Insight Vacations

Insight Vacations

Insight Vacations
2

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Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

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2.0
2.0 of 5 bubbles36 reviews
Excellent
4
Very good
1
Average
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Poor
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Terrible
18

Maryann
Atlanta, GA21 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2023 • Family
This was our first trip of this style, and first with your company. Initially, when we booked the tour July 2023 the itinerary of Day 3 included a stop at Auschwitz. No communication was emailed to or discussed with anyone in our group that Auschwitz was removed from the itinerary! It was not until the night before we thought we were going to Auschwitz that we learned from other guests on the tour that Auschwitz was not an option. We were shocked and very saddened to learn this.
Unfortunately, we experienced another deception from Insight Vacations a couple days later. Day 5 was a tour of Prague and the itinerary included "Prague's colorful Christmas Market". Well unfortunately we spent Day 5 in Prague on 30th of November and the Christmas market was not open! It was not even open for the season yet! For a travel company that holds expertise in planning and executing trips and tours, I cannot fathom that Insight Vacations did not know that Prague does not open their Christmas Market until the start of Advent, which is very easy to look up, and this past year Advent did not start until 3rd of December. It was so disappointing to tour a city and not visit a single Christmas Market during a tour titled Christmas Markets of Poland, Prague, and Germany. We had not seen a Christmas Market in 48 hours.
On our final morning when we were transferred to the airport, little communication was provided about the drop off process at Berlin Airport. It was 0630 in the morning, snowing, and very cold. The bus did not drop guests off at the terminal but in a parking lot with no directions as to which direction to walk or if there would be a shuttle. I am younger and able bodied, so while the 7 minute walk in the snow dragging my suitcase was not the worst thing of the trip, it was very inconvenient. There were however, some elderly guests on the tour that were not anticipating this snowy walk with heavy luggage and truly struggled to get to the terminal. The travel director had not prepared us for this and it was very distasteful to end the trip like this. It felt as though Insight Vacations did not care about their hospitality or image since we were traveling home.
Written December 26, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Eaton_Out
Greenville, SC651 contributions
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2023 • Couples
The Insights "Best of Britain" which comes through Edinburgh left much to be desired. Insights is supposed to be one tier above their sister company Trafalgar (fewer travelers on a bus, better hotels, and more and better meals), but on this trip we did not find that to be the case. No lunches were included and only three evening meals were included. A couple can fully expect to spend another $1,000 total on evening "excursion" meals which, even though they may offer entertainment, are overpriced. Few of these meals were less than $75 pp. We often had to get grab and go at an auto stop mid-morning to eat later. The hotels were either excellent (Sheraton Edinburgh) or terrible (York Hilton) with some in between, but most were not up to US and Canadian standards. Two hotels had no air conditioning (at least in our wing where we were told to open windows and use a fan) and two others had deficient air conditioning. We would not have seen London at all if we had no arrived three days early and took a few private excursions. We have traveled with Insights in Ireland and Italy and found those experiences to be a bit better than Best of Britain. We realize that group travel is not perfect but this trip had a lot of problems. The tour director had somewhat of an attitude at times. Our new bus had mechanical problems on day two and was not replaced for about four or five days. I think we all feared that a bad accident would occur each time the bus shut off in traffic and had to pull over to be re-started. Our original 34 passenger bus was eventually replaced but with a 52 passenger bus with much tighter seating arrangements. Insights European Guest Services did not respond to my detailed note about hotels, meals and air conditioning. Insights needs to quietly send an exec on the next trip or two and experience these issues for themselves. Founder Stanley Tollman died several years ago and the company may now be run by his children. The kids also need to get out on the road, check on their companies, and make some changes! We waited for two years to take this trip and felt it was the worst of nine trips that we have taken with The Travel Corporation brands.
Written October 17, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Margaret B
3 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2023 • Couples
Currently halfway through an Insight Vacations tour of Britian and Ireland, completed 13 days of a 22 day tour. Whilst the tour guide and driver are wonderful the rest is a Shambles. The hotel accommodation from London through to Scotland, with the only exception being Glasgow were very substandard, in fact some of the worst hotels I have ever stayed in in my life. The dinners are repeatative and there has been two included dinners that 90% of the guests have left their dinners because they are totally inedible. The hotels in Scotland are the worst, no better than a 2 star rating, no air-conditioning, dirty, falling apart and uncomfortable bedding. In total only 2 nights have been in a really nice hotel, the other 11 have been disgraceful. Most days are spent on the bus due to long distances between overnight stops, so you only really get to see things from the bus window. In all honesty give Insight Vacations a very big miss. You are paying a premium price for a very substandard tour, you do not get value for money, they are no longer a classy tour operation. They even know that the majority of their accommodation is substandard but they just exoect you to accept it. I will not be booking another Insight Vacation. Save yourself the pain and money and book with another tour operator.
Written June 13, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

D H
1 contribution
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2023
Good luck! We chose Insight because of their itinerary of US National Parks. From the beginning, they website, chat support, and any communication is awful. Waiting on the phone for over 3 hours, chats dropped all the time, any communication through email was in broken English and hard to understand. We thought we were contacting their CA office, but I think it is all run our of Singapore now. After insisting our flight reservations were 90 days out, so they could charge us 4 times as much as a taxi to get picked up at the airport and double for an extra hotel night, they cancelled our trip (small group) and tried to push us to the large group - not what we were wanting. It is a shame, as I would have liked to do the tour, however, I would never trust them again.
Written March 12, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Elizabeth A
4 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2022 • Couples
A tour director can ruin a trip. We had fantastic food and wonderful accommodations. Yet our tour director made the experience marginal at best. She is clearly unsuited to her profession.

