Hello

You should choose some local travel agency, you will save a lot of money,

You don't need to book every thing in a travel company, you can book from this place to other place with local travel agency in there, it is flexible for you, some place you like not too much you can stay there not too much and keep the time by yourself in best place you like.

Have a good trip

Sapa original trek

My reply was not intended to dredge up local Travel Agencies who break Tripadvisor Rules by using these pages to advertise themselves. Agents can give advice but they cannot identify themselves nor make unsolicited contact with an enquirer.

Agents who use these kind of tactics just demonstrate their lack of professional standards.

Ross

And that would include post#2

posting the way they have makes them an untrustworthy travel agent. If they cant obey Tripadvisor rules what others are they prepared to break?

Only follow the advice only from fellow travelers which is what TA was designed for.

Just a warning to all, do NOT use this company! This is one of the most un-reliable companies I have ever dealt with. Firstly when you sign up for a tour, make sure you ask them if it is actually more than one tour combined. I signed up for a laos/vietnam tour 6 months in advance that was not guaranteed until 60 days before departure. But they ended up cancelling a part of the tour {laos} because they did not have enough people just on that segment.So I was left with half a tour, long after I had booked my non-changeable tickets. I was never informed of this policy and on the tour I was amazed that 4 other people had experienced the same situation. I had to take the Vietnam portion since it was too late to make other arrangements. After 3 days in Vietnam, we had a flight cancel to another destination making our stay in hanoi and extra day. The flight cancellation was understandable, but they left us stranded in the hotel lobby in Hanoi and told us we would have to pay for our own accomodations! We were all stunned as our poor guide spent hours on the phone trying to resolve the situation. She informed us that we would have to take it up with adventures abroad when we returned from the trip? Our tour was uneventful from there on. The guide from Canada was lovely and the land guides were sufficient. When I returned home, I waited two weeks to hear from adventures abroad and finally sent them an email demanding a refund of my hotel room. They wrote a form letter to the group telling us to check with our insurance company for flight interuption reimbursement. Several of us then requested again our money back, and they finally decided to send us the hotel funds.. From the very beginning this company lied. When they take your deposit over the internet, they dont tell you that using your credit card will cost an additional $250.00...seriously??? who does that? I wrote a letter to the president of the company...Mr Boycott ?, but of course he never responded. I could have purchased a tour at half the price with several other companies and not deal with incompetent people who have no idea what "disclosure" means.. The tour was not unique for what we paid..please BOYCOTT this company.

Sent from my iPad

This last post is an indication of what happens when you use a foreign agent as has been warned about for years on these pages. Apart from inefficiencies foreign agents cannot hope to be able to satisfy tourists should local problems occur whether the tour is accompanied or not.

Ross

We have just returned from a 3-week trip with Adventures Abroad to Vietnam and Cambodia, and a second one continuing on with them to Thailand. Both trips were generally well done, with pretty congenial small groups and very good Canadian and mostly very competent local guides. We thought the pricing was reasonable and most of the hotels (with a few exceptions) were good local 4-star quality and well-located. However, we had one serious exception to this otherwise positive experience, and it was handled so badly by Adventures Abroad that it has given many of our group members serious pause about ever recommending or using AA again.

Our itinerary was well laid-out, with good descriptions of each day's events. We mostly flew between cities, but where bus transport was involved, there was usually an indication of the distance to travel and\or the time required. One of our group, who had particular difficulty physically tolerating long bus rides, had phoned Adventures Abroad in advance of booking and had specifically been advised that none of the bus trips were longer than about 4 or 5 hours. However, AA had booked us to drive by bus between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodia, over dusty, bumpy roads which had been massively under construction most of the way for some years. The whole trip lasted 7 1\2 hours and when we arrived, tired, sore and dirty from the bone-rattling experience, our luggage under the bus was also so dusty that the hotel bellmen didn't want to touch it.Two members of our group had opted-out of the bus ride and paid for a flight on their own, so they arrived very clean and comfortable. We learned that our guide had warned AA in advance about the horrendous bus ride, but AA later claimed that they didn't expect flights to be available at that time, notwithstanding that our two cohorts had had no trouble obtaining flights.

