Collette Tour Reviews

Hi. If I’m going to be completely honest here, I was somewhat disappointed in this tour, don't get me wrong there were some fab times we had as well. Day One- the "included" breakfast was utterly terrible to the point where we didn’t eat it, and to the fact that we were sharing the breakfast buffet with another tour. The badlands was great we had a ...read more wonderful time here. The wall drug slop stop, for the money we eat in cafeteria? Couldn't understand this.

The night we were taken to another sub average hotel to eat yet another average meal, again I stress the point for the money spent, a) we are given a limited choice of food, b) told there are no modifications. c) the meal that was served wouldn't have fed a two year old, it was cold and average, a sharing plate of processed meats as a start.

Day Two & Three - Someone made the executive decision to take us elsewhere for breakfast which was very nice. The sight seeing was great, however I soon realized that we are not allowed to really stop in the bus in a National Park (I could be wrong here) or were we allowed off the bus, again my point to the money spent and all photos being taken from the window.

Day Four & Five - Tour was great, a lot more driving than I anticipated, Cody was great, would have been even better along the way if we were told that there are other things going on in the town i.e. Rodeo, but no, our meal was in a bistro of a hotel. Given there are so many places to eat along the way yet, the included meal is in the hotel.

Day 6 - This is the day that I calculated we were driving in a bus for approx. 8 hours. I’ll say no more the accommodation here was great the hotel staff and food were lovely.

Day 7 - Was great until we went to heart mountain (this could have been day 6). I would strongly suggest that this is an optional stop, I did not see this on the itinerary nor did I want any part of this, I actually can not describe how mortified I was at what I sat through, If you wanted to top off a good week, this just knocked it all over. I feel this was the most inappropriate tour stop I have ever encountered. At this point to be honest I was pretty much over the whole tour, I avoided the chuck wagon dinner (thank god) I was told I would have not been impressed, people were having to be driven back down. So overall I was very disappointed

Food- 1/10. Tour Leader - 10/10. Coach Driver- 10/10. Overall tour experience 3/10. If I’m going to be honest, I would probably never book with Collette again. Other tour members were saying that had been on many Collette tours and never had anything so sub par. Sorry to be so negative, but I’m being honest.

Reply From Collette:Thank you for choosing Global Journeys and Collette for your recent America’s Cowboy Country tour. We are grateful you took the time to provide valuable feedback concerning your tour experience. Your comments about the tour are being reviewed by Collette’s Product Development and Product Design Teams for this region. All feedback is encouraged as it allows us the opportunity to identify areas of concern and strive to make the necessary enhancements. A member of our Traveller Relations Team will be contacting you to review your concerns.

Collett tour itinerary was excellent Hotel stays were not bad, some bedding was poor quality. Tour bus was horrible, small bus with little comfort, shocking suspension, very rough. Meals were very good. The island of Salina was the best.

Cruising the islands was the true highlight of this trip. We loved going ashore in the evenings and exploring local fare in a great variety of restaurants. The boat was excellent with friendly staff, good food and a relaxed pace down the coast. We enjoyed swimming off the back on several occasions. Ports were getting busy and early June is as late as ...read more you would want to take this trip. Or wait till October. Have a decent budget for onshore meals. Our only gripe was a bit of penny pinching by Colette, with only one glass of wine with included dinners and rather expensive options. Would still do it again in a heartbeat.

My friend and I had a great time on this tour. We loved our tour manager Rosario, he was excellent and showed us elements of Sicily & Malta that we could never have done on our own. We also loved our bus driver Antonio, he also was excellent and had the added bonus of being a great musician, entertaining us when he finished driving for the day, much ...read more appreciated! We met new friends in our lovely group of 22, they were fun and interesting, mostly from USA with a couple of other Aussies. We were very sorry to leave them all & plan another tour for hopefully next year. Our hotels, guides & pre planned meals were all top notch. Thank you.

It was our first time in Norway and we’re so glad we chose this tour. The number of people in the group was just right. We enjoyed all the excursions we had in all the places we visited: from Oslo to Flam to Loen to Bergen. We were able to experience Norway’s National Day in Bergen which was a real treat. The trip to Geiranger village/Geirangfjord was ...read more something special too.

