We have over 30 cruises under our belt. During this time we have used different travel agencies,…read morethere has always been somewhat wanting in one capacity or other. I booked with Tiphanie Chong our first cruise with her. Tiphanie is well verse, very patience (I'm a senior) explained every detail very carefully so that I understood exactly what's involved. Even though I'm an experience cruiser. However can you imagine to my surprised when she called me and informed me the cruise rates have dropped. I'm so happy and thrilled. As I saved myself a bundle of money. The amount I saved from the 4 cruises that I had originally booked with her. Was enough to pay for another cruise. Now isn't that great service!

Having used the services of UCrusing for the past many years to every corner of the earth…read more Hercules is always very helpful in recommending the best deals and what to expect. All staff onsite are very well educated in all the different cruise lines and can give you a fair comparison of each one so there are no surprises.

Had a last minute crisis and needed an urgent flight out. Went to Timex travel for help even though…read moreI knew chances were slim getting a flight night of to fly out. They were quick professional and efficient. I was able to not only get a flight out but didn't end up having to pay a hefty price for sucha rush ticket. I cannot thank them enough for their help during that different time. I will definitely use them again in the near future.

Clara is the best!…read more I have used Timex for many trips, from Antarctica adventure, to a simple cruise to Caribbeans, She is responsive and attentive.

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.

I have so many good things to say about my experience with Rewards Travel China (RTC) that I really…read moredon't know where to start. So let me start by saying that I have never done anything impulsive in my life but impulsively buying a Groupon for 10 days, to China, with this company. Original Groupon said that flights, hotels and two meals per day were included with transportation and an English-speaking tour guide. My husband and I saw the crazy low price of $599 per person and jumped on it. Is the price for real? The price actually varies on departure location. Because we were leaving from Orlando, Florida the price actually went up to about $800 per person. Nevertheless, with everything included, the price was still too good to pass. Thus my husband and I went for the buy without never actually having planned to go to China or knowing anything about traveling to China. We didn't even know about the Traveling Visa (which you pay for separately and was definitely an expense we were not counting on) that you need to get in order to travel to China. Though Rewards Travel China DID disclose that the Visa expenses were to be paid separately, I really had no idea we would pay around (with all documents required) about almost $300 additionally per person for each individual visa. Again... the traveling visa is compulsory and has nothing to do with the traveling agency. Furthermore, although i know people that were actually able to buy the travel package for under $600 (most of the people I met departing form the West of USA), the trip is still pretty inexpensive since China's government sponsors the trip and provides amazing discounts to the company in exchange of including government funded tours (such as the Silk Factory, Jade Factory, among others). These are all places that when you travel to China, you want to go. Most of the places you will have to listen to the history of the facility and a 10-20 minute sales pitch. Buying is optional and in no way are people pressured to buy. I purchased items on limited places and had friends that didn't purchase anything at all. Finally, the history and sales pitch is not only interesting but funny as they make it very entertaining. Meeting our tour guides. Arriving to China we followed our itinerary, passed through customs and were received by our Beijing tour guide, Peng Song aka Nick. Peng was very responsable, organized and always carried our itinerary with information. He was endearing, honest, genuine and very familiar with western culture. Peng was always available for us, was very approachable, genuine and accommodating. He was also very knowledgeable on the history and treated all of us as family. Peng had an answer to all of our questions, was patient and went above and beyond to make our experience enjoyable. After Beijing we took a four-hour bullet train to Shanghai and were greeted by Foresen, known as Sen, who was our tour guide for the rest of the days. Sen was hilarious, attentive and very approachable. Both tour guides were extremely special in their own way and both surpassed our expectations. They were very accommodating, dependable and in charge of a group of 33 people. We never had issues and both guides were always making sure we were constantly together. Optional tours: Initially, my husband and I had only booked some of the optional tours, though later decided to add them while in China. We ended up adding almost all of the additional optional tours since honestly, we didn't know anybody in China and wouldn't know were to go or what to do without a tour guide. I recommend adding most of the day tours with exception of two boat tours. The only boat tour that I would recommend is the boat tour in Suzhou ("The Venice of the East"), since it is inexpensive, the experience is worth it and you later get to walk around the town surrounding the river. The other boat tours you just get in the boat and do not see the surrounding areas. The boat tours at Shanghai and West Lake in Hangzhou I would not recommend since you get a better experience and view of the area on foot rather than by boat. All in all the schedule is pretty tight which makes it difficult to fully taking in each location. Nevertheless, if you want to make most of your trip and see most of the "must-see" places in China, you GOT to have a tight itinerary. The itinerary is well thought of and the selected locations are amazing. Even the hotels are amazing and the lunch options are well picked. Finally, my husband and I fell in love with China and hope to visit again; we would totally coordinate everything with RTC if possible.

