bobbye7

I booked a trip to Great Britain in the fall with Grand Circle Travel. Now I'm having second thoughts after reading dozens of reviews online. It seems their customer service is less than stellar. I traveled with Overseas Adventure Travel, which is affiliated with Grand Circle, and was very impressed. I have until March 26 to cancel my reservation and get my deposit refunded. Any observations about this company would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

greg

Do you need to use a tour company in the first place? The reviews don't look good. I have not chosen to take tours when the internet came to age more than 20 years ago. It was a good riddance. While helping others make trip arrangements, I realized that except for the rock bottom tour packages, you pay premium compared to doing the similar trips on your own which allows you to take out things you don't care for and spend more time where it matters to you. More over, except for the high end tours, they often use inconvenient hotels the participants would not have chosen if given an option. Many complaints arise when there is a foul up. Most businesses make sure their interests are protected at the buyers' expense. Some are worse than the others in this regard.
If you care to post which tour you are looking at with hotel list if they provided one, others can comment if it is something you could have done on your own.

janisj

OAT/GC are about the same. But - no one (or almost no one) needs a tour for the UK.

Most of the mass market coach tours in GB are gawd awful.

why not give us a link to the tour and can tell you tbe good and bad points re the itinerary.

bobbye7

https://www.gct.com/trips/land-tours...18/itineraries
This is the link to my trip. As for doing this on my own, I am going solo and don't feel very confident. I would have no idea how to go about setting up tours. I certainly wouldn't want to drive. I want to visit London, York, Wales and Edinburgh, with maybe some places in between..

janisj

Just time for a quick comment. London, York and Edinburgh could NOT be easier on your own. You get on a train in central London,get off in central York. Walk to your B&B or hotel, get on another' train and get off in central Edinburgh, short cab ride to your hotel. Probably the 3 easiest cities on earth for solo travelers.

thursdaysd

Seems like a lot of drive by or walk past, plus a lot of free time or "optional excursions" (i.e. pay extra).

I travel solo, a lot, and the UK is about the easiest place to do it - after all, you do speak the language, right? What guidebooks are you using?

You don't need to drive - there are trains and long distance buses (coaches). See this site for info on train travel in Britain: https://www.seat61.com/UK-train-travel.htm And you certainly don't want a car in London, York or Edinburgh. If you want to see something of Scotland outside Edinburgh, check out Rabbies tours.

Wales could be a little more difficult by public transport but not that much. I was there a couple of years back, basing in Conwy (better idea then Caernarfon) See: https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...stle-and-more/

How much time do you have? You may want to leave Wales and the west for another trip, and just do London, York and Edinburgh, flying into London, using the train, and flying out of Edinburgh.

bobbye7

honestly i think I would feel very lonely and anxious to do a trip abroad all alone.

historytraveler

If you really don’t want to tour on your own then have a look at Rabbies. They do small group tours ( 16 passengers ) their guides/ drivers are excellent, and they do have several tours of England as well as Scotland. You can usually combine several tours. Highly recommend. www.rabbies.com

thursdaysd

Or you could look at this, which is the tour company I have used occasionally in Europe: https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/eng...otland/england

Or you could maybe get inspired by reading reports from other solo travelers: Goin' solo...nothing like it! (A trip report collection)

Or you could start in Scotland and use Rabbies, and then tackle England on your own, maybe doing some walking tours with London Walks.

No reason to feel anxious. You speak the language, right? And if you live in the US you will be safer over there.

bilboburgler

For planning how to get around
Plan your journey | Traveline
most uk cities have free walking tours, some are actually free and put together by the local tourist info centre, others you tip £5. You get to meet people, they also do things like, pub crawls, etc etc
Certainly driving by yourself would be crazy, when public transport is reasonably good, the cadance of the language is different but you'll catch on in a few sentences. (not everyone speaks like Hugh Grant)

Belinda

I understand that some people are not comfortable traveling alone. I think we do them a disservice by insisting that they try going solo. Suggesting alternative tour groups, or giving personal feedback about Grand Circle is appropriate, but to push them to go out on their own is unfair.

bobbye7

Thanks, Belinda. I admire the women who travel alone but I know it's not for me.

scotlib

hi bobbye7, I'm a 50+ solo woman traveler. I've done the UK on my own. Haven't the courage yet to do other countries solo, but Scotland/England? Yep!