Accommodations selected were in the best possible location, close to the where the actions are. Our tour director was approachable, knowledgeable and very helpful. Everything went alright for us in this tour and would not hesitate to recommend this to our friends and relatives. We took the post-tour extension to Iceland too. Great place to visit but our local tour guide there was not as great as the one we had in Norway. Apart from that we enjoyed our trip overall.

A fast paced tour showing what Italy has to offer. Commencing in Rome we basically had 2 nights stay at Sorrento, Florence, Venice and Stresa. We had stops along the way to such places as Pompeii, Pisa, and Verona. My highlight was the 1 hour bus trip each way up to Simplon Pass in the Swiss Alps whilst staying in Stresa. We had 42 in our group and ...read more it was a very friendly tour consisting of 35 Americans and 7 Australians. Clarissa was our fantastic Tour Leader and Gian Carlo was our excellent coach driver. You have to be reasonably agile and fit for this tour as there is a lot of walking on uneven cobblestone streets and paths. Although there was a lot of distance covered every couple of days, it was a great tour and we would travel with Collette again.

I’ve just returned from a 14 day Collette tour of Ireland. An initial google search led me to Global Journeys, and a very efficient agent, Rachael, was assigned to look after me. The planning and booking process was smooth and any queries I had, Rachael was very timely in her response. The tour itself was amazing. No words to describe the beauty of ...read more Ireland and the friendliness of its people. Our tour manager and driver were excellent. I highly recommend Global Journeys to organise your dream holiday.

Collette are a US company and cater to those needs of that market, so accommodation was in general of very good quality and the lovely group of people were almost all well travelled and return clients. There was care taken with food and water quality, and excellent qualifed Egyptologist guide in Egypt who gave us an excellent experience. The quality ...read more of the Nile cruise was outstanding, a beautiful ship with great food, no comparison with the other ships we saw doing the same route except possibly the dedicated river cruise companies. Worth noting that while this was peak season, supposedly cooler it was unseasonably and often unbearably hot, often 45-47 degrees, which produced a real aircon problem at our Nubian hotel. And the crowds were horrendous everywhere- our guide did a good job of getting us places when crowds were minimal. His expertise and kindness were exceptional.

The Jordan guide was fairly uninterested in our group - it was just a job for him, he never knew our names or tried to help anyone having difficulties, resulting in some dissatisfaction, but he was competent. The wonders of Egypt are amazing, but there is a cost in patience and resilience - the pace is pretty relentless at times, getting around to everything, and there are relentless vendors and demands for tipping. Our guide really tried to mitigate this and it was a quality experience, helped by only 23 people, who were all such enjoyable companions.

This was such a great tour. The accommodation was excellent with a friendly and cultural feel. Lots of great meal inclusions which was a surprise. The included activities were varied and fun. This was really due to the tour guide, bus driver, local guides and of course our fellow passengers. I would recommend this tour in a heartbeat!

The whole trip to Norway was one long highlight. There was so much to see and do that we were happily exhausted at the end of each day. We have never taken so many photos. Everywhere you look is another photo opportunity. The food was too good.

The highlights of the trip for me were the spectacular mountain scenery of Oregon, the scenic journey down the coast from Newport, the jetboat ride along the Rogue River, and the walk through the amazing Redwoods at Humbolt Redwoods State Park, California. All the hotels on the tour were of a high standard and well-located, particularly the hotel in ...read more San Francisco, which was very close to Union Square and the cable-car terminus.

Our guide could not have been more well-informed and helpful. Well done Janice. Ditto Tim our driver. As a suggestion, it would be helpful to know before departure that only a quite small carry-on is possible on the coach. A standard airline carry-on is too large. Luckily I had a small backpack with me for daily needs. It was great that we could charge phones onboard.

Unfortunately our tour in Innsbruck had a change of hotels in the middle of the tour on our free day and placed us on the outskirts of town due to apparently overbooking of hotel. There was nothing around to see or eat. Even though they compensated with the odd meal it was really repetitive. Pancakes, soup, pork etc becomes unbearable to eat after 5 ...read more days. I would not have booked this if I knew of changes as it defeated the purpose of the tour itinerary.