Our tour director lectured us on her personal economic hardships during the pandemic. This was ironic because our group consisted of overworked medical professionals who were busy with life and death struggles during the pandemic.

She desperately needs to find a different occupation. She gave our group an hour lecture on rating her and tipping her. She told us she takes credit cards, cash in euros or dollars, or checks. She told us to rate her an 8 or better, and called people out if they had not prepaid her tip. Every day there were extras that were not included in the “all inclusive” tour cost. It felt like the company was overly concerned about squeezing us for every dollar they could get.

The tour director gave marginal historical context to the places we visited by reading Wikipedia, and she called us ‘entitled Americans’ because a guest wanted a meal comped after the waiter spilled an entire glass of wine on her head. There were only two local guides or experts and one of them just tried to sell museum tickets in Dresden the whole time she was giving our tour.

We missed the Oberammergau Passion Play orientation because she gave us all the wrong time. She used vulgar language and belittled guests who asked questions or wanted clarification. She also lectured us on the Ukrainian war telling us the Ukraine should give the Russians what they want and end it.

Be careful when booking with Insight Vacations.
Written August 28, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Adventure66436
1 contribution
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2023 • Solo
Best of Britain. How disappointing this vacation was. Lots of bus time. No detailed itinerary. Meals were hit and miss. On at least 3 occasions, we were told to grab something for lunch at the gas station rest stop. The extra dinners were expensive and not worth it. You can get better quality food at 1/3 the price at any local restaurant. The one night stays are exhausting. Only one hotel (of the 8) was the expected quality. Fellow passengers who had traveled with Insight before said that this tour was not the same quality that they had experienced previously. It left me so disappointed, I'll never travel with this company again.
Written September 27, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

GVL605
Greenville, SC366 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2023 • Couples
Do not use! My husband I booked the European Rhapsody tour in July 2023. It was not only severely overpriced but also a total waste. We rated it as one of our worst trips we ever took. It was booked as a BUS tour of Europe. That was true. But heavy on the BUS part. In fact, we spent no less than 8 hours or more sometimes as long as 10 on the bus driving very long distances without bathroom or food or rest breaks. We were instructed that the bathroom on the bus was for emergencies only because it was very hard to clean. Never mind the group was mostly people over 50 who needed a rest break each day...instead we drove, and drove and drove. Not until the tour director needed a break, then we stopped. And, where did we stop? Gas stations. This was also considered our lunch stop which was usually 15 mins. Then back on the bus! We were promised 5* service by AAA and that certainly was never delivered. The food was substandard, the hotels were ok if they had AC, while some did not, there were no porters so we ended dragging our bags off the bus and then back to the bus. We are both sick about this trip and experience.....it was extremely expensive and we were totally deceived. BEWARE! keep your hard earned $$$$ for something you can really enjoy. Stay away from this tour company.
Written August 18, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Shoprunner
1 contribution
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2022
The trip was well organized and we did see lots of Christmas markets and lovely sites. Our bus driver was amazing, along with the bus. Great choices of cities and markets. The tour was always on time and airport pickup was a breeze.

Unfortunately, all but two of the included meals and meal experiences were not good and definitely not worth the prices. Food was greasy and salty and entertainment marginal. The Travel Director was somewhat bossy and made us feel guilty if we didn't want to go to something, such as the included meals or city tours. Often we only had a short amount of time in a city and we wanted to eat a sit down lunch or shop rather than go on a long tour. In one place we were given an hour and 20 minutes, after it was insisted that we must wait until everyone was done in the bathroom (a half hour, we had 40 in our group) and the required city tour, it gave us 15 minutes to scarf down a croissant and coffee, ridiculous.
Hotels were good, no complaints. The breakfast was good at the hotels except one of them.
These trips are more like "treks" rather than "vacations". You certainly will not feel rested and refreshed at the end. They are however good for seeing a massive amount of cities and sites in a short period. Just be prepared!
Written December 2, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Kim H
4 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2023 • Couples
We went on the 9 day Insight "Country Roads of Scotland" tour with a small group. We absolutely enjoyed everything about the trip. Our travel director was Robbie Joyce, who was very knowledgeable, informative and entertaining. He did a great job keeping the group on schedule and yet allowing enough time to explore things on our own. We think that having a good travel director definitely added to our overall satisfaction with the trip. Some of the group was not excited about a few of the accommodations and meals, but we thought that given the remoteness of some of the areas we visited and the size of the group that the complaints were unwarranted. In fact, we enjoyed some of the quaintness of the small town places we stayed. The huge variety of geography, history and sites throughout Scotland made for a very interesting experience that we loved.
Written June 9, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Daniel Lehmann
Chicago, IL2 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2022
We traveled on Insight Vacations' 11-day "Best of Britain" tour Sept. 12-23, 2022, which covered England, Scotland and Wales. It was first rate: hotels were great, food was far above average, our tour guide and bus driver completely professional. This was our second tour with Insight Vacations, the first a terrific journey through Spain and Portugal. We highly recommend either trip for your consideration. Details were expertly handled by our travel agent and agency, Sandy Nelson and The Tropical Travelers. They also arranged for three extra days at the end of the tour in London, again, a first-rate experience. All of this went on while Great Britain mourned and buried Queen Elizabeth II. Yes, we missed a few closed castles and the House of Parliament, yet that and the acts of the public in honoring the deceased monarch made the trip all the more memorable.
Written October 5, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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Insight Vacations - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2025)

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