Most of you probably don't use this type of tour, since most of their tours are in the US. Last night, I decided to cancel all vacation travel for this year except to the beach in my own state. We were booked on a tour to Panama beginning the day after Christmas. They are giving 100% refunds for all 2020 tours being cancelled. They are even refunding the premiums we paid for travel insurance. I was on the phone with them less than 2 minutes. We won't talk about the behavior of Delta and American when we cancelled our airfares-I'm sure you know that that experience did not go as well.
Posted by
Atlanta, GA, USA
2745 posts
Sp you decided today to cancel the trip in December and you want Delta and American to give you your money back. It’s probably too late but what I would advise you to do is to not do anything. Because right now they’re not going give you your money back for a trip next December because you’ve decided to panic now. But this is a very fluid situation and it might’ve changed. In addition if they had a significant schedule change you would’ve been entitled to a refund. You do not want to cancel a flight seven months in advance. Because you’re not going to get what you want out of it.
Posted by
Washington DC Region, USA
7049 posts
My parents took a Caravan Tour to Guatemala a few years ago and loved it. Caravan has a lock on Central American countries (similar to Rick and Europe trips), and I think most people are quite happy with their tours (plus, they appear to be quite affordable to boot!). Glad to hear they are responsive to refunds this far in advance. I guess they saw the writing on the wall that the tours were not going forward this year, or their insurer did.
I've had to deal with both Delta and American domestic trip cancellations recently, and had a good experience getting full refunds from both in a timely way. I did not initiate the cancellations until one of them cancelled the flight first, and the other changed the schedule in a substantial way which entitled me to an automatic cancellation. I didn't want to get a voucher by canceling preemptively.
Posted by
Sapulpa, OK, USA
6291 posts
Agnes, thanks for the comments on Caravan tours. I've seen some of their ads in good magazines, and the tours look interesting, well laid out, and yes, affordable. Good to hear positive reviews here.
Posted by
CA
2074 posts
I did a Caravan tour of Italy in the early 80s. I know Caravan today is here in the US and Central America. It was a great trip. Not sure if the Sam company but I think they are?
Their refund policy up to day of tour is wonderful.
Posted by
Pacific Northwest
2622 posts
I did one tour with Caravan about 10 years ago. It was the Prince Edward Island tour. It was okay but it ranks as the worst of all the tours I've taken due to a really poor guide. He was just disinterested and unenthusiastic. We were an October tour and apparently we were one of the last tours of the season and many stops the guide usually used - restaurants, bus stops, little extras - were "closed for the season". He said it almost every day about something - "closed for the season" - and he thought it was funny, I guess, but after awhile it made us wonder why Caravan scheduled the tours so late into the fall if things were closed.
After the tour was over, I filled out the tour review email Caravan sent out and I was surprised to receive a follow-up telephone call. They wanted to talk with me about the poor tour guide and they apologized, which I felt was nice.
The other thing I didn't like was that it was a full bus of 48 people - maximum size. The guide never even tried to learn names. I also think their fee structure is weird. The trip I took is now $1800. And then below there are "taxes and fees" of $400. Costa Rica is $1200 with "taxes and fees" of $300 - a 25% tax/fee rate.
I did think that the hotels were all very nice, included meals were good and we did get to some interesting places. Halifax is a gorgeous city that I would love to visit again.