Then this tour was a tour within a tour there where 38 people booked as a group then there where 12 extras. So it was all about the others and we felt left out. I would not recommend this tour I could have done better by myself and cheaper and stayed in the heart of town as the brochure stated. The only upside was the change of the hotel in Munich. That was very nice and in a great position for our further travels. The guide was very nice and knowledgeable but some people walked all over him by not showing up on time and walking off. Finally it was a lot of money for what it was, thanks.

I do not normally travel with guided tours but decided to try it for this trip due to lack of planning time. This was such a good experience! Tracey with Global Journeys was very helpful in guiding us through our booking process and helping us prepare for the trip. Our Collette tour manager Guillermo was very knowledgeable and really cared about each ...read more of the people on the tour having a great experience in his country. Our tour group only had 19 people in it, and we were all a little family by the end of our 2 weeks together. The hotels were very nice, the food was good, and the wildlife was phenomenal. I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone considering it!

Perfect small group tour of 10 people covering Dublin, Belfast, Derry, Donegal, Eniskillen, Galway, Killarney, Kilkenny and lots in between. Well paced with plenty of activities balanced with good free time. Hotels, food, scenery, culture, history, fun, all amazing. Brilliant tour guide Kevin Byron Murphy and driver David Ryan. Font of knowledge and ...read more humor. Suited me well as a mid 60s solo female. The group was a good mix of singles and couples, all in their 60s and 70s - all lovely people

The tour was just the right amount of time, with adequate time to do your own thing plus interesting and well planned activities. The number of the participants was also really good - about 35 of us so we got to know most people over the 9 days. One thing I was disappointed with was that even though the tour says it was for 9 days it really in essence ...read more was only 7, as day 1 was nothing, just checking in to the hotel for the evening and day 9 again was nothing just checking out of the hotel in the morning. So I think it is a bit misleading to call it a 9 day tour. The hotels were all of a very good standard, only one was below par because when we arrived to our room we found the bathroom had not been cleaned. The hotel rooms were all very spacious and all had 2 double sized beds. The ease of booking through Global Journeys was fantastic - great communication throughout the whole process so would definitely book through them again.

This Collette tour turned out to be one of the best experiences I’ve had traveling with a tour group. All the overnight stays were at nice locations, especially the Sahara camp with the unique accommodations, dromedary ride and scenery. That was one of my favorite stops. Our travel manager, Mohamed Merri and most of the local guides were excellent ...read more with a lot of expertise.

Truly breathtaking sightseeing! We visited Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. The planning and logistics involved to get us to the next destination must have been phenomenal. All went smoothly. We have done many trips in the past and we were extremely impressed with Collette and so were the other people in the group. Would travel again with Collette, ...read more in fact, look forward to doing so again soon. The countries we visited were very interesting and quite different from each other which made it more fascinating to see them. A special thank you to Yvonne and Global Journeys for providing us great service and assistance. Will continue to book with Global Journeys in future.

Great tour of Sicily with a very professional Tour Guide and most experienced bus driver. Stayed at very comfortable and clean hotels with breakfasts included. Tour included visits to famous sites as well as passage through rural areas with olive groves and citrus orchards and great eating experiences. The tour could have included an archaeological ...read more museum or two. On the whole a very enjoyable experience.

Jemma did a great job of organising this holiday for us. It was amazing that we got to see 2 of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu and Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. It was also fascinating to spend time in towns like Cusco in Peru where there are beautiful old cathedrals, scenic and amazing views in Puerto Natales as well as the beautiful ...read more little town of El Calafate. We loved the food, culture and the music and not forgetting the amazing glaciers.There was a slight change in our itinerary due to the unrest in Santiago and Collette took good care of us by providing other activities. We had a great tour manager, Richardo Alvarado, and would definitely recommend Collette to our friends. Thanks again Jemma and Collette.

We just loved Helsinki and the Lille Roberts Hotel which was located in easy walking distance to the town centre and markets. The local Helsinki dining experiences were good especially Emo. A brief introduction to Helsinki and local knowledge shared by our guide was reasonable. Unfortunately, the Lapland component of our tour was misrepresented which ...read more did not take into account seasonal variations to the advertised brochure. The tour was lack lustre and had too much individual time. There easily could have been more touring and places of interest included. At no time was our guide at fault; she went beyond the call of duty to make at least one day memorable for our group. Fault with this tour lands in the lap of Collette who sold an expensive tour which did not deliver.