Pam was horrible!…read more She took every opportunity to take advantage of us during a family emergency. When our family was in a time of need she would pester us with calls and give ridiculous fees in order to change flight timings. We paid over $3200 in fees just for some flight changes. If we weren't with a travel agent and booked this ourselves we would have saved at least $2000. DO NOT BOOK WITH THESE PEOPLE!

I've used Gala Travels a couple of times as has other members of my family and each time they come…read morethrough with great rates, but all of those have been long distance flights to Europe and Sri Lanka, when it comes to North American travel they don't have the best rates out there and a lost star as a result. They are very useful if you call them, they send very detailed emails and do follow ups if you have something on hold in a timely fashion. On one of my trips I had to postpone my fight thanks to visa delays (no longer an issue with my Canadian passport!) and my travel agent with Gala was very helpful in hooking me up with the best alternate flight and while I had to pay a fee it was a painless process overall. So if you have a trip to Asia coming up I would heavily recommend checking out Gala, their website is very useful and you can see their good rates straight away. And yes I was able to collect aeroplane miles too on my fight.

Flora was a.m.a.z.i.n.g…read more My brother learned of this travel agency through a friend. We came here looking for a vacation to Europe for a family of 6. Flora was very friendly and patient in walking us through every detail and combinations of packages. I really appreciated that she was very honest in suggesting to us on unnecessary spending. She speaks fluent Cantonese and English. Looking forward to our trip in a month!

Barbara Hockin is the best consultant we ever had the pleasure of booking with! While me and my…read moresisters knew we wanted to give our parents a cruise trip for their 25th anniversary, we knew nothing about cruising! Luckily we got in touch with Barbara and she helped us with EVERY tiny detail possible. The trip was quite extensive and complicated but Barbara was ever patient with all of our questions and super helpful and honest! For first time cruisers my parents were able to confidently go and enjoy their trip and they had an amazing time, they're totally hooked! From choosing the cruise line, to getting a room that would be comfortable and in a good location, Barbara took into consideration every tiny detail so that my parents would have the BEST first time cruising experience. She also explained the ins and outs of cruising, from boarding to dining and everything in-between. We had plenty of questions, as any first time cruiser would, and she explained everything patiently and thoroughly. Any time we needed assistance Barbara was there to help, and she made sure we got the best price and got our Aeroplan points as well! If it wasn't for Barbara I know the trip would not have been the major success it was so I totally recommend her to any cruisers who are looking for some guidance and expert advice!

Mark is great at finding deals... he got me a significantly better deal than listed on the Air…read moreCanada website for HK... highly recommend.

I have to admit, it's been years since I've used a travel agency to book a trip. I found Murdoch…read moreTravel in a Google search and called. I have never been so impressed with the service my husband and I have received! Marion is absolutely amazing. She was on the ball about everything. So our trip is booked and we're excited l, thanks to Marion! You're amazing

I don't have much to say but the team was awesome and kind Melissa,Ron,Jeff, and Alex are all so…read morenice and their office is beautiful!!

We joined Taipan's Australia and New Zealand cruise in March. The journey was full of hiccups. One…read moregood thing is we had a very professional escort, Alan Yu. He had made great effort to put everything on line. In Melbourne, the coach bus didn't present in the right time and 42 of us were forced to stay outside the pier for more than an hour. Alan finally arranged taxies to take all of us to the city. When we arrived Rotorua, the land operator didn't get the tickets for Hobbiton which was on the list to visit when we booked the tour many months ago. It really upset almost the whole group. Alan showed his patience to pacify the angry tourists and arranged to the money return. Also he took us to the Blue Spring which was another movie site of Lord of the Rings. I give 5 stars to Alan, not to the trip. I salute to his professional effort.

Copying my review from FMP over to the head office too. Recently went on a China English tour for…read more11 days including roundtrip flight from Toronto to China and accomodations at 4-5 star hotels for $1800CAD and bullet train ride. It included cities like Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Beijing, with buffet breakfast included and sometimes even lunch included. It's a deal for sure but personally, I don't prefer following tours since I'm experienced enough to travel China, but my mother-in-law signed us up. I do think it's actual great for larger families with senior folks as the excursions and outings are brief before you rest in the bus. It's also great for first timers to China or those who aren't as tech savvy to use the Chinese apps. Beijing however was a bit strenuous because it was raining one day, we squeezed our itinerary tighter. The Great Wall we visited was a section that was very steep to climb. It's all optional, you can climb up as much as you want or skip climbing all together like my mother-in-law. I had a good experience but I'm just not a fan of sitting in long bus rides and prefer to stay closer to the city centre and pay a bit of a premium to eat where I want to eat as opposed to eating at rest stops and buffet breakfast (rest stops and hotel buffets are more elevated in China than Western countries though). 11-days is quite short to fly all the way to Asia, I normally would like to stay a bit longer but the package deal was to fly on the same flight home. I found out later there were extensions that can be added to visit Xian but the agent at First Markham Place, didn't inform us about these extension add-ons to our trip. She made us think that we had to choose this package or an entirely different package. If you sign up and subscribe to their email list you also get another $50 off per person and I believe signing up in person maybe cheaper than online. The agent helped us with applying the discount. Another thing to keep in mind is that despite booking together, none of the airline seats of our group are sitting together so definitely check-in as early as possible to get your preferred seating and hopefully arrange yourself to sit together. Your whole tour group would be flying together and it would be a packed / full flight. They also don't provide the hotel names and addresses in advance. You only find out a week before. It's still really good hotels, one even at a golf resort with extensive buffet breakfast. However, these hotels are cheap because they are normally 1hr away from the center of major Tier 1 cities like Beijing and Shanghai. So even if you decide to go on your own, most of the suggested places to hit up is far away. So definitely get used to using Didi (Chinese Uber) and a Translation app ready so you can have the flexibility to explore on your own. We had one free day in Shanghai in our tour. Now time for the review, these cheap tours are cheap because there are build-in shopping destinations like Silk factory, tea factory, pearl factory, jade factory and Chinese medicine institution that are geared towards tourist sales, which you cannot skip. Not all Taipan tours are shopping though. I wouldn't say they are scams but I do think they made a deal with the tour company to subsidize the cost of the trip. I personally didn't find them too pushy if you don't want to buy, there will be others that will and you can just take that opportunity to window shop, but that does take up time of your trip. We did end up buying silk sheets and tea though $$$$. The prices are probably a bit more than local price, more of a tourist price. There isn't much to time shop for clothing or other personal items given you're on a schedule with the group. I do recommend setting up JD or Taobao if you want to do online shopping and have those items shipped to your hotels in advance as Chinese hotels are really good at holding packages before you arrive just make sure it's to delivery to the hotel where you would be staying at least a couple days and order at least a few days in advance or check what the estimate delivery timeline is to the destination. Our main tour guide Zhou Yan, was fantastic. She spoke fluently in English and is clear to understand. She's also a local in China. She was really great and patient all the way through. 5-stars for Zhou (Jo) for sure. We're really lucky to have her. The other local city tour guides that they used in the other cities were just okay, their English wasn't as clear, probably understand them 70% of the time. A lot of the add-on tours are optional. Our booking agent advised us to have USD cash prepared in advance for tour tips and excursions. I'm kind of annoyed that the tour agency told us to bring USD even though when were arrived our local tour guides are more than willing to accept Canadian conversion on par of the day's exchange rate on Google, which really would have saved us fees from exchanging money in advance to USD as Canadians.