Tour Reviews

Gail, You're absolutely correct, it's NOT a problem with your computer. The Tour Reviews used to be in chronological order with all those from a particular tour grouped together, but for some unexplained reason this was changed several months ago. A number of people from the HelpLine (including me) wrote to the Webmaster, and as I recall we were told that they MAY change it back to "chronological order". However, that doesn't appear to have been done, and I don't know if it ever will. I agree, it's much easier to keep track of the responses when they're all grouped together.

I agree with you Gail,, this new mixed up reviews are useless for tracking a trend or a tour guide,, which I have done. I hate it. I don't know WHY the web designers on this site change things that aren't broken, its certainly not because anyone complained, but for some "make work" project is all I can figure,( " oh hey wouldn't it be neat to do this") and its frustrating that they don't seem to listen to the people who use this site and others and know what works and what doesn't. Unless of course they changed it for some mysterious reason that we apparently are not fit to be told about. Information is more useful if arranged by date, not just by year. It also bothers me because i wonder now if they are editing information. i did a tour, did that questionaire, and liked it was grouped with others from my tour, you could get a better sense of things,, and I liked that my remarks were not edited

I'm with everyone else here. I found the chronological reviews helpful in deciding when to take a tour. How did group members deal with cold or hot weather? Were there adaptations made for sights that closed earlier in the shoulder season? What were the experiences like when the country visited had a holiday or religious observation? Many of these kinds of things were mentioned and easy to identify when the comments were chronological. I agree it looks like "cherry picking." I'm very curious about the reason for the change. Any ideas? Webmaster, are you there? Tour department, how about you? Rick???

I am bothered by this new system, too. I emailed the webmaster, and go no reply. I enjoy reading the postings, especially those for tours that I am planning to take. I wish they would go back to the original format.

I'm sure I put my two cents in the last time this came up, but just in case the Webmaster is reading this thread too: I vote for the return of chronological reviews. As mentioned, it's so much easier to research a particular tour guide, etc. when the reviews are in date order. The new way makes it look like ETBD is cherry-picking flattering "sound bites."

I too replied that I liked the old format much better when it happened. I use to really enjoy reading the reviews, but not anymore. It was so interesting to be able to compare what the different tour members said of the same tour. I guess we can just hope the webmaster takes into consideration so many user's negative remarks about the change.

Glad to hear that I am not the only one frustrated by this! Hope someone is listening because it would seem to be easily fixable.

Il jump on e bandwagon and completely agree too! Oh well, hopefully they will change it back. :)

Once a wonderful resource for choosing and planning for a tour, the reviews have become fairly useless. I'm not willing to plow through the entire set to see if any new reviews have been added. I can't imagine any reason for doing this other than to feature positive reviews and eliminate (or bury) less favorable ones. That, also, makes them less meaningful for me. I did get a response from the RS office when I wrote to complain, but they gave no reason for making the change.

I also found them a wonderful resource when researching tours. I have to say that unless this situation changes, it's possible that I'll be less likely to post a Tour Review now. Why bother if it's going to be "buried" somewhere in cyber space where it's difficult for others to find. When the "Post A Tour Review" E-mail for my tour this year arrives, I'll be mentioning that to the Tour Department!

Agree w/ everyone who has posted re: this. Why don't we all pick up the phone and call Europe Through the Back Door and ask to speak to Rick? I doubt we'd all get him (but we never know.....sometimes those who we perceive would be the hardest to reach are really rather accessible), but if not, I'm sure his assistant would get the info to him. I called last year to give input, and I talked w/ the product manager for tours (another issue....trying to get them to do more one-week tours). Before I went on each of my Rick Steves' group tours, I combed the reviews, looking for trends, comments re: weather at different times of the summer, etc. Rick's company has always seemed to be so forthcoming and honest, I'm puzzled why they felt it necessary to jumble up the reviews. Odd, really odd.............let's call and find out why. If someone gets thru, please post to save them from hearing from gobs of people.

I nominate Margaret as representative of concerned posters to call RS central and report back with results.

