Grand European Tours

by **Prudence** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:39 pm

Has anyone used Grand European Tours. I haven't been able to read any reviews on them?

by **npphotog** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:05 am

My wife and I were all set to do a Grand Circle river cruise - Holland to Vienna in 1994 but had to wait until 1995. Had trouble getting info from them back in July 94 about their 95 schedule. When we finally got the information on the 95 schedule they had taken some of the included tours from 94 and made them opitional and removed the Rudesheim completely. That just didn't do for us - so we signed up with Vantage for their Holland to Hungary river cruise. Everything is encluded and we leave on August 1st.
You have to look at what Grand Circle offers and compare with Vantage. The are owned by brothers. One owns Grand Circle and the other one owns Vantage.
You have to compare apples to apples. Good Luck. Willard

by **npphotog** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:15 am

Sorry Prudence, I misread your tour company. I have comments on Grand European also.
Back in 1991 we took a Grand Tour of Germany with Grand European. Could not been better. A real first class tour.
Then in 1993 we signed with Grand European for their Grand Tour of Italy. Grand European was owned by Far & Wide.
Tour started out great. Super tour guide and driver was also pleasent. We had 42 people (Thank goodness). . When we got to the lake district of Italy with 6 days left our tour guide woke us up and said there was a problem with the tour company and there would be a important meeting at breakfast. We were told that the tour company (Far & Wide) had gone bankrupt and we were on our own. She asked if the group wanted to go back. (She later told me that the company called her and told her to take us to the nearest airport and leave us. That would have been Milan and she told them she could not do that). . We asked her is we could go on, hire her and the driver. We had to pay for 6 nights hotel costs too.
She came back in one hour and gave us a price - about $1,000
per couple more. If we had paid the tour with a credit card we would have gotten that back but we chose to pay by check to get a bigger discount. Never do that again. Got about $300 back. As it turned out the tour just got better as she was working for us.
Now Grand European is owned by someone else and trying to turn it around. But they have raised their prices.
Don't know what to tell you to do but I am still a little worried about them. That's why we signed with Vantage for our upcoming river cruise. Keep me posted on your decision. Willard

by **PamWisc** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 6:55 pm

I used GET in Sept 05 for the first time for the England, Scotland & Wales tour. Our tour guide, David, was non-existant. Never around to ask questions, never "walked the bus" for questions, driver equally un-fun. Both were very stand-offish. Many on bus had taken several GET tours and said "never again" saying the hotels had gone to pot (agreed) and that they were very unimpressed. I've booked my next trip with Insight.. .. ..will be a looooong time before I ever use GET again. In one hotel 2 rooms had there lights go off several times and could not get electricity back on (Edinborough.) This was a hotel that I had seen very bad reviews for and I did forward this information to GET--who assured me not to worry, all was well. NOT! Just not a very wonderful experience. I had used Image Tours before and while their hotels were not in main cities, they had a much better quality of rooms and an awesome driver & tour guide.

Hope this helps!

by **katiej** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:12 pm

We used GET for a France/Italy trip in Sept. 2002, and couldn't have been more pleased. Our tour guide, Gloria, was superb. She could speak both French and Italian and knew all the ins and outs of the cities we toured. Hotels were all very nice.

by **Aschumm** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:18 am

Grand European is GREAT!
do it.

We've traveled every year over 10 years - multiple tours on some years - mostly collette (fantastic), Trafalgar (very good), and GETours makes the mark with Collette.. .. .

Go for it.

ASchumm

by **Jon** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:50 pm

As has been noted, there is not a lot out there on GET, but I can now add info and critique. My wife and I recently returned (Sept. 19.2006) from GET's "Grand Tour of Slovenia & Croatia and we had a wonderful experience! We started in Vienna and finished in Budapest, going through Slovenia and Croatia, with one day into Bosnia-Herzegovinia. Everything was very well planned, coordinated, and organized. Our tour guide was outstanding. She was a native of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and spoke perfect English. She was extremely knowlegeable, helpful, conscientious, and professional. Overall, the hotel accomodations were very good to excellent. They have tweaked this tour for next year and it finishes in Zagreb, instead of going into Budapest. I think that was done because of logistics and schedule. One day got pretty long, and now they have broken it up into two days. This was our first tour with GET, and I would highly recommend the company, but I cannot make a comparison with others because this was our first escorted tour. In the past we have traveled (6 times) independently in central Europe. This tour had more "at leisure" time built in then other escorted tours I looked at, which is why we gave it a try.
Jon

by **Lummy** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:22 pm

As noted in a previous post, Grand European was part of Far and Wide. Far and Wide bought numerous tour companies and were extended finacially. They did not survive the tourist downturn after 2001. Grand European (GET) was eventually bought by The Travel Corporation. The own several tour companies including Insight, Trafalgar, Contiki and recently purchased Brendan. GET greatly reduced the tour offerings, but the last two years Grand European seems to be coming back and has added several new tours. I am planning to take one of there tours in 2007. Stay tuned.

by **Lummy** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:55 pm

Toured with Grand European in July of this year. We did there Italy at Leisure tour. Very responsive to issues and the did an excellent tour. From my experience I would very highly recommend them.