I will admit that my comfort level did start with a group tour. The very beginning was my son's school trip in '07. The next year I did a week in Edinburgh on my own. I studied the Google street maps a lot, so on landing I was somewhat knowing where I was going and not standing on the street befuddled.

I very much enjoyed a Rick Steves tour for London; the guide was top notch! Yes, the price will look higher, but more is included and the guide will be great.

I've also done what others have recommended: combined solo with Rabbies. I highly recommend Rabbies, and they've now tours that leave from London, not just in Scotland, https://www.rabbies.com/en

I've written trip reports about each of my solo trips and you can find them here on Fodors. Cheers.

nanabee

I agree with Belinda, travel tour groups can be a great way to meet other people and see and do things you wouldn't do on your own.

scdreamer

I, too, agree with Belinda. I have traveled on my own in Spain and Mexico. While mostly it has been perfectly fine - and sometimes splendid! - there have been times I have wished I had another person or persons to share something wonderful with - a view, a meal, an experience. Or to bounce ideas off. I have not done an organized tour on my own, but once did an OAT tour with my husband, and there were a number of solo women participants, who seemed to enjoy the camaraderie of the group. They were interesting and interested, and it was great to see how much they were getting out of the experience.

Many organized tours offer free time for participants to explore on their own. I think a smaller group, with free time built in, could be a great way to visit another country. Many tour operators require a certain level of physical ability for participants, although that may be hard to strictly enforce. Spending lots of time looking at passing scenery from behind a bus window would be very unappealing to many people, but could fit the bill for someone with mobility issues. It's important to read all the fine print and make sure that what you want is what a particular tour agency is offering.

Depending on one's comfort and confidence levels, a tour can offer an opportunity to travel and see new sights that might not be possible on one's own.

socaltraveler

My advice would be to look for other group tours for that time frame, and compare them to Grand Circle. If you have an uncomfortable feeling about GC right now, it would be a shame to take that trip and have your fears confirmed. And while it is probably easy enough to plan the trip on your own, not everyone wants to travel alone. I am one of them. We just did our first Road Scholar trip, and while it was in the US, one of the single women in our group is going with them to Ireland in the fall. Check them out, check out Rick Steves tours, just a few ideas.

TDudette

AFAIK, Grand Circle has been around for a long time. I say go for it. You will get an idea of what you can and can not easily take care of on your own for your return trips.

thursdaysd

GC has been around for a long time. It has had an iffy reputation for a long time too. Used to have a bad BBB rating - haven't checked lately. You couldn't pay me to go on one of their tours, but I like smaller groups and I had a disastrous experience with OAT. There are plenty of other options, although some companies that do European tours don't offer them for the UK.

MsSteinrunner

As a now single woman, I fully understand your desire to travel with a group. I have traveled to European cities alone, and I do find that I like the social aspects of a group. The reviews of the tour itself look good. As for GCT, I would approach them with caution. I did a GCT tour within Canada last summer that had significant problems, some correctable and some not. At the end of the season, the tour had a 41% favorability rating among travelers. No one from GCT ever contacted me after my comments. Contacting them to provide flight info was a real pain as they would not allow it to be submitted by e-mail and phone waits were horrendous. The reviews by employees and former employees on Glassdoor.com are also concerning - perhaps they explain some of the customer service problems.

bobbye7

Based on feedback here and other sites, I've decided to cancel with GCT and go back to the drawing board. I had problems with their itinerary even before I learned of their dicey background. My experience with OAT in Africa was great, so I thought GCT would be the same. But it doesn't look like it is.