TauckReviews of tauck.com

Scotland land tour. Excellent hotels, food, staff and tour director, but the large bus tour itself was somewhat pedestrian. The quality of the local tour guides and experiences varied widely with an over emphasis on the same historical period. Toward the end, we were just waiting for the tour to be over. Scotland and its history have more to offer than this tour displayed.

This was my 5th Tauck trip (Great Britain, Scotland, Wales) and I was absolutely shocked at the rude, superior and condescending manner of the Tour Director, Andres S., who faintly expresses his dislike for North Americans as evidenced by his repeated negative comments about American tourists. He is a South American living in Great Britian. Three times on the tour guests were left behind due to his failure to account for their presence prior to the bus departing locations. He was garrulous to a fault describing his personal preferences where we would tune him out, and when I queried him about a point his answer was "I already told you that". This was a demeaning response to a guest, especially on a very high-end tour. During the tour, he entered into a heated argument with a guest couple who had been left behind where due to the escalating tension in front of other guests I had to personally separate him from that couple to defuse the situation. I feel that this experience does not reflect our Tauck prior experience, and we have rebooked another tour. This was a failure of the Tour Director to understand his clientele, and I feel that he is unsuitable to work with high-end guests. My comments were expressed to Tauck management, and travel vouchers were issued for future trips. The trip was salvaged by my wife and I by completely ignoring the Tour Director and doing what we wished to do, rather than follow his suggestions to frequent his vendors of choice. Caveat emptor.

I just got back from a river cruise down the Rhine with a small side quest down the Moselle River. Positives: the staff were friendly, food, numerous excursions. Honestly, this tour company is heavily geared towards American travellers. Also, it had a heavy MLM feel with them talking about Tauck being a family, and constantly thanking each other and stroking each other’s egos. This was a very very expensive trip, and there were costly fees to do laundry. A lot of people were washing socks and underwear in their sinks. I would not expect this from a luxury cruise. We were on the top floor in one of the nicest rooms. The boat was so loud and vibrated so much that I feel fatigued from not sleeping and just from being on the trip. Also, during the trip my family went in the hot tub on the top of the boat and got paint from the hot tub all over ourselves. They were quite dismissive and didn’t offer us a discount or really anything to make it right. It was pretty disappointing. They then emptied the tub, supposedly cleaned it, refilled it… said it was fixed. I ran my finger along the side the next day and got chemical paint residue on myself. Needless to say, I gave up. Overall, we made the best of the trip, but the pace of the excursions were too slow.

Just got back...great guides and driver. But accommodations were not great...needs hotels with better bedding and AC. Fixed meals need improvement also. Alps and Dolomites 20k tour Sept 2025

My family just retuned from Alaska Bridges July2024. Our tour director was a very nice person named Kara. Our pick up from Anchorage was by Premium Limo. The attendant had no sign for us. We had to search him out. He did not lift a finger to help us with luggage. Night one was a late switch to a Mariott hotel in a room adjacent to noisy elevator. I complained. The last night again Tauck placed me as close as one can get to a noisy elevator. I suggest ownership and management sleep in such a room and explore that adventure. I would encourage everyone who travels on Tauck to read Taucks mission statement. While on the tour one excursion on a jet boat was a big 2 hour bore. The selection of that excursion was a big nothing on a river filled with logs and trees. The scenery on Long Island Sound is more intersting to me. We were scheduled to have a cookout on a gold mine hunt. No such cookout but instead cold crap pizza served. Therer were several sandwhich lunches with potatoe chips which were mediocre at best. This is not what I signed up for . When I pay the fees Tauck created and tauck delivers mediocrity at best I am angry, feel misled, and feel financially abused. There are too many guests for 1 tour director to manage in my opinion. I have asked Tauck to review my concerns. Iwas told by guest relations that I have so many complaints that she needs to reach out to many different managers. Perhaps some of the managers should be on tour to see first hand. Lastly on the farewell dinner Kara the tour diectoe allowed non paying guests of a family to sit at a table that had comfortable seating and early buffet access. My wife and I could only find seating at the childrens table. I asked Kara about it and she told m,e she authorized it. Read Taucks mission statement and should i feel Tauck fullfilled its mission statement to my family?

We just returned from 14 days in Portugal and Spain. Overall the trip was enjoyable and the guide was superb. Though on that subject, after spending $15K for the trip, we were told we still needed to tip the guide and driver an additional $500 because they depend on tips for the “majority” of their salary. This is ridiculous; Tauck should pay them what they’re worth and not ding the clients extra, unless each person wants to give extra. HOWEVER, I’d say Tauck is for people who really don’t care what they see as long as they stay in 5-star hotels, don’t have to handle their luggage, and have plenty of time to shop. I sent a letter to Tauck outlining 10 major deficiencies in our trip, including a flight that we were supposed to take from Lisbon to Seville that was canceled—we took our bus for 9 hours—no refund; we were downgraded from a hotel in Seville we were supposed to stay in— no refund. There were numerous “must see” sites that were not included that we had to seek out on our own and pay extra for (e.g. Granada Cathedral, Royal palace in Madrid, the Queluz Palace in Lisbon). Poor scheduling had us in the Prado Museum during peak time—after the impossibly crowded tour, the guide told us when to come later when practically no one was there; we did and enjoyed it. Tauck doesn’t provide any meals on some days, and way too much food on other days—they should balance this. There were just too many cites missing, when it would have been so easy to include them (even if optional for those who didn’t want to go shopping). We were there to see the important cites. One whole day was wasted in Marbella doing nothing—and that’s at a cost of $1000. At least there should have been a guided option to go somewhere interesting—even a walking tour of the old town—but there was nothing except a mediocre beach. Then there were three times we were taken to uninteresting Jewish Quarters in bland areas. Why? We feel we did not get sufficient value from the experience considering the price of the trip. We had very high expectations that Tauck did not meet. We will not travel with Tauck again. We learned our lesson.

Tauck does an excellent job organizing tours. But they are not the best for solo travelers. They will not tell you if other solos are going at least I couldn’t find out, and I was the only one alone on a recent trip. . Given the profile of the other travelers including some families that had to be attached at the hip every second, which made it uncomfortable for me (ie entitled young adult telling me where I could sit so they were all together) probably will not travel with them again unless they will disclose/have other solos - better to go alone and copy their itineraries!

I took a Tauck cruise of Greece called Treasures of the Aegean. The cruise itself was great. All the passengers tested negative for Covid before boarding the ship. However, at the end of the cruise more than 10 percent if the passengers had Covid and had to quarantine. I had known of the risk of Covid, I would never have taken the tour.