Neuman605

Anyone ever travel with Friendly Planet tours? Do to time restaints I booked their 7 night Ecuador pkg, since it appears to be a good deal. Just wondered how the trip was.

kodi

I have not been on the Ecuador trip, but I have been on a Friendly Planet trip to central Europe and I was very pleased.
Previously I had been on Trafalgar and Insight tours, and I much prefer Friendly Planet.

Also, many of the passengers were repeat customers who really enjoyed being with Friendly Planet.
I think you will be happy with them.
Have a great time.

Neuman605

THX for the response. Have traveled before with Gate 1 x3, and with ChinaSpree. Have been happy with all but one trip. Understand group size will be about 30.

shelleyk

Just curious about which trip you were not happy with. We are using Gate 1 for the first time for our trip to Peru in May.

Neuman605

AHHH, sorry bto say it was the Peru trip. We were there in 2005 & the staff was very unorganized. Gruop of about 35 psgrs. They would send a 47 passenger bus to pick up 4 people & then try to get the others on a 15 psgr bus. Never arrived at hotels on time & frequently had to changed guides due to mix up in schedules. Keep us waitng at airport until a 2nd plane arrived over an hour later & we were in Cusco. (It is not that big.) My hope for you is that they have improved over the years.
The tour in Thailand ran like a precision machine shop & we had 187 psgrs on 4 full size coaches. They were AMAZING!!!
Trip to Australia was an independent we just used Gate 1's air & hotel pkg.
Despite the confusion in Peru we had a WONDERFUL time.

Neuman605

PS... Chinaspree is also a phenominal company & I would HIGHLY recommend them.

shelleyk

Guess I'll keep my fingers crossed that they've gotten their act together since yoiu went. I've always enjoyed the tours I have been on because they went off like clock work. I guess there's always a first time for a bad experience. That will be a good incentive for me to go back to independent travel. I will post my experience after my trip in May.

Neuman605

Please do post I would love to know if they got it together. We too prefer independent but sometimes do to work schedule constraints & pkg price we do opt for tours.
Hope yours goes off without a hitch. I would like to add that when the guides finally got it together after the daily morning confusion, they were all very knowledgable.