Venture AshoreReviews of ventureashore.com

If you make human mistakes, this might not be the company to use. Between my travel agent and myself, we double booked an excursion and didn’t catch the mistake until they picked us up for the excursion. The excursion itself was wonderful, but it was not worth double the price. When I attempted to contact venture ashore, they were not pleasant understanding or helpful. We will not use them again and I will not recommend them to friends and family. i’m sure I will get some AI generated Sorry about your bad luck response.

We took three tours in Norway with Venture Ashore: Flam, Geiranger, and Bergen. The one in Flam was the worst: the bus was late, while we were waiting in a parking lot in the rain. Midway on, the bus was stopped by authorities for an inspection and wasn't allowed to continue. We waited there for approximately one hour, without anybody telling us what was going on. Finally, we left and made a stop where, at that point, there was no time to browse in the stores or have a bite, and scarcely time to use a precarious bathroom, with men and women waiting in line to share a very much not first-world bathroom. Then the tour guide told us: the bus had a leak and was not only fined, but also not allowed to use the tunnels again. While they tried to find a solution, we waited another hour, stressed, and almost panicked that we'd miss the ship. There was a family with a baby and a couple that needed to catch a train, and were desperate. Eventually, the bus took the mountain road, and we got to the ship before it departed, but the tour was ruined. And hey, they didn't refund us the money. For Geiranger, they cancelled the most complete and expensive tour we had booked, replacing it with a basic tour. At least that tour was okay, however, it was not clear at all where the meeting place was, and I had to use roaming to contact the head office in the US to ask. Finally, the Bergen tour was a hop-on-hop off bus that had no problems. Summarizing, I learned this lesson: Never again will I use a tour company other than the one from the cruise, even if it's more expensive. I don't recommend Venture Ashore.

When we turned up for the trip, we were informed by your Amigo Tours representative at 9.30am on 10th July, that our tour had been cancelled. You can imagine our total frustration as we had not been informed in advance by them or yourselves. We have still not received the refund.

This was an exhausting tour - primarily as we went to Sorrento first and then to Pompeii arriving at 12.30 - not the time to be wandering around in the heat. The main tour guide was really good but unfortunately the Pompeii guide had a strong accent and was diffficult to understand. The site is so large, we coud only cover a small part in two hours. Try a shorter trip in the morning or later afternoon would be my recommendation.

2 trips in iceland. trip 1 included geysirs and swim at lake myvatn. only 10 minutes allowed at geysirs. really disappointed as was a big reason for going on this trip. swim was horrendously expensive for only 40 minutes in the water. were rushed back to the ship well within the allotted time of the trip. very rushed for little reason. trip 2 in orkney. no paddle to locate guide. i asked someone and they directed me towards one end of the pier where other private trips were locating. walked back to gangway and was advised to try other end of the pier. all very busy with people at the gangway. barriers were preventing access and finally someone removed them and lo and behold, the guide was found at this end of the pier without a paddle or sign. the trip was fine thereafter but disappointed at the initial organisation.

We booked four shore excursions with Venture Ashore as we used Planet Cruise. Unfortunately 3 out of the 4 were cancelled due to insufficient numbers. The one tour we did complete was a tour of Bodrum and we were the only people to do the tour. The tour guide Nazmi was excellent and we would thoroughly recommend him. He was very knowledgeable and welcoming.

Forgot to book a tour today in Tenerife so we went shore and asked venture sure if he could join their tour. There was room in Van. The company said we couldn’t join even if we agreed to give them credit card information over the phone we’ve used this company on previous cruises. No more. They lost a lot more money than just this tour we would’ve paid for

3 of the 4 excursions we booked didn't happen. The first one was cancelled well before the cruise and we were refunded for it. No problem. For the second one we went to the meeting point and no one showed up. We asked and had someone get ahold of Sonny Liston Tours. They sent a guy out and he informed us that the tour had been cancelled weeks ago and that he refused to do business with Venture Ashore because he said they didn't pay. He had an extra van so we paid him cash and he gave us a private tour. That too was refunded by Venture Ashore. The third one was a catamaran ride and it was great. The operators were kind, informative and attentive. They said they were new to Venture Ashore and we look at each other and hoped they were going to get paid. The fourth one was a kayak trip through a mangrove forest. Again no one showed up. We asked the information station to contact the operator. When I talked to him he said the mangroves had been full of seaweed for weeks and all tours had been cancelled, but no one told us. Again, Venture Ashore refunded our purchase, but that did not compensate for the wasted time waiting for an operator that never showed up. We were the only ones left at the pier when everyone else from our ship was off having fun. I know things happen, but the communication from Venture Ashore was horrible. They did refund us, but it was a great disappointment and we weren't given the time to book something else. Next time I book through the ship!