Tour Feedback

I'd suggest you email the webmaster for the website and ask. It did not look this way about a week ago.

Done - we'll see what happens.

Donna, I'll be anxious to see what answer you receive. I also find the new format very difficult to follow. Hopefully they will go back to sorting by date.

And instead of printing all the feedback, it's just a few chosen comments. Yes, please let us know what you find out.

For years, I've used the tour feedback section extensively when I'm deciding on a tour and for my pre-trip planning. This new format makes it fairly useless for me. If they're not in order, I would have to re-read all of them just to find the new ones. It also appears that you're only publishing some of the reviews and I find that being able to read the full set of answers for each tour gives me a well-rounded picture. The feedback section has always been a wonderful resource and I hate to think of losing it.

In case the Webmaster is following this thread, I like the look of the new format, but not the format itself. I liked being able to see what everyone on my own particular tour had to say and, like Donna said, compare answers from different tour groups. I also liked to print out all the feedback from the tour I was on and keep it with my scrapbook. So, I vote for a return to the old format.

Have to agree with the majority that the new format does not work for me. I like to especially read the comments about the guides and to read "He was great" doesn't tell me much. At least before, you could find the guide's name in one of the other comments from that particular tour. I have also been disappointed that they don't seem to post them as frequently as they have in the last few years. Maybe fewer people are responding but they are not always up to date.

We are following this closely. If you don't like the new format (or if you do like it), please chime in.

While the format (e.g. font and placement of name) does not really matter to me, I think the way that things were displayed in the past (in reverse chronological order) was much better. Before, it seemed like the reviews were displayed without any editing. The random order now gives the impression that only certain reviews are being selected for display. That may not be the case, but that is my impression. It makes me think that something is being hidden. I've alway thought the access to honest feedback was a strength of the RS company. One further suggestion for the surveys themselves. The respondee has the option of making the answers public or private. That applies to the entire survey. I wish you would move that option down to the question level.

I agree that while I like the look of the new format, I really dislike the disorganization of the dates of responses. I liked reading them in reverse chronological order. I think the most recent information is really helpful. I also like that sometimes people mention other things they did before/after the tour. When I review the questions and answers however, I look mostly at the Wow moments, was the tour description accurate, comments about a particular guide and the other comments/questions. I think you could utilize less space on the why did you take this tour question, and the bus driver question (every bus driver on the RS tours has been great. Frankly, my driver would not influence my decision to take or skip a tour). If you have to skimp on space, I would do it on these two
questions.

OK, I'll "chime in". The change in format is acceptable (ie: name of tour member and date on right-hand side in Italics) BUT it would be nice to have the capability to sort in either ascending or descending chronological order. If the sort capability isn't possible for "technical reasons", go back to the previous method with most recent tours at the beginning and all comments from a particular tour grouped together. While on the subject of a "wish list", it would also be nice to be able to search a particular date range, so that it's not necessary to go through one page at a time to find the tour comments I'm looking for. Cheers!

I MUCH prefer the old style of organizing. By doing it by tour by date in reverse order you can get everyone's view of the same tour and you can compare a person's answer on one question to their answer on another. This helps you know which are the people who had a negative experience which colored their opinion of the entire tour and the people who always say something nice no matter what (I live in the land of Minnesota 'nice').

I like to read the reviews to gain an opinion of the tour. I would like the format to continue in ascending or descending order. The new format, or whatever, is disorganized making it to random to be useful.

My two cents: visual design is nice. But I too like to see reviews by date because it helps me plan for the tour date I've selected - sorting through a million pages to find the May tour dates is very inconvenient. As it stands now, the feedback section is not helpful to me.

I too find the new format disorganized and not of any use. Please go back to the old format.

What was broken?

The visuals of the new format are ok, but they should group (or at least allow users to group) reviews and feedback by tour date. Otherwise, it appears like RS staff would have cherry-picked the reviews, good and bad ones. I'm in no way saying they did or are doing this, just that it is the impression it gives. I like the graphics, though.

The comments should be grouped by tour date so you can compare a tour at different times of the year and in different seasons and get a feel for what went on during each tour. Also so you can follow individuals'general response styles and get a feel for who was a complainer and who tended to be thoughtful in their feedback. I've always relied on the comments in this way when planning future trips with Rick Steves. Whether this was intended or not, the overall effect of pseudo-random posting looks self-serving on the part of the Rick Steves brand. I've taken Rick Steves tours and I don't appreciate having my comments presented out of context. Transparency has always been a most valuable Rick Steves trait and you're starting to dilute that. Just exactly how did you arrive at the order you chose for the comments? There had to be some criterion, no? As a previous poster already asked, "What was broke?"

I don't like the new format either. If you're trying to work out what a particular tour is like in the height of summer vs autumn you can't. Also, you can't look at one tour compared to another one on the same route (tour may be good with one guide and not as good with another). Finally, when I've been on a tour I like to see what the others on my tour have said.

wow, what a mess! I used the feedback last summer to get a sense of what the different tours were like. Having the comments organized by date let me "follow" a tour group so I could see what they thought of the highlights, the tour leader, etc. and more importantly get a sense of how the trip might vary by season. Having them in some random order doesn't seem like it offers any improvement that I can discern, but destroys the ability to see what a particular group or time period thought. Of course that may have been the goal.

It wasn't broke, it was great.. wish you would go back. I liked being able to compare replies all from same tour, gave a good idea since ou could tell by patterns if someone was just a complainer ,, or if there was a real issue( if everyone on tour mentions same issue)..