What a great trip!!! We used a groupon to get a 10 day vacation and let me tell you... you get WAY…read moreMORE than you pay for. The price is too good to be true... so be aware that each day the tour takes you to a place where you have to sit through a presentation that will be a sales pitch for you to buy something.. sounds bad right? Wrong! The places they take you are the places you want to go anyway! The stuff the try to sell you.. the stuff you are going to China to buy anyway! Example: The Jade Factory, The Silk Factory, The Tea Plantation etc etc.. these are the places that anyone who visits China tries to go to.. But, after that.. they take you to all the major sites in China.. jam packed... JAM PACKED.. you will be on the bus at 7am and get back to the hotel, or the new hotel (lots of city hopping) around 9-11pm.. you will be tired.. but the hotels are top notch, the guides are super fun! Lulu did an amazing job with our bus!!! With a group full of crazy Americans.. I don't see how they do it! Awesome Job Lulu!! I highly recommend this agency. If you book a groupon tour.. know that you are going to be sold items everyday, you're addenda will be jam packed and you will not have time to explore on your own.. if you want a trip without being sold items daily and want free time to do whatever you want.. A. Don't use an agency, buy your own flight, make your own travel arrangements and do it on your own for about 20k.. or have the trip of a lifetime for around 700.00 per person...

Having taken tours with Tianbao/Compass Holidays （天宝旅游）before and having received positive…read moreexperience I decided to go with them to the Guizhou No Shopping Tour （贵州纯玩团）. After taking this tour, I am traumatized to the point that I will no longer attend any tours containing Overseas Chinese as some members cannot keep their hands to themselves while out of North America. If it were possible for me to give 0 stars, I can assure you that it would be given. On the first day when we arrived at the airport we were picked up by a driver with another group of 8 based out of Vancouver. The driver did not know who to pick up and dropped us off at the hotel while giving us all a sheet of paper left on the front desk by our tour guide with the hotel staff. We had to check in by ourselves. On the second day, we were taken to our optional programs. In the contract, it specifies that each person would have a choice of options to attend up to 4 programs. In reality, we did not get to pick and it was based on a majority vote. As the group from Vancouver had a group of 8, out of 15 people they obviously had an upper hand and won so we were taken to the paper factory. As we were driving to the paper factory, there was a landslide. Given the concerns I had with safety, I voiced them to the tour guide but he did not care and forced us out of the tour bus when we arrived on site. During this trip, we were taken to shopping stops although in the contract it clearly specifies it was a no shopping tour. We stayed at each stop for between 40-50 minutes. Throughout the tour I was repetitively molested (though not sexually) by another member in our tour group. The member would caress my face and attempt to run her hands down my body. As she reached my neck, I would shove her hands off and scream for help. She was with the Vancouver group of 8. It got to the point where another member had to step in to assist me as we were close to calling the police (or dialing 110). We were not able to do so as we were taken to tour areas where there was no phone or internet signal. We had informed the tour guide of what was happening, but he just told us that "Over here, people touch each other all the time". What creeped me out the most about this tour was that a few members and myself became prey and targets to the molester and her friend. I was stalked, harassed, threatened and molested. On the second last day, her friend who was clearly drunk picked up a bottle and attempted to threaten and beat up a few members in our tour including myself all while the tour guide stood there and did nothing. The tour guide himself was uncaring, lazy, always late, and rude. We had requested the company 3 days in advance to provide us with a driver that would take us from the hotel on the day of our flight departure at 5:30 AM. Yet, the tour guide denied our request and also humiliated us in public. Instead, he requested us to pay $70 USD for a pickup service that would not leave until at least 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM, When I told him that I would instead take the taxi he warned me and another member that "We may not be able to catch our flight in time or make it out safely if we did not use their company's service". After the program had ended and our tour guide said he was no longer responsible for us anymore a member and myself decided to call a taxi to take us to the airport. While in our room, we were blocked by a hotel staff from leaving. Luckily, another member in our tour group was available and helped us call the taxi that would take us to the airport. The tour group member and I ended up staying in a hotel next to the airport in order to catch our early morning flight. I am lucky to have made it out safe and very much alive back home. After arriving home safely, a complaint was filed. Their response to this complaint was that it was cultural difference or misunderstanding. I am appalled as threats, harassment, and molestation are a pretty universal language to me. I also have doubts as to whether those two perpetrators from Vancouver were ever contacted in the first place. I will never be using their service ever again if this is their response to safety matters. P.S. I have included pictures of the lady that molested me. Her name is Sin Ting Tsang as well as her friend that threatened us. If you ever see either one or both on any of your tour groups, BEWARE!

