National Geographic Headquarters — Local services in Washington

National Geographics Expeditions, Greece: Wonders of an Ancient Empire The good the bad and the ugly. The hotels were very nice, all the locations we went to were great so many ruins and museums. The olive oil making was famous, the owner was so passionate and loved her company and people that worked for her. The bus company and driver, Constantine, was the best of best. He maneuvered that bus in places that would make you cringe, down narrow roads and around corner that were impossible to take with ease. He was the hardest worker of everyone with his job. When we arrived at the hotel in Athens there was no one there from NG to greet us or give us any direction on things to do till the meet and greet at 6pm. When we left for our flight going home, we had no idea someone would be in the lobby waiting for us to help us manage the airport to get on our flights. We literally thought we were on our own to navigate this process as no one communicated any details to us the night before our departure. We were greatly surprised to find that our NG expert only gives 3-4 lectures, nothing more, nothing less. His role is not as the tour guide. That was outsourced to a third party. Our contracted licensed tour guide was knowledgeable of the area and its history. However, she was very hard to understand at times and very disorganized. It was very difficult to get a straight answer out of for start times and where to meet. If we didn’t ask these details repeatedly they were not offered up. The tour guide informed us she had been to all the sites several times prior to our tour. What we found disappointing is that despite having done these tours before she did not utilize the time well so we could truly see the ruins. For example: we had 8 am tickets to the Parthenon. We got there at 8:20. Before heading up to see the historical site she gathers the group at the bottom to give a 30 minute plus lecture. All the while we are watching thousands of other tour groups walk directly to the top. By the time we started up to the ruins we were in line of shoulder-to-shoulder people and at the top it was wall to wall people. It was a disappointment to think we were one of the first groups to arrive but due to poor planning we were caught up in the crowd. Before the trip we informed NG on two separate occasion I am gluten intolerance and my wife doesn’t eat lamb. These requests were almost completely ignored. On a daily basis I was reminding our tour guide and personally had to inform the restaurants of these food allergies as she failed to let them know ahead of our arrival. I was unable to eat one of the lunches presented as no gluten free substitute was available. Meals are all family style 6 or 7 dishes with breads. On only 3 occasions did we have a choice of meat, pork lamb or chicken. One restaurant at lunch, the waiter reaches over and took my plate and said to me don’t eat that (white cream stuff) it has gluten in it and brought me beef wrapped in cabbage which was the best thing I ate on the whole trip. Out group had 23 guests, 4 didn’t eat lamb, myself GF and one lady who was highly allergic to onions with an Epipen ready in case someone didn’t know, thankfully they only seem to put onions in the salads. Our tour guide was in constant conversation with the restaurants each day to coordinate our arrival, so I don’t understand why it was such an issue on honoring our food allergies.

I place my review here because after the trip they did not send...

Lots of good documentaries and educational material. One thing they should do is stay away from religion based documentaries though. They always veer off of the main topics and never disprove anything that happens in the bible, they rather prove the stories to be true while saying they aren't lol. Doesn't make much sense. Ninevah was spared by god in 760bc, only to fall back into their evil ways and be destroyed in 612bc. This happens to line up with the story of Jonah in the bible, but for some reason they say it does not lol. Then the great flood. They barely talk about Noah, they focus 90% of the episode on the "sumerian" arc, whose story was ba a ed roughly 1500-2000 miles south of where the story of Jonah took place in the bible and somehow say that the great flood didn't happen. Lots of research has taken place that does in fact prove a great flood happened around 3500bc, mostly stemming from the flooding of the black Sea. Noahs ark came to rest on top of mount ararat in turkey, yet the story focuses on the sumerian culture located in Oman, a long way from noahs ark, the black Sea, etc. I understand that national geographic wants to find historical proof of events throughout history. But they should at least stay on point when attempting to do so. They didn't even discuss mount ararat or really much of the story of Noah itself. Just wish things like this organization would stay away from religious history unless they approach it with the mentality of "anything is possible" rather than the mentality of "it can't be true so let's find a way to spin it so...

I worked in Washington DC for twenty (20) years and always loved their exhibits then and now. Used to take the kids and now that they are adults they take their partners to enjoy all of the history that can be told so...