Travel Changes?

[carpenta]

Just got off the phone with Hampton Inn reservations. Wonderful Shawniece took care of all our moves for future reservations even though they were non cancelable. BRAVO! Our Tauck trip to England and France is in doubt but Tauck will give you full credit if you cancel plus the insurance will be credited. BRAVO TAUCK.

 

[lovetotravel]

Just got off the phone with Hampton Inn reservations. Wonderful Shawniece took care of all our moves for future reservations even though they were non cancelable. BRAVO! Our Tauck trip to England and France is in doubt but Tauck will give you full credit if you cancel plus the insurance will be credited. BRAVO TAUCK.

Great news! Hilton also cancelled a non refundable reservation for us, no questions asked!
I will be looking at Tauck itineraries!!

 

[acndis]

The handling of all of this has been a complete mess. This will be our 11th ABD if we go this summer and I think I am done, too. Come on ABD, just do the right thing and cancel through August. Let us cancel our plans and regroup. Doing the right thing in the next few weeks will bring people back. Having to stress for the next few months when we are dealing with work and school restriction/closures does not make for a relaxing vacation. I really hope they will get it together.

 

[Rapunzellover]

Just got off the phone with Hampton Inn reservations. Wonderful Shawniece took care of all our moves for future reservations even though they were non cancelable. BRAVO! Our Tauck trip to England and France is in doubt but Tauck will give you full credit if you cancel plus the insurance will be credited. BRAVO TAUCK.

Tauck has very customer friendly policies. I've been making sure I tell every Tauck rep that they are awesome and I appreciate the customer friendliness.

 

[aggiedog]

Hyatt Place gave my dd a full refund on 4 hotel rooms the day before they were supposed to travel for a University club trip. She was thrilled, as it was a big chunk of their budget.

 

[SteveW8002]

Really on the fence about what to do. I have a PIF date of 3/24 for a July Italy/Switzerland trip that I booked with Dreams. I find it hard to believe that things will be okay in July. I emailed my agent with dreams twice last week, wondering if the PIF date would change in light of the current situation. No response. The reason I used a travel agency is for guidance on situations like this. These trips are a lot of money after all. I realize that they must be extremely busy with cancelations, but to be ignored is not appreciated. I will wait until the end of the week to make a final decision, however my inclination is to cancel the trip. I really hate to forfeit the deposit, but don't trust ABD to make the right choice about the trip. This will probably be the last booking that I make with ABD.

 

[laceltris3]

Tauck has very customer friendly policies. I've been making sure I tell every Tauck rep that they are awesome and I appreciate the customer friendliness.

Me too. Well, I haven't called because our PIF was proactively moved to May, and I was thinking of transferring to a North America trip, but who knows what things will be like this summer? I have talked up Tauck in every social media venue, because this is a company that is getting hit and *deserves* to survive.

 

[Jess_S]

Really on the fence about what to do. I have a PIF date of 3/24 for a July Italy/Switzerland trip that I booked with Dreams. I find it hard to believe that things will be okay in July. I emailed my agent with dreams twice last week, wondering if the PIF date would change in light of the current situation. No response. The reason I used a travel agency is for guidance on situations like this. These trips are a lot of money after all. I realize that they must be extremely busy with cancelations, but to be ignored is not appreciated. I will wait until the end of the week to make a final decision, however my inclination is to cancel the trip. I really hate to forfeit the deposit, but don't trust ABD to make the right choice about the trip. This will probably be the last booking that I make with ABD.

I have generally had a good experience with DU, but understand that there is some variation from agent to agent. If your agent isn't responsive, what about putting a request in through the DU website so that someone in management there can handle it?

 

[neurosx1983]

I have generally had a good experience with DU, but understand that there is some variation from agent to agent. If your agent isn't responsive, what about putting a request in through the DU website so that someone in management there can handle it?

I would let John know about that and he will sort it out

 

[neurosx1983]

The handling of all of this has been a complete mess. This will be our 11th ABD if we go this summer and I think I am done, too. Come on ABD, just do the right thing and cancel through August. Let us cancel our plans and regroup. Doing the right thing in the next few weeks will bring people back. Having to stress for the next few months when we are dealing with work and school restriction/closures does not make for a relaxing vacation. I really hope they will get it together.

ABD supervisor response to me when our England France on the 13th was cancelled pretty much sums up the whole problem: “ we were 100% planning on going ahead with the trip and only cancelled because the president banned Europe travel”

that shows exactly their thought process...do whatever it takes to keep the trip going because god forbid Disney might lose some money

 

[Cliffside]

What a terrible response. With that type of answer I don’t think I will ever trust them to put the safety and well being of their clients first. It almost want to take my 50% cash back and run. If I choose to ever do a Danube River Cruise I can look to Tauck who seems to be exhibiting excellent customer service. Beyond disappointing!!!