I did a 7 day Eastern Canada bus tour with this company. Before I go into great detail, here is a…read moregeneral observation of my week on a bus tour: Most of the tourists were of Asian descent whether directly from the continent, from Ontario or British Columbia. Out of 56 passengers, there were 7 non-asians (including the driver). When travelling to the Maritimes, its important to dress for warm and cool climate This trip is child friendly although I personally would not bring a child younger than 7 years old due to the length of time on the bus. With that being said, there were children on the bus as young as 1 years old with no inconvenience to the other tourists traveling. People on the bus can be very pushy (I.e. coming off the bus). We all come from different walks of life so not everyone is as mannerable or courteous. It is a guided tour but not a very rigid tour. There are some moments where you can do your own thing even if it's for a bit. Wifi on the bus and in hotels are not that great. Although attractions are optional, the tour is surrounded by them so there may be nothing to do/see if you opt out of it. If you opt out of the meal plan, the lunch/dinner time is 1 hour so stay within the area when getting food. Whether you purchase the meal plan or not, most of the food stops are Chinese buffets. To keep the seating plan fair, rotational seating is done daily so everyone sits in the front, middle and back of the bus by the end of the week. Go on this trip with an open mind because bus trips are not for everyone. I was satisfied and pleased with hotel selections For a family of 3 we paid $1599 (not including the attractions and/or meal plan). This is roughly what we would pay if going to Cuba. We had a great time and learned and seen a lot. For this price, I cannot complain at all. Should you be interested in a detailed review, feel free to click or copy and paste the link below: https://camithoughts.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/review-of-the-7-day-eastern-canada-bus-trip-with-tian-bao-travel-aka-compass-holidays/

It would have been a 5 star review, if we had the higher level hotel. We will do that next time…read morefor sure. The hotels we had were good. They were clean and had simple rooms and both had restaurants. Soooo all good there! We just will do the upgraded rooms next time. The tours were AMAZING!! Our guides were both phenomenal! J Lo was awesome as was Alan who went above and beyond. The tour buses were nice w reclining chairs but don't sit in the back rows as they are incredibly bumpy on the dirt/gravel roads. For the money, what a trip! And definitely do the excursions. Even if you can't walk well, there were always places to sit. They were all fabulous!

I was part of a large tour group of 22 friends, and we traveled to Egypt with TripToGo in…read moreFebruary 2026. This was our second time arranging a trip through TripToGo's agent, Ravi Sharma, and I truly cannot praise him enough. Ravi went above and beyond to ensure our journey was luxuriously comfortable. He meticulously tailored the lodging and transportation arrangements to meet our very specific requirements, patiently negotiating with local providers to get everything just right. The result was an exceptionally personalized experience with genuine VIP treatment throughout the trip. Our local guide in Egypt was Sherif Ghamry, one of the country's top and renowned Egyptologists. He proved to be an outstanding guide not only because of his deep and impressive knowledge, but also because of his resonant voice and clear English--an incredibly fortunate combination in the noisy and crowded environments we often encountered. What impressed me most, however, was his character and professionalism. I personally witnessed him calmly and skillfully defuse a potentially explosive situation caused by another tour group's poor behavior, even when one of their tourists became violent. His wellmannered demeanor and ability to handle conflict with grace were truly admirable. Overall, this trip exceeded our expectations, thanks to the exceptional service from both Ravi Sharma and Sherif Ghamry. I would not hesitate to recommend TripToGo to anyone looking for a highquality, personalized travel experience in Egypt.