Margaret, "Why don't we all pick up the phone and call Europe Through the Back Door and ask to speak to Rick" You'll have to speak VERY loudly, as I think Rick is in Europe at the moment.

I, too, would appreciate a return to a chronological listing of tour reviews for many of the already stated reasons. I don't want just a random sampling of reviews. Please!

If ETBD feels the tour feedback would be better served in the new format, then I think Ken's suggestion of sorting option would be fantastic. This sounds similar to the sorting option utilized by my local library's site. That said, I remember the reason for taking my very first ETBD tour. I read the information about the specific tour I was wanting to take and the site's information how ETBD differs from other tour companies. But, the deciding factor for me was reading the tour reviews. I remember reading pages of the reviews. I got a feel for the seasons, the tour members, guides and bus drivers. The reviews eased my anxiety about taking a tour.
I continue to read the feedback for those very same reasons. They help me decide which tour I will take each year. I really wish the old format could be reinstated or at least add Ken's suggestion of a sorting option.

There was a thread awhile back about this topic, unfortunately I can't find it at the moment. The Webmaster was interested in input, so I think emailing them through the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page might encourage change. I did email the webmaster recently in frustration (I wanted to look up comments about a specific guide on a specific trip in a specific time frame) and I was assured that the posts are being selected randomly and are not "cherry picked" for the public.

I suppose we could contact webmaster and ask him to check out this thread.

As many have said, I wrote the webmaster on the new format and as you can see nothing happened. One of the things I always liked about RS tours was supposedly he read all the reviews and posted them for all to see. With the format now, the transparency is gone and not only are they useless, but it looks like an advertisement, not feedback. I am in the group who probably won't respond to feedback after a tour except to say why I am not responding to feedback. If enough of us let them know, maybe something will change.

Hello everyone, 1) I have responded to each person that has contacted me about it at webmaster@ricksteves.com. I apologize if you didn't receive a response somehow (maybe it wasn't sent to me, maybe there was a delivery error), but it is our policy to give a response to every legit concern or question. 2) The only change that was made was to randomize what was displayed. We make tour reviews available so that prospective buyers can get a feel for what our tours are like on the whole. The notion behind the randomization is to give prospective buyers a random sample of comments, not just comments from one tour date with perfect weather (or bad weather), a single tour guide, etc. We want you to find on our tour review pages that all our guides (not just a page full of comments on one guide), while different from each other, are great in various ways. We are not hand picking what we show or what we don't show. We have always been up front with less-than-perfect reviews and nothing has changed that. 3) Each of the responses we have received about this change, including this thread, has been delivered to the group of people that decided to make the change. I would still consider this change to be under review. What can you do? Keep up the conversation. We're listening.

I don't know how easy it would be to implement this change in the website, but the logical solution (IMO) would be to provide a couple of ways to view the Tour Reviews. The reviews would be presented in randomized order by default, but a "button" could also be provided at the top to allow sorting either by date (ascending or descending order) or by a particular tour date or year range. This would allow those thinking of taking a tour to have a look at more recent tours, and allow Tour Alums to see reviews of tours they've just taken (which is something I find especially interesting). This should satisfy both the desire of the RS group to present a balanced view of the tours, as well as allow the reviews to be sorted by those who prefer that. It seems like a good solution......

Here's the question I posted in January and the responses. http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/77653/tour-feedback.html

I, too, won't respond to feedback after a tour except to say why I am not responding. I'm disappointed that I won't have this resource to help plan for the two tours we're taking in September.

I'll also comment that I like Ken's idea....clearly give readers a choice of specific (all inclusive by date) or random reviews to read. I read reviews that were posted over maybe two years for the two tours we took. Just like Debra said, being able to see the candid reviews (and every single review) added credibility to ETBD and a comfort level to those who choose to travel with you.

I wonder if they could have a "Read traveler reviews of our tours" button on the front page (which would mostly be for people who've never taken one of Rick's tours and are thinking about it) that would offer the randomly chosen reviews. Those of us who are a little more familiar with ETBD and how the website works could go directly to each tour's page and click on a different "Read reviews" button to see them in chronological order. I like Ken's idea too.