 

[Rapunzellover]

ABD supervisor response to me when our England France on the 13th was cancelled pretty much sums up the whole problem: “ we were 100% planning on going ahead with the trip and only cancelled because the president banned Europe travel”

that shows exactly their thought process...do whatever it takes to keep the trip going because god forbid Disney might lose some money

I'm outraged on your behalf. For the money spent, ABD should definitely have had better risk assessment. My trust in them is gone. I'm only interested in a possible Portugal itinerary if it offers special stuff Tauck didn't, otherwise, I'll not be considering ABD at all in the future.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

I was reading in my daily Cdn newspaper today that a group of high school students and teacher chaperones left for a trip to France on March 11th. They returned to Canada (BC) yesterday and have all been instructed to self-quarantine. I was absolutely shocked that the trip left. They used some ridiculous way to justify it by saying some sort of medical counsel hadn't said not to go, so they went. The tour company, EF Tours, is giving the participants a voucher for future travels. EF Tours runs educational tours for many, many school boards in Canada. When my 28 year old ds was in 7th grade he went on a trip to France organized by EF. I wouldn't have any faith in them after allowing a group of students to travel last week. Absolutely insane. I hope they are all okay.

I am having difficulty again with Scott Dunn. After dd said she doesn't want to travel to Europe this summer and realizing that we can't commit to any dates before the end of next May (she may do a spring course at university or start a summer job), I have asked them to allow me to push back my PIF to April 20th. They don't want to allow this (they want me to pay now). It appears they aren't willing to refund me for the trip if we don't go as scheduled on May 24th. This despite the fact that Russia just closed its borders to foreigners until at least May 1st. If I don't pay in full by March 20th then I essentially lose my $5,000.00 deposit. I don't understand why tour operators are being so difficult. I believe I said it before, but it bears repeating, I will never again agree to such a large deposit with a tour company.

 

[neurosx1983]

it was obvious to anyone looking at what was happening in italy where this was heading.
and yes, spain is headed in the same direction.



I have zero confidence in ABD after their demonstration of unrelenting boneheadedness and negligence.



Enjoy the sun.
All i can say to what you're observing in palm beach, in my little corner of the world, as of tomorrow morning, all of our malls, restaurants and hotels are closing by order of the government. That's in addition to what already had been closed, but it was clear that it wasn't sufficient.
The party's over, at least for a while.
And given the acceleration in cases, it's the correct decision.

and the rumor is, we've moving towards completely shutting down the entire workforce other than essential industries.
Hopefully, we won't get to that point.
but definitely not business as usual.
.

My state of NJ has told everyone to stay at home during day hours and has ordered all restaurants/bars/theaters closed

What a terrible response. With that type of answer I don’t think I will ever trust them to put the safety and well being of their clients first. It almost want to take my 50% cash back and run. If I choose to ever do a Danube River Cruise I can look to Tauck who seems to be exhibiting excellent customer service. Beyond disappointing!!!

ABD kept talking about their “global security team”...how much does anyone want to bet that doesn’t even actually exist

 

[Travel junkie]

Just got off the phone with Hampton Inn reservations. Wonderful Shawniece took care of all our moves for future reservations even though they were non cancelable. BRAVO! Our Tauck trip to England and France is in doubt but Tauck will give you full credit if you cancel plus the insurance will be credited. BRAVO TAUCK.

Even though we have been happy with ABD in past, they definitely are handling things poorly. Cannot believe they stranded families in Australia. Frustrated that we will lose a lot of money with current ABD reservations which are early June. We had bought “cancel for any reason”, but Japan was/is a really expensive trip and losing 25% is still tough. Besides the trips we have booked/paid with ABD, will look elsewhere in future when things calm down. Sounds like Tauck is handling things much better. Stay safe everyone.

 

[disneyholic family]

a top medical expert here (he's the head of the leading medical research institution in the country, and before that he was the director of the largest medical center here).
He was on the main news program tonight. They kept going back to him for comment throughout the show.
At the beginning he was pretty strong in his warnings, but calm.
By the end of the show he was livid because of the reports of all the people going to the beach and to the parks, etc.
Our restaurants, malls, hotels, schools are all closed, but the beaches were packed, which counters all the efforts being made.

Anyway, at the end of the news he just kept saying over and over -
"This isn't a vacation. You're not at work because we are trying to slow it down.
It's increasing exponentially. Don't you understand what that means???
This isn't a vacation. Stay in your homes."
He was so upset. He said people have to understand that if they don't follow instructions this is going to turn into a worldwide disaster a la italy. And if not worldwide, then certainly in my little corner of the world.

People are alternatively terrified out of their minds, or else making a big joke of it and doing things they shouldn't.

I got into it with a former colleague of mine who was doing something that i felt was in contravention of the orders.
Normally my response to unsafe behavior is, "it's your funeral", but in this case, that's not true. It might very well be someone else's funeral.
.

 

[Magnum_PI]

"it's your funeral", but in this case, that's not true. It might very well be someone else's funeral.

This right here is absolutely the crux of the issue, and so true.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

So, apparently, President Trump mentioned he believes this could go into July or August. I'm guessing, see how ABD handled UK/France and Australia this week, that that isn't going to make much of a difference when I call ABD this week asking them to park my deposit on a mid-July SoCal/DL trip?

 

[Grotto]

Our PIF is this Thursday (3/19) for our mid-July Germany trip. Anyone have any luck with ABD allowing them to push back the PIF date but not cancel their trip?

 

[AquaDame]

So, apparently, President Trump mentioned he believes this could go into July or August. I'm guessing, see how ABD handled UK/France and Australia this week, that that isn't going to make much of a difference when I call ABD this week asking them to park my deposit on a mid-July SoCal/DL trip?

Seems doubtful... with the way ABD is handling this I also regret putting money down for a river cruise next year. I wonder if DCL would have been just as slow to react - and they were also pretty slow mind you - if not for all the bans and such that hit them externally first.