Such egregious errors happen (according to one acquaintance who has travelled a lot with AA, once on every trip), but it was AA's manner in dealing with our complaints about it that has left a really bad taste in our mouths. Initially, the Product Manager to whom I complained was sympathetic, then he passed my comments on to the Operations Dept. I received no response to my communication from them directly, but when several of our group also complained about this experience, they finally sent a general email offering a $100 credit to any of us for our NEXT Adventures Abroad trip, in consideration of our 'inconvenience, disappointment and in acknowledgement of extra costs, like laundry' we may have incurred. This was long after the fact and was no meaningful compensation for the loss, indignity and extra expenses we had suffered as a direct result of that day. Curiously, though, while telling us that they would, commencing 6 months later, be changing that trip to a flight, I learned that they managed to find flights right away for the same trip leaving a few weeks later, once AA understood the extent of our group's indignation over this treatment.

Almost everything else about these trips was quite satisfactory, and our groups were very congenial, but Adventures Abroad's glib attempt to trivialize our complaints and, when specifically asked for appropriate and commensurate compensation, to fob us all off with a meaningless credit on our next AA trip is insulting. My husband and I had, supposedly, been entitled, based on AA's policies, to a $100 credit on our second Adventures Abroad trip, to Thailand right after the Vietnam trip, but when I queried this with them, that request was completely ignored, as we can likely expect THIS credit to be.

I am writing to respond/corroborate eveything that was written in the post dated March 31, 2015. The trip was exactly as described above. It is unfortunate that Adventures Abroad eroded so much good will with their poor decision to put us on that bus--- and even more so, to deflect and deny when confronted with the foolishness of this decision. They were defensive, evasive and refused to take responsibility for this in any meaningful way. I will not be recommending this group to anyone.

I was also on the trip described by KarenP and mbogolub1 and again confirm all of what they said. Just want to add my perspective to the discussion.

I really enjoyed the trip with the exception of that one horrible day of the bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The Canadian tour leader had decades of experience and was an encyclopedia of knowledge about the history, culture, and current conditions of both Vietnam and Cambodia. I enjoyed his humor, respected his ability to manage everything, and learned a great deal from him. Arrangements for local guides, transportation, and site access were perfectly organized and accommodations were very nice. The group was a mix of Canadians and Americans, and was extremely congenial and great fun. The included meals ranged from excellent to quite good, with most on the excellent end of the spectrum. The itinerary hit all the expected sites, with one bit of bad planning that the Ho Chi Min memorial was closed on our only day in Hanoi. One or two incidents of minor impact are to be expected and were not detrimental overall. In other words, the trip lived up to expectations, with the exception of that one bus ride.

Had it not been for Adventures Abroad's inaction prior to the bus ride, and their post-trip response to complaints, I would have booked a future trip with them, and would have recommended them here in Trip Advisor and to my friends. But they failed to act before the day of the bus ride to obtain air tickets for the group, though warned in advance of the bus route conditions. Two in our group purchased tickets the previous day and reported many empty seats on the plane. Adventures Abroad refused to apologize or to acknowledge responsibility for not doing enough to book flights for us, and offered meaningless compensation in the form of a $100 credit for a subsequent trip. In my view, their email to the group on the subject of the bus ride was merely an attempt at damage control, and an empty gesture. They deflected responsibility by blaming the tour leader for not preparing us. He did, but preparation was irrelevant. No amount of preparation could have overcome that bus ride. The very idea that "advance preparation" would have resolved the problem smacks of manipulation. The issue wasn't insufficient preparation. It was poor judgment, poor planning, and inaction.

So, sadly, count me among those who will not book with Adventures Abroad again. Their disregard for their customers offset the otherwise great experience of the all but one of the days of the trip.

Very interesting discussion. I was booked for a Southern India trip that looked great with Adventures Abroad.. However, they really gave me three answers relative to baggage allowance, and finally concluded to return my money. So then several months later I called them again and spoke to a different manager who assured me that it was all a huge misunderstanding.. So now I have multiple people who want to take this trip too. They are very glib about it all. Their misinformation caused me no end of problems, and now I have three answers in terms of luggage.I do like their Itineraries. But as a company, I do have mixed feelings. I have asked them if they can do anything to restore my faith as a traveler that might entice me to rebook the trip, but they just said no. Great customer service I see. Usually what you see up front is what you get on the trip, which is what I find worrisome.