Short trip reviews: Knights and Lights and France

Rapunzellover

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Just came back from Knights and Lights, for the second time, as well as France only. Thought I'd post a quick review of each trip.

Quick thoughts:

1. The Knights and Lights adventure has changed quite a bit since I took it five years ago. Most of the changes were very good. They involved adding archery, scone making, and more time in Windsor. No Stonehenge but that's okay, I think. They also involve adding a great food tour in the Marais District of Paris, a wonderful trip to the chocolate museum with a cool chocolate making activity, and a walking tour of Montmartre with a cool winetasting. All in all, I think it's a much better itinerary. The only change I did not like was the change to the Paris hotel. The Hilton Paris Opera is nice, but the previous hotel, Hotel du collectionuer , was closer to the Champs Elysee, which made it to me a better location. However the Hilton is close to the Galleries Lafayette which is better shopping, imo. Also it seems like the landmark has a lesser quality breakfast now, which was disappointing. And the Hilton's breakfast was nothing compared to the other Paris Hotel. Also, the timing of the Louvre tour is such that you won't get in as in-depth a tour because it will be later in the day and much more crowded in the museum. This was a huge downer to me. All in all, I'd say B+ in changing the itinerary. Mostly good, but a few things were better previously.

2. The France only itinerary will not be offered anymore to make way for the Seine River cruise. This is a huge mistake, imo. This itinerary is absolutely fabulous. The hotel in Deauville in particular is absolutely amazing. And every excursion is fantastic. I would add a couple days to the tour to give more time in some of the locations, and maybe some more time in Deauville, but it was a great, great trip. My only issues with the itinerary were that I wanted more time on my own in Deauville, plus more time in the little villages that we stopped in like Honfluer, and Arromanches-les-bains. I also thought more of the D-Day beaches could've been added, plus maybe Chartres. I really love how this itinerary went to Château Vaux le Vicomte instead of Versailles, as it's actually much less crowded. I also really loved the wine tasting at the Louvre cellars, which I saw had been put on the Knights and lights adventure at one time and then taken off. That's unfortunate. It's a cool tasting. I also really like how they modified the itinerary to go to Musee d l'Orangerie to see the Waterlilies before going to Monet's house. That's a really cool addition to the previous itinerary. Plus, Mont St. Michel is amazing. That will not be a stop on the new river cruise. Which is a shame because it's a must-see in that area . This itinerary gets an A from me.

3. As to the tours themselves: ABD excels at picking their adventure guides and local guides and bus drivers. Plus their restaurants. ABD also excels at little special touches like ice cream when it's really hot and a free beret, or keychain. But as a longtime adventurer, I have noticed that ABD is starting to skimp on certain things. There seemed to be less pins and less photo taking. Less stops for family/group photos. Which I don't mind but some might. There also seems to be a lot more on your own dinners. This seems unnecessary. I would love more special dinners and special locations. A dinner at the shard for example would be cool. Or a Paris dinner at a great French restaurant. I was disappointed that I felt like I spent a lot more out-of-pocket for food on these Adventures than previous ones. Just some little quibbles that I thought some folks might be interested in.

4. Some things to know if you're going to these areas: parliament and big banner under renovation so you will not get that cool shot in the Parliament Square. Westminster Abby is also under construction so you will see a lot of scaffolding there as well. The speedboat ride is not for the faint of heart, in my opinion. Versailles has some rooms closed, so you mayn't see as much inside, plus you may not see Queen Mary's Dolllhouse at Windsor. It was closed.

That's all for now. Feel free to ask questions.
 
I was glad to see your post. I took the London/Paris ABD this summer as well. I agree with you that the activities were fun. But our particular trip did not go smoothly. Below is my letter to my travel agent. She forwarded it to ABD, and in true ABD style, I have had no response. I have the New York long weekend already booked for this November, and I guess I’ll go on it, but it will be my last I suppose. I, too, did not receive the survey. I’d rather ABD addressed my complaint instead of just focusing on new trips. At least send a letter acknowledging my complaint! Anyway, this was my letter:

Thank you for booking my recent London/Paris ABD. We saw many amazing sights, and met some really nice people. That being said, I feel as my travel agent you need to be aware that this trip was, as another guest on my trip said, “a s!*t show”. You know I don’t curse, and I’m not sure what that phrase even means exactly, but it feels like a pretty descriptive term for this Adventure! This was my 8th ABD and I’ve never had so much of my time wasted nor seen my guides so frazzled. As you know, I flew from Paris after the trip directly to Ireland to do my 7th Tauck Bridges tour. Tauck Bridges still sends the kids backpacks before the trips (ABD stopped this a few years ago) so Megan was wearing that backpack for this trip. At least five families by the end of this trip turned her around to take a picture of the Tauck Bridges logo as they had not heard of that company but were now wanting a new option for future travel. Some families had done ABDs before, and we all tried to figure out what the problem was with this one. I thought maybe it was a “big city” problem, but the other families had done Rome with ABD with no issues. I thought it could be that we had such a large group(38). But another family had been on an adventure with 45 people(are you kidding?!) and said it went better than this did. In the end, we could not figure out what the problem was, but the lack of communication from our guides did not help the situation. I think they thought by not addressing it, that people may not notice, but trust me EVERYONE noticed.
At every meeting point, we were waiting 17-20 min(yes, we all started timing) to get started. Everyone was prompt, so it’s not like we were waiting on an adventurer. When it was time to transfer to the Eurostar, we waited for over an hour, maybe closer to an hour and a half. Again, no one was told what the holdup was for about 45 min. Then finally they said the bus was stuck in traffic. When we did arrive at the train station, Fern was told by the woman that we were too late. Fern did a great job of holding her ground and we were let through with much racing about and palpable tension until we were all seated on the train. While we made it to Paris, our luggage did not. Well, it made it to Paris, but not to our hotel. Somehow it didn’t get delivered from the train station while we were at the Louvre for 3 hours. We would have all loved to freshen up for dinner, but without luggage that was impossible. So instead they moved up the dinner to 6:15 and we headed straight there from the Louvre. Not much Disney magic there!
In Paris we met our step on guide Cecile. No one really enjoyed this guide. She repeats herself constantly and her voice grates(she was sick so maybe this was the cause). She does not tell stories and make history come alive—she is fairly dry and long winded. In the Louvre, we were divided into 2 groups with the 2 step on guides. This involves sitting in the Louvre for 20 min while our guides figured this out. Sitting. Waiting. This is after a bathroom break. Sitting. No explanation. Finally they asked us to rearrange ourselves into