I found out two days ago that my tour in early September has been cancelled. When I booked the tour I asked if it was common for tours to be cancelled and the travel agent said that in all the years she's been in the business it hasn't happened to any of her clients. At that stage I could have rearranged plans to go on a different tour if the travel agent had any doubts. Shouldn't she know how the industry works or am I expecting too much? Otherwise what's the point of going to a travel agent? Then she tells me that Insight has offered to transfer me to the premium tour at additional cost. I feel like I've been set up! I am so angry, upset and disappointed. I have been saving for three years to take my 12 year old son on this trip (he turns 13 while we’re supposed to be on the trip) and over the past thirteen months (during which I've had three operations) it was a beacon to keep me going. My life really sucks at the moment but does anybody (travel agent / Insight) care?

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When I booked the tour I asked if it was common for tours to be cancelled and the travel agent said that in all the years she's been in the business it hasn't happened to any of her clients.

It would seem that your Travel Agent has been extraordinarily lucky because to my knowledge, tour cancellations do happen fairly often with all tour companies. A few years ago when the industry was hit very hard by passengers either not booking tours or cancelling in the aftermath of 9/11 and the SARS problem, companies like Insight, after cutting back their programs significantly, introduced the concept of "guaranteed tour" departures for a percentage of their tour starts. These departures are shown in the brochures and on the website with the letters "TG" against the particular dates and have the effect of marshalling travellers to these dates, sometimes leaving other dates with near empty coaches and hence cancellations.

For your planned tour, I believe there are two "TG" dates in September:

S303A/099 Sep 05 Tue Sep 16 Sat
S303A/100 Sep 12 Tue Sep 23 Sat......TG
S303A/101 Sep 19 Tue Sep 30 Sat
S303A/102 Sep 26 Tue Oct 07 Sat......TG

I am surprised that these "TG" dates were not pointed out to you by your Travel Agent or perhaps you had a need to travel on a specific date.

I hope that you and your son are able to find a way of taking a tour of some kind.

phil

I can understand you are upset and disappointed. When you calm down a little (and I mean that in a nice way) try and problem solve the situation. I'm sure you haven't been 'set up' you are just feeling that way as its all turned to custard on you at the moment.

You can still get a 'dream trip' but obviously you are going to have to re negoiate the time or itinery. Chin up, you still have something to look forward to its just going to be different from what was originally planned.

Sounds like both you and your son could do with the break. Hopefully you will be able to work something out, maybe your son can help you decide, work through it together.

Good luck - let us know how things turn out for you.

Sorry things don't seem to be working out - this looks like a time for positive thinking! Remember - whatever you do now is a direct result of this situation. Pick a new date, pick a new tour, whatever! You would never have done it if these "problems" hadn't arisen. How cool is that!! It can only get better from here! Look forward to hearing how it all goes.

Distraught I am so sorry to hear about your trip being cancelled. Tours do get cancelled I was booked to go on the Rome to London tour back in 2000 even bought my Lira for Italy when my travel agent said that the tour was cancelled but they could book another date which didn't suite me so I decided to go on a different tour and did Country Roads of France. I was so glad that I changed to do this tour it was fantastic, no regrets at all. Now when I book a tour that I really want to do I go for TG one.

Tupps

Hello,

I don't think anything anyone might say will make you feel better. It's pretty terrible and I know it's near impossible to rearrange your schedule for another tour date. And it may not be possible to pay more money...
However, is it possible to go on another tour, something similar in price around the same time? For example if you were gonna go to the Britain and Ireland tour, is there something in the same price range around the same time? And maybe end up seeing Paris and Rome? Or something like that? At least you will still have something to look forward to without jeapordizing your time off or having to pay more money???

I hope it works out for you. I am on a non-guaranteed tour for 2007 and I have read about lots of cancellations so I'm not getting my hopes up yet and not rescheduling my life until closer to the tour date.

Narina

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and kind words. I now have two other tours on hold, for which the travel agent is trying to arrange flights. Whichever works out to be the cheapest overall (and that may not necessarily be Insight or Trafalgar) and is guaranteed I will go for. Regardless of what I do I'm up for more money so I'll need to take out a small loan to cover the difference.

We had two tours cancelled with Insight. It sucks.
We are now on a different tour (that ran to the same schedule as the second cancelled tour), but it is on a duplicate bus.

Despite being annoyed (OK, we were more than annoyed - and I let the phone operator know that), we are looking forward to the new tour - even if it doesn't go to Prague and Budapest ... but we can save that for more of a central Europe tour next time.

When you are looking at the tours - factor in the cost of optionals, and what is included as standard. If I recall, Insight recommends $US40-50/pay for the premium tour, and $US60/day for the supersaver ones. That ads up. When our other tours were cancelled we did up a spread sheets and a budget tour from another company with a similar itinerary came out to be within $200 of the better Insight package - maintly because of the included features.

You can cut costs in other ways as well. For lunches, either "pack a snadwich/bagel from breakfast (bagels, cold meat, cheese often in European breakfasts) or grab some food from a local market/grocer ... one of our best meals was probably raspberries and heavy cream purchased at Marks and Spenser (like a Myers with a great food hall) ... eaten on the back deck of the Irish Channel ferry (while everyone else was buying overpriced soggy sandwiches from the canteen onboard), or the fresh cheese and proscuttio we bought at a number of markets in Italy.

If you need to take out a small loan, just remember not to overstretch your credit cards as well.

14 more sleeps until we leave for the UK to start our tour

I am interested in Token User's suggestion of taking food from the hotel breakfast table to eat later in the day. There is a phrase for that in the industry...a packed lunch. Hotels can and do charge for it...they are contracted to provide a BREAKFAST...anything else removed is verging on theft.

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Originally posted by Paul Fisher:
I am interested in Token User's suggestion of taking food from the hotel breakfast table to eat later in the day. There is a phrase for that in the industry...a packed lunch. Hotels can and do charge for it...they are contracted to provide a BREAKFAST...anything else removed is verging on theft.

I don't typically eat breakfast. It *might* consist of a glass of orange juice - I am not hungry when I wake up. I will eat a small meal mid morning that consists of typical breakfast foods. If they are contracted to provide breakfast, and I choose to make my breakfast "takeaway" - is it theft? If you are uncomfortable wit the idea - don't do it ... and don't even think of grabbing an apple for later as well.

You also chose to highlight one sentence - ignoring the fact I also suggested that some of the best lunches I had were local produce from markets.