I like Ken's idea too and in the meantime, would much prefer the reviews be shown chronologically. I don't like the current system at all.

I agree with you all! I also read as far back as a couple of years to get reviews and information on the specific tour I am interested in. On a previous tour we took, our guide mentioned that sometimes reviews can be hurtful to them and wished all comments weren't posted. I said that I did not agree - as much as we pay for the tours (some of us save years for this), we should have access to all the information, good and bad, to help us with decisions. That posting of all things, good and bad, is one of the many things I have always liked about RS tours!!

I agree with Ken. All reviews should be posted (not a random sampling) and should be sortable by date if desired. It would be much easier to get the information needed when researching particular tour.

Thanks for your interesting post Gail, and response by others including Donna's in January. We'll be off for our 10th ETBD tour next month. In the past we've used the review specific date and geographic orientated information to make tour choices, date choices, and found additional tour help. Not so this year! The additional comment response also provided info for our own independent travel plans--not so this year. We do not plan to respond to this years tour follow up.

Thanks for your interesting post Gail, and response by others including Donna's in January. We'll be off for our 10th ETBD tour next month. In the past we've used the review specific date and geographic orientated information to make tour choices, date choices, and found additional tour help. Not so this year! The additional comment response also provided info for our own independent travel plans--not so this year. We do not plan to respond to this years tour follow up.

Well interesting,, not a single repsonder to this thread defends this change, it appears univerisally dislliked. So webmaster,, please be sure to let "those people" know.. Yes, small sample, but if we apply simple percentages, seems we are running 100 % against this change,, and it also seems apparent it was done for less then helpful motives.

I liked that the responses were all grouped together by tour because I looked at the responses from the time of year I was planning to go on a tour (in the Spring or Fall) to get an idea of what it was like for those travelers (not just weather, but activities that were offered, etc.) Now, I know the weather isn't guaranteed from year to year, but it's close. Also, I do like reading all the reviews about one guide at a time, because if one person maybe had a bad experience but the other 25 had a great experience, you can see that maybe it was just that one person. Please put the responses back as they were, it wasn't broke! Thanks!!

Erika,, very good point about a bad review,, it helps to see if that was a one off opinion or a concensus of opinion.

I, for one, enjoy reading all of the reviews from all of the tours as it makes for very interesting reading to compare reactions of various tour members to the same set of circumstances. I don't believe that those who changed the format realize that there are those of us that read them for the enjoyment of it, whether we are going on a tour or not. By the way, we are taking our 4th and 5th tours this summer and were looking forward to reading the reviews of our fellow tour members. With the present format that will not be possible, so I would like to add my plea to please change it back! Thank you.

I hadn't really read many of the tour reviews before this thread came up. What really annoys me is that when you click at the bottom of the page to read more answers, there are some answers from the prior page(s) and some new ones, so you have to sift thru to make any sense out of it. This would, of course, be solved if they were in chronological order. I also agree with the majority that you really can't tell anything about a specific tour or tour group, For instance in the Ireland in 14 days tour, it looks like it was pretty cold, windy and rainy but you have to ferret thru the pages of comments (and repeat comments) to decide if it was that way all summer or if it was just the end of the summer to September tours. As someone who hopes to take a RS tour within the 12 months, I agree with the majority and request a return to the chronological order.

Ditto! And I'm not even planning on taking a tour...yet. But, I still like to gather info while reading through the responses. I like reading about a particular tour - what was the weather like for that specific group and how did it impact them and their schedule? Webmaster, please pass along my generous offer to go on a free RS tour. I promise to then fully answer all tour feedback questions, preferably in chronological order ;-) Guilty Pleasures - Is it just me (and I know it's not!), but does anybody else really read the feedback just to figure out The Whiney Tourist Of That Particular Tour and read his/her answers? Now that's fun 8^D

Laughing, Eileen, because I do! Yes, it is easier to pick out the whiney ones when they are chronological. Teri, maybe if you fill out the response form, you can note on there the complaint about the non-chronological sorting on the website. Pam

Because I don't expect to join a tour when this started to blow up I didn't look at what was seen on the site. I had a look a few weeks ago and simply couldn't make any sense of the reviews. I didn't understand how to find anything there. I do agree that it would be much easier if it were possible to view all reports from one group at a time.

