Finland Travel Agents & Reviews

Comments:

1) I really appreciate how fast you guys responded to issues that came up, and they were corrected quite quickly.

2) All of the guides that we had were excellent and really knowledgeable, especially the climbing guides.

3) The areas that we visited were quite good and I enjoyed the food in almost every place we went to.

Some Negatives:

1) I asked some very specific questions regarding gear prior to leaving the States. Had I listened to your colleagues and not brought equipment, I'm not sure we would have been able to do some of the things that were scheduled. I know that the mountaineering boots were the main one and, in your defense, yes, you can use crampons with hiking boots, but it's quite uncomfortable and one of the guests that did use them did struggle a bit with the hike. 

Also, when we were doing the glacier hike in Valldal, our guide did not have mountaineering boots, so had we not brought our own, that hike would not have happened either. He indicated to us that their service does not provide those and that our travel company was informed of that. I realize a lot of people don't understand the difference between hiking boots, mountaineering boots, and how crampons adapt to those, but that is an important factor when it comes to mountaineering. 

So all in all, I would recommend understanding the gear list prior to providing that to your guests. I also did ask to see if our travel agency asked about the gear list prior to these hikes and it is my understanding that this did not happen, which is quite disappointing for the total cost I spent on this trip. They informed me when I showed them that this was a standard list you guys use, which was quite evident when I compared the gear list they provide on the Svalbard cabin hike.

2) In regards to Svalbard, I had requested stopping at Pyramiden on the way to or back from the cabin. When we spoke via email, that was a big part of going to the cabin and the glacier, as well as part of the cost, which was my understanding as to why you selected it. Also, with that said, when you look at your itinerary, it says at the bottom that we would visit Pyramiden. This did not happen and when I asked the guides about it, they indicated it was not part of the tour. Could you please explain why this did not happen and what recourse I have?

We traveled with this travel company in 2019 and had an extraordinary trip. Everything about it was excellent. This trip was fine, but not excellent. We were already in Europe before the detailed itinerary was available to us. We had to shorten our trip from the initial proposal. In shortening the trip, we inadvertently left out one of the primary reasons for the trip - a visit to the Dolomites.

It would have been helpful if our travel agency had made us aware that the choice of going to Merano instead of Brixen would rule out a visit to the Dolomites, since it is just too far away. This trip just felt like it was put together rather last minute, despite us reaching out months and months in advance for a proposal.

While we had first class tickets from our starting point in Innsbruck, our travel company did not/was unable to reserve seats, so we stood in an overcrowded train hallway for two hours to Bolzano. The train was oversold. Not a great start to the trip.

We also would have appreciated more details about excursions-such as how long they would last. Or that there was a 1.5 hour break between the visit to Doge's palace and the tour of St Mark's basilica.

A few of the guides/tours were excellent. Several were just ok and we would not recommend them to other travelers. The guide in Merano was ok, not great.

The Alpaca/Llama hike listed as taking place in an alpine meadow, actually involved walking the animals on a rope down sidewalks, through town, ending at a picnic table. Our guide was very personable, but this was not the special relaxing outing we imagined.

The guide in Venice used our 4 hours there to show us two churches, kept checking her watch and took us to cicchetti in a rather dirty, unused outside restaurant. Would not recommend it again.

Murano was ok, interesting to see how the glass is blown, but then turns into a selling event. Burano had one woman making lace, but that and just wandering around was the extent of our tour.