EF Ultimate Break — Local services in Cambridge

Warning: this is going to be a long one. I booked through EF Ultimate Break for a 24 day tour on 11/29/2022 to go to Dublin, Liverpool, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Lucerne, Venice, Florence, and Rome. Needless to say, I was excited. The $495 payments for months seemed like a small price to pay for the trip of a lifetime! I booked my flights through EF as well, which was the biggest mistake. I needed to extend my trip by another 9 days, so instead of leaving Rome on June 24th like most of the other people on the trip, I needed a ticket to NYC on July 3rd. I informed EF of this on 3/15/23, which is when I knew that I was going to be extending my trip. EF got back to me on 3/17 via text message stating that I would need to spend an additional $529. They had allotted a total of $970 for a round trip. They also stated that they couldn't arrange just a one way flight. So I paid them the additional $529. Now, I would just like to mention that when I checked flights out of NYC to Dublin and from Rome to NYC, each way was about $600 still. I calculated that given taxes and all, my total would be about the same as they were charging. Now at this time, I didn't know that they hadn't yet booked the flights. I should have known that this was going to be a mess when I received my flight information from EF a couple weeks before I was due to leave. They knew my address from the beginning, so they absolutely knew that I needed an airport from NYC. But instead, my flights were booked out of Newark! Then I was made to pay another additional $217 to have flights out of JFK, coming to a grand total of $1,716 on flights alone. My issue wasn't with the amount of money I spent. I get it, international flights are expensive, and yes I informed them of my trip extension in March for a June trip. But please, can someone tell me why I had to go to Frankfurt, Germany for a 5 hour layover when Dublin, Ireland is closer to NYC? When I finally got to Dublin, I had now left my house for over 20 hours. I get to the airport, trying to find the meeting point, lugging my suitcases, only to find out that I had to take a taxi from my friend who was already at the hostel. Mind you, this whole time I am communicating with my tour guide trying to find the meeting point so I can take the bus with the whole group as was planned.

There are not enough character limits for me to detail every aspect of the trip, but overall not much was included with EF. In Dublin they had the trip to Guinness Storehouse included and in Paris, they included a boat ride over the Seine River. Other than that, the bus and walking tours that I did attend were not great. The tour guides were mumbling, providing wrong information (I checked), and the glass blowing demonstration in Venice was so underwhelming. Accommodations were tiny and usually outside the main city areas. We had to travel over 40 minutes via public transportation to sightsee. And at one point there were NINE girls in one room (don't think it's that bad? Think ONE toilet). Half the hostels didn't have proper sockets (none of the adaptors would fit). Oh and did I mention that sometimes the toilets wouldn't flush??? The welcome dinner was a head of cauliflower (I am vegetarian). Most of my group was around the ages of 18-21... you already know where this is going. The whole trip was a constant of the tour guide pointing out bars and pubs in the various areas and organizing events to drink.

My final thoughts: If you have never traveled, you might find this to be a fun. I found this to be extremely overpriced, disorganized, and just not worth it. I am happy that I booked separate tours for myself across all cities, or I would have been compelled to book an early...

Posting a review here because EF's website will not show reviews with a lot of details or less than 3 stars.

I did the England, Scotland & Ireland trip of 17 days. My experience with EF was good. Our tour director was amazing the whole trip and I had a lot of fun!

I would highly recommend upgrading the rooms if you plan to book with them. The hostels can be horrible. In my experience, there was always a problem with the bathrooms. Either the toilets didn't flush or the showers were filthy. Also, one of the hostels I stayed in provided us with fans that did not work and even though the windows were always open, there was zero ventilation.

I was going on this trip thinking that the biggest takeaway was going to be meeting new people, making new friends, and having a good time. But that was not the case at all times. There were people that went on the trip and did not talk or were rude at times. If you are sharing a hostel room with people that you do not like or they do not like you or whatever the situation is, it can be a hassle. I'm saying this because that was the biggest thing that disappointed me. But the people that I got along with were amazing and we all had a good time!

Lastly, I always did what worked for me when it came down to food. A lot of times the different tour directors told us to just have a light breakfast and/or to bring small and cold food to certain activities (depending on the country, there could be an extra tour director from there for certain activities). I never listened to them because I am always HUNGRY and we walked a lot, 10k-20k steps per day. I ate breakfast and walked a few miles and was hungry all over, so if you are someone that likes to eat or you are an active person that needs to eat to keep that energy up, I would recommend doing what works for you. I do not regret not listening to the tour directors when it came to food, because you get very hungry walking that much all day. A lot of times we would have breakfast and then do a lot of walking and a bunch of activities and our tour director would just talk about having dinner later in the day, that did not work for me. I left the group several times to eat lunch or snack in between. So, if that works for you, JUST DO IT and you will not regret it. And please try the Indian food in Edinburgh, IT IS...

EF Ultimate Break is a garbage company and will scam you out of your money. I booked a trip to Egypt in March, and with the escalating conflict in that area, my friends and I were no longer comfortable going to the area. So I called EF hoping for a reasonable cancellation policy and customer service. And I got neither. First, I chatted EF, and the chat response was that I had to call. My first call sent me to voicemail, and I got tired of waiting for a call back so I called a second time. Even though I selected the option to discuss an upcoming trip, the response was that I had to be transferred to someone who can process cancellations. The next person I was transferred to had no context as to why I was transferred, and I had to repeat myself for the third time. I was then told that my only options are to pay a $1,000 cancellation fee or a $300 rebooking fee. Additionally, my trip insurance would not be refunded. So I would be out the money that the trip insurance was paid for, and the trip insurance covered neither rebooking nor cancellation. And if I wanted to transfer the amount that I have paid to EF to a trip that I have already booked, the $1,000 cancellation fee would apply to that as well. This is garbage. It is December. The trip is in March. These fees are outrageous and unreasonable. Any decent company would have a much more generous cancellation policy. And many do. Safe your money for a Tauck trip. You can cancel up until departure date. Or go on G Adventures. You can move your trip for free. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON EF ULTIMATE BREAK! They will steal it all and give you nothing in return. They...