoyed a 10 day Tauck Tour of Tanzania and Zanzibar, Africa. The tour exceeded my wildest expectations. If you are interested in experiencing unparalleled and close up wild animals in their natural habitat this is the tour for you. While the daily safari drives are a bit grueling for my age (67) they are worth the bumpy drive (referred to as an African massage), not to mention the very comfortable accommodations every evening with the best possible views. Our tour guides were superb. They were knowledgeable and eagle eyed at seeing and then quickly driving to see animals doing everything animals due in the wild including hunting and killing prey, caring for their young, mating rituals and much more. We even had a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti. Our tour guide, Ivan, was a wealth of information on local customs and traditions. We visited a local tribe and were granted unprecedented access to their daily lives. A visit to the site and museum where Professor and Mary Leakey spent their lives uncovering the “cradle of civilization” where they discovered the bones of the earliest humanoids was an unexpected treat.

BUYERS BEWARE! On day 4 of our 2-week cruise Tauck canceled our riverboat cruise because of low waters in the Danube. All of us understood the problem, but we couldn't understand Tauck's response to it. The company literally left us "high and dry"! They gave us absolutely no support to transfer to other river or land cruises, help with transportation home, or any other kind of assistance. None of us could even get a callback! Why can passengers on the other cruise lines (Viking, Uniworld, etc.) switch to coach tours when the water is low and Tauck has no options at all? We paid a lot of money for this trip and it was a disaster! FYI: We did get a refund from Tauck for the remaining unused days of our trip, but that's it... no letter of apology, no extras of any kind. And... it cost us an additional $8500 to fly home early. SHAME ON TAUCK for treating us all so poorly!

We contracted COVID on the 7th day of our 10 day small group Canadian Capitals tour Aug 2022. We are avid mask wearers and understood the risk. We self tested the afternoon of the 7th day and immediately notified the guide. He came to our room and presented us with a covid policy sheet and picked up our Vox (transistor radios). Said every trip has someone get covid. The next morning we got an email from the company that said basically you are now separated from the group. We would never have risk infected anyone! But at this point we were on our own in French speaking Quebec. Thank goodness for our translator app! We had to locate test site(PCR required for travel insurance), had to make our own hotel reservation changes. I asked the guide if there was a travel agent in the hotel or nearby. He said check with the front desk. We were not given any local information eg. testing sites, maybe a medical sherpa(translator). The day after, got a message from guide that said hope you are feeling well and a reminded do not show for any planned event. Nope you are on your own. PS They advertise that all gratuities are included. That was not our experience. The day one information said the gratuity for the the guide was to be $10/day for the guide and driver $7/day. in US DOLLARS. We paid him cash when he came to our room.