Great Escapes Travel — Local services in Longview

I wanted to share an experience my friend Kelsie and I had with Great Escapes Travel Shoppe. Kelsie discovered this travel agency while researching options for planning a trip to Europe this year. Her positive interaction with a representative Bonnie led us to choose this agency. Specifically, we were looking to organize a trip to Barcelona, Spain; Florence, Italy; and Athens, Greece, from July 7th to July 28th, with a week allocated to each destination.

Great Escapes Travel Shoppe was the most accommodating agency within our budget constraints. Bonnie, in particular, did an excellent job securing suitable accommodations for us in each location and organizing activities that fell within our budget.

While the overall support provided by the agency was beneficial, there were some aspects of our interactions that we found lacking. My friend and I booked most of our flights ourselves, except for our flight from Barcelona to Florence, which we asked Bonnie to handle for us. We were told that we would receive a detailed itinerary of our vacation after paying for the trip in full.

We completed the full payment on May 10th, 2024. It was on this same day that Bonnie had scheduled a vacation, which she had informed us about beforehand. However, before she left the office, we still had not received the detailed itinerary. Noticing that we had a tour booked for our first day in Athens on July 21st, I called the agency the following Monday to confirm the timing.

When I spoke to a different representative, Donna, she could not provide clear information about our trip but informed me that the activity scheduled for July 21st was set for 8:00 am, while our flight was arriving in Athens at 11:25 am. Bonnie had not asked for our flight details when booking any of the tours, resulting in us having to pay extra to reschedule the tour for a different day.

I had to email Bonnie three times to get our detailed itinerary, but even when she sent it, the tour times were not included. Before our trip, Bonnie mailed us our hotel accommodations and tour vouchers. When we arrived in Barcelona, I realized that most of the paper tour vouchers did not have the tour times listed. I had to contact each tour through WhatsApp or find their email online to confirm the times.

This was quite stressful during our vacation. Additionally, many of the tours did not require us to show the paper vouchers. There were also specific meeting locations outside what was listed on the paper voucher, which resulted in us missing half a tour in Florence.

But the cherry on top is employees consistently mispronounced my name during our phone conversations. This became frustrating, especially given the amount of time and money we had invested in planning this vacation. Even after my friend Kelsie pointed out the correct pronunciation, the...

This business is not forthright about their charges. At our first contact we were told they do not charge service charges and that their income comes from participation with their providers. We booked a one night hotel stay which went smoothly. Subsequently we booked a trip. Not until we received our credit card bill did we see their $50.00 service fee. Upon contacting MS Marko, we were told, this directly from Ms. Marko's email:

"I am sorry you feel the way you do but there are some things that we don't get paid a commission on. You contacted us and asked about pricing for this package, I quoted you his price including everything listed. I sent over multiple quotes with the price and you told me to book the package. At no time did you ask "me" if there was a service fee".

We reviewed every communication we received and nowhere is there a $50.00 service fee disclosed or itemized.

You be the judge if this is a fair and forthright way to...

We weren’t sure we would make it to our ship in time after Hurricane Beryl hit Houston, but Donna made it happen while we were driving to PDX. Text messages cancelling our connecting flight from Houston to Miami prompted frantic messages to Donna a few hours before we were scheduled to take off. Thankfully, she knows her stuff and fixed everything! Before that craziness, Donna had made sure we picked an awesome cruise, answered all of our questions, was incredibly patient and helped us understand our options. The only thing we can complain about is that the cruise had to end….😉 On the upside, we are excited to plan another...