travellerGreenBay

Family of 4 (2 boys 11 & 13) are planning to visit Peru next Summer (2012). I am looking at these two tour companies. They do have different itinerary, of course. I am pretty flexible on that. I would like some feedback as to good and bad of each company. Thank you.

qwovadis

ietravel.com best of your 2 no spcific peru expertise

you can do a tonne better OAT many issues like below

on the boards also no Peru expertise... on OAT

consumeraffairs.com

Grand Circle Travel's customer service, billing, and back-office administration are a mess and has cost me loads of time and money trying to deal with mistakes:

1. $920 cost me to deal with a booking error that they made but claimed that I should have noticed earlier. They had me and my daughter coming back on the wrong flight, separated from the rest of my tour group!

2. Mysterious cancellation and rebooking of trip insurance I purchased for my daughter and myself, which resulted in a series of transactions on my credit card. I'm still trying to correct an overcharge resulting from this of $475.

3. Post-trip harassment for $600 in charges they claimed I'm responsible, but which were in fact prepaid as part of my group tour.

Every customer service representative listens to these problems and then tells me that it is someone else's department. I have been through multiple reps, supervisors, and now a manager. Even the latter got off the phone telling me that she too could not help me on the phone, but had to review my issues with someone else.

I'm thoroughly exhausted and fed up with this inept bureaucracy. Reams of paper, layers of procedures, an endless maze of departments, but no accountability!

Great folks with peru expertise that get Rave reviews here

ancientsummit.com Nina

perubesttours.com Mike

kuodatours.com

peruforless.com

With a family might consider a glapagos add on recent

good experience with www.guanguiltagua.com for that.

Always pay with CC never wire money and insuremytrip.com

Happy Hunting.

mlgb

I've had good reports from a friend of the Peru OAT trip, actually. She uses OAT quite a bit. The one thing she recommends is to book your own airfare, or you will wind up being routed thru four cities just to earn them $100 on the airfare. OAT travelers tend to be quite a bit older, though, I can't see a family fitting in very well.

I think you would do better to book with a local provider like Peru Best Tours who can tailor an itinerary to your family's interests.

Also, it really is pretty easy to plan your own trip to Peru and just hire a guide for a few days, many are recommended here, eg Percy Salas, David Choque, etc.

morewierd

I have taken 3 OAT trips since 2003. We mostly travel on our own. However, about 3 years ago, we did a family vacation with my son,daughter and son-in-law to Peru. (Adult children). OAT was terrific......but I will admit.....MOST of the people in the group were sick at one time or another.(Not on the other trips hubby and I took).

OAT is NOT a company for young children. Find another company. I have friends who do 3-4 OAT trips/year. They wouldn't do what i do, planning for husband and myself up to 9 weeks at a time.

You will adore Peru!

tuitravelgirl

My recommendation is to go with International Expeditions. If you look closely at inclusions, you will find that International Expeditions is a much better value for a higher quality trip than OAT. IE includes much more in their itinerary instead of selling excursions for an additional price. With a family of 4 excursions could add up really quickly.

Amy

I did an OAT Peru trip some years ago which I found to be very enjoyable and had no problems; it started me going to the Amazon, and I've since been there twice on my own. (My trip report and photos are here: http://www.fodors.com/community/sout...rip-report.cfm ) But I was one of the youngsters on that tour, and I was 38 at the time! However, my only other OAT tour included a 17 year old who had a wonderful time. The small group size is a definite advantage.

However, I think you could probably do well with boys of that age on your own rather than with a tour group. There are some great package deals for areas like the Amazon, and you could just put them together.