Project Expedition — Local services in New York

Our Haleakala Sunset Tour on Maui was booked through Project Expedition although the actual tour operator was Polynesian Adventure. The tour itself ended up fine and sunset was beautiful but the experience as a whole had a few glitches and left a bit to be desired.

The confusion started in the time leading up to our tour. At the time the tour was booked (August 2021) the itinerary was advertised, on both the Project Expedition and Polynesian Adventures websites, as including a stop at the Kula Lodge Marketplace on the ascent and dinner at Cafe O’ Lei at the Dunes after sunset and descent. We double checked our confirmation and the websites in the weeks leading up to our tour (February 2022) and both stops were still listed. I checked in directly with Project Expedition the week before our tour and was finally told that those stops had been removed from 2022 itineraries, evidently due to staffing shortages at the restaurant and the marketplace. So while my wife and I were aware that dinner would not be provided, many of the participants on our tour were not. Unfortunately the websites are still unclear, even in April 2022.

When we were picked up at our hotel, the driver didn’t say a word to us, other than to let us know that we needed to wear masks on the bus. We proceeded to pick up guests from two other nearby hotels, and the driver still didn’t say anything. We assumed she was our guide and thought it strange that she wasn’t chatting us up about our tour. We finally stopped at a Safeway grocery store near the airport, which our driver told us was a bathroom stop, and that if we wanted snacks they could be purchased there. It wasn’t until we returned from the store that we found out another bus had arrived with passengers from other hotels, along with the bus which would be our actual tour bus. As we were being loaded on to the tour bus we were informed that whatever we bought at the Safeway would be our dinner. Many passengers had not realized this and went back into the Safeway to buy food, while three others got off the bus right then and announced that they were not going to go.

Once we got on the actual tour bus, Mitch our driver was fantastic. He narrated the journey to the summit, stopping at a visitor center for a bathroom break and photos, then explained to us what would happen at the top. The sunset itself was beautiful and memorable. In hindsight, I would have driven it myself to save on the confusion, give us more time at the summit and allow us to hang around to see the stars. As a tour, however, the “Mitch” part of the tour was great. The discrepancies in the tour description and the confusion it caused was unfortunate. We knew what to expect, which is why I am rating the tour four stars. Not everyone had that...

PE was an excellent mix of self serve with expert advise. I prefer to create my own family itinerary rather than just get some stranger to figure out what we are going to do. But in many locations it is tough and time consuming to find all the possible options and make the right contacts. Rob at project expedition filled this gap perfectly.

They offer a menu of items to mix and match and gave us some excellent personal advice without any sense of pressure. I avoided the pressure of travel agents who have ties to certain companies or hotels and yet got some really helpful planning assistance. The price was at least as good as I could have arranged directly with the providers of the experiences.

Rob was really helpful even surprising us afterward to inquire with a little glitch we had with one adventure (a complete accidental injury to one of our party). It made me feel that had we needed more assistance Project Expedition would have been there for us. I will definitely be using them for every trip going forward.

The array of possible adventures was all that we could have wanted. We probably would not have even thought to book a local cooking experience which turned out to be one of the major highlights for the kids and adults in our group.

The experiences we booked were seamless and wonderful. The people arrived to meet us when and where they should and all the paper work and payments were pre done so it was effortless. The experiences were professionally run and very...

Would never book with them again! I booked through them and their partner in Paris for a river cruise! Terrible experience, did not get to go on my cruise while in Paris, this was due to google maps being confused and not finding the port I needed to bored, so by the time we got there we missed the boat by 5 mins, however I was given wrong information at the port about switching my ticket for a later cruise that evening and said I had to contact my travel agent. With the 6 hour time difference and by the time my travel agent was able to get an answer it was too late to go on the cruises that evening, the next day we had another excursion booked already and flew out the following morning! So my travel agent tried for a month to get me a refund with no luck. When I finally emailed in a month later, the VP of project expedition, Jeremy that responded to my email was very condescending and did not even care that I paid $120 for 2 tickets on the river cruise and didn’t get to go. Too many other companies out there to deal with this...