Expat Explore Travel Ltd. Review

Italy At Leisure Tour With Vivien As Our Great Tour Guide!!!

My 1st tour with Expat in South Africa 14 days tour from Cape Town to Johannesburg And Kruger National Park. Your tour arrangements was amazing and fun, hotels were so great for 13 nights. Included Meals were outstanding. I would personally like to Thank your Tour Guide Willem Steenkamp, he did a great job. Everyone enjoyed their moments on this tour. Keep up the good work!

Took the 13 days UK and Ireland tour in June...wow, what an experience! Enjoyed myself. The staff were friendly and courteous. This is the best way to go on vacation...you have the experts to tell you about the what, where and who...of the cities or countries you are visiting. With the exception for the rain....I am so ready for my next trip next year. Can't wait..AWESOME!

We had the best month of our lives on Expat Explore's 26 day Europe tour. The guide was informative, destinations and accommodation excellent (better than what we saw the competition stopping at); can't wait to book another adventure with this group!

They can t drive professionally, they dont use indicators, they stop in yellow box, use left turn road to go staright and they nearly crashed into my car this morning Wednesday, so unprofessional

To the whole team at Expat Explore, thank you for the best memories and experiences ever. Gustavo our tour leader & Peter our bus driver was absolutely amazing! The company is highly recommended and made everything so easy for us as tourists.

We had a wonderful experience on the Taste of Europe Tour. Every stop was beautiful and Kevin our Tour Director was fabulous. He was so informative and educated the entire bus on the history of our stops. Kevin treated us like family; he went over and beyond to accommodate everyone. We took advantage of all the optional tours because we did not want to miss out on the fun. Don't miss this tour: Paris, Swiss Mountains-Top of Europe, The Rhine and Boggert, Amsterdam, and Belgium. Request Kevin if he is available; we will on feature trips. He is an amazing person!

Sent my mum on the 8 day taste of Italy tour, she found it OK, but too rushed with very basic, below-average standard of rooms and food supplied. She loved the sights that were included in the tour but sadly the tour guides were often unhelpful and in a hurry to get the day over with. Her review has also not been posted on the website at this stage so she feels she has no voice to raise issues of the tour. She also had trouble using public transport during peak times. Disappointed.

Beyond expectations. I had Simon as my tour guile. He was very knowledgeable, passionate and overall a great champ to talk to. Matt was our bus driver, great sense of humor and knows the best pubs and local happenings. I was hoping for a good time and instead had a memoriable experiences that will last a lifetime

Here's why I'd NOT recommend the Turkey Highlights tour which we took in Sep 2019
Pros:
1. Good airport transfers
2. Good hotels, except for the cave hotel in Cappadocia with no hot shower, despite informing the hotel staff already
3. Good driver.

Cons:
1. Lousy guide who didn't explain well, and took us to fixed restaurants for lunches with marked up price. E.g. We saw a cart near the cashier with dishes labelled with respective prices. The same cart was presented to us once we're seated but those same dishes were no longer labelled, except for 1. Restaurant staff verbally said the prices, which are TL5 to TL10 more than those labels we saw earlier. Guide defended the prices mentioned and said I could check the menu, it's the same. Of course the menu was in turkish but with Google translate, I found out that the prices are NOT the same. Ala carte dish was TL25 on the menu, we saw TL35 on the label (a set that comes with soup and salad) but the restaurant staff said TL40 after removing the label. Cheating! Instead of taking us to a FIXED restaurant (where the guide takes a cut), we should be allowed to choose where we want to eat and return to the meeting point at certain time.
2. Wrong prices on optional excursions. One major error was the hot air balloon ride in cappadocia which was 120 when I booked the tour and printed the itinerary in Nov 2018, but it's actually 220. Same issue was highlighted by other customers since last year. Clearly Expat or Fez didn't do their job properly.
3. Wrong prices on entrance fees. Before we started the tour, we received the latest info including the entrance fees. I calculated the total was TL240 but the guide asked for TL497! He didn't cheat in this aspect as we saw those are real prices displayed at the sites. Fez said they've informed Expat much earlier but Expat said Fez didn't. So, we customers became the victims ultimately. All Expat did was saying that there was some miscommunication and sorry, nothing more. We customers paid for their mistakes.
4. The guide wasn't very helpful.
5. Bus was clean but the AC wasn't strong enough during the hot days.
6. I submitted this review to Expat's website but they chose not to publish it, instead they published a later but good review.

I had high hopes when I embarked on the tour with this company. My first night was awful as I was paired with someone with sleep apnea. I asked both the tour leader and the company to help me out of this situation and I received no help whatsoever. The company suggested that I upgrade at my own expense even though the pairing had nothing to do with me.

Thankfully, another passenger generously offered her room to me and upgraded at her own expense as they couldn't help her as well when she swapped rooms with me. This made the last few days of my trip enjoyable.

Prior to my trip, I had told everyone I knew about this company and the affordable cost of using them. Now, I do not recommend them in the slightest. If you decide to use their services, do so at your own risk and don't expect help when in difficult situations in the countries you visit. Some of the tour guides were great and I have reviewed them highly but I have nothing but disdain for expat explore given my experience.

Amazing group tour company. By far the most affordable prices in the industry and you don't lose out on creating amazing memories.