We just returned from consecutive RS Tours (Paris and GAS) and have received the tour evaluation form to fill out. Given the new format in which it is presented on the website (which to us is useless), we are debating whether or not to even complete the form. Of course, we feel it would be unfair not to compliment everyone connected with the tour for a job well done. Has anyone found out anymore info on why the tour review format was changed and whether there is any chance of it being returned to the former chronological order by tour group, which was so much better?
Teri

Back on 4/26, the Webmaster said, "Keep up the conversation. We're listening." So I'm bumping this up in the hope that they are, indeed, still listening. I still feel that the randomized reviews are fairly useless.

I agree that the "new" postings are virtually useless. Please, please go back to the original method. It was very usefull in getting a feel for a tour experience!!!

New format is terrible. Just back from a GREAT tour - adriatic. Have been looking at review site. Not user friendly. Had to trawl through heaps to find my review - then couldn't find again. Old reviews come up - including mention of a guide who, i believe, has left. This site is an important part of the selling process for new customers so i can't believe it's gone from excellent to terrible, plus negative comments posted above appear to have not been listened to. Is it really worth posting a review in future?????
Grrrrrr .... S

I agree, please go back to the original format.

I wish all searches ~ not just those pertaining to tour reviews ~ would yield chronological results. I find it very annoying to run a search and get replies in a hodge-podge. Yes, in some cases the information is still pertinent, but other times, it's outdated. And when moving on to read the next page, some posts are part of threads that were already referenced in the first page, so there's a lot of redundancy. It's unnecessarily burdensome.

I was hoping that the new tour reviews would be together, if not by date at least by year, but they are not. I have just clicked through numerous pages to find one or two 2012 reviews per page. Plus, I read the same response twice, on different pages. This new system is very frustrating. I was so aggravated I gave up, deciding to voice another complaint against it. Please, please organize the responses by date.

Chronological order is most helpful. Again, what was broken?

I guess they don't really listen to us... they say they do, but it may be lip service. Those of us who spend a lot of time on the helpline are now reluctant to recommend a new person searching for tour reviews to bother looking on that "Tour Feedback" site. What a shame ,, it was not only "not broken" but now that section of the site is considered useless..

I wonder if Rick is aware of the change and how unhappy the overwhelming majority of his loyal fans AND customers are with it. Anybody have his "ear"? Maybe the best thing to do is for someone to keep this thread going everyday until it is addressed. Thanks!
Teri

As a marketing technique, the former system helped convince me to take various RS tours. The new system is worthless and I now avoid reading reviews.

I am signed up for a Sept RS tour. One good customer satisfier is the ability read the most current reviews, where I can get tips or ideas, comments about recent changes or notes about the most recent trip. Unfortunately with the poorly designed tour review format, I am an unsatisfied, disappointed and frustrated customer in this regard!

I've had several email conversations with the RS office about my frustration with the current form. This is the response I've received - "We are trying this new display method but it is still being reviewed and discussed at length by our Tour Management Team, and Rick, and we are hopeful that we will come up with a new method to display the responses that will be much more user friendly and still serve the purpose of sharing our tour member feedback. In reviewing other tour company feedback, it is obvious there are a wide variety of display methods and rating methods being used, and our hope is to find a method that our customers will find to be a useful resource and not too cumbersome to review. Our goal is to have a new display and tour rating system for our 2013 tour season, so we'll do our best to meet that goal." Personally, I can see no reason to do this other than for cherry picking. If they're truly looking for "user friendly," they had that in the original form. I'm so frustrated not having this resource to plan my tours to Turkey and Greece this September.

Thanks for phoning Nancy - hope they change it back soon. This used to be the best review site .... in itself a good advert for Rick Steves.
S

Our goal is to have a new display and tour rating system for our 2013 tour season, so we'll do our best to meet that goal." In the meantime, change it back to original format.

Since we recently Took a tour and will be asked for input or I assume we will I think maybe we'll refuse to participate this time and will give the reason as the change in tour reviews I agree this is useless. BTW: the tour was excellent. It will be a shame not to tout it, but that's at least some leverage for those of you who are taking or have taken tours recently.

Rick ,, Ricks staff, ARE YOU READING THIS,, someone should be!

Per Rick Steve's current blog, "I've reviewed surveys from tour members who completed our Athens and the Heart of Greece tours in the last month." Did he dig through the disorganized online mess of reviews or?

I understood that Rick personnally reads all the tour feedback forms before they are published. Sure wish they would return to the old format. Can't imagine the old format hurt his business or that the new format is helping his business. It is turning off a lot of people who liked it the way it was.

EXACTLY,, Rick reads through the proper reviews ,, they are in order and make sense, perhaps he should only look at the crappy way we get to see the reviews.

Just want to add my ten cents worth to this thread- please change back to chronological order. It's only the most recent reviews that are relevant.

I took 7 RS tours over a 10 yr period. For me, the big difference in quality of tour experience always was with the tour leader. All RS tour leaders are adequate, but some are really great. When/if I take another RS tour, I will want to know which leaders are considered outstanding by tour members.

This seems to be falling on deaf ears. All the responses on this thread, and on Donna's from last January, have been 100% negative. Most, if not all, the people that have posted have contributed their time and energy to this website over the years, making it a better website for it. I think all that have posted deserve the respect of a response from the dept that is in charge of tour reviews.

Amen.

Ping.

I just read thru this thread for the first time and see so many complaints about how the tour reviews are now displayed and that nothing has been done to change its format back to what was universally liked. I also see on RS home page that he is looking for a Web Producer. Perhaps there is still hope.
I have taken 9 RS tours and am about to go on #10 and I always liked to review the tour reviews for possible tours to take in the future. I also liked to review the comments participants who took a particular tour that I signed up for said for that tour to get an idea of what to look out for and what to be prepared for. No longer. I was just up in Edmonds last Friday and stopped by RS Headquarters. I wish I had read thru this thread before I went up there but I am sure I will be up there again in the near future when I will ask to speak to anyone in connection with this growing problem. For those of you who do not live within driving distance of Edmonds, WA, I encourage you to keep posting or even calling as Ken has suggested.

For those of you that have taken tours, when you fill out the reviews, you have the choice as to whether you want to make the review public or not. I've kept my review private when there was something I wanted to include for the RS office but didn't want to be posted. So I'd suggest that if you go on a tour, you still fill out the review but you don't have to make it public if you prefer not to have it posted. I think the change is strange. I always thought the way the reviews were previously displayed made it look like the RS organization was open and honest. Now they look like they are hiding something. What I found even less useful was that when you clicked the button "more reviews", you saw some of the same reviews that appeared on the first page. It seems each page is a new "random" list.

I complained about the new system when being asked to review our recent tour. Received a letter back from the office saying that they are changing it back due to the feedback received. Said it may take a month or so to restore the old system. So good news I think.

Good news! Thanks, Laura, for the update.

Looks like they made the change as of yesterday. The reviews are now grouped by tour date.

Thanks for the information. I will check them out. I guess the RS people are listening to this forum, after all.

I had so much fun reading the recent reviews of my upcoming tour and got some good tips. Thanks to all at Rick Steves and all posters for getting together to ask for what we need.

Yes, Thanks for listening!

It is great to have the old format back. Thanks!

:0)))) thanks for putting it right

This format now makes much more sense, and it is a graphic improvement to previous situation. You can now compare feedbacks of different travelers from each travel group, which is obviously much more meaningful for potential costumers than the cherry-picked arrangement in which they wanted to portray a selection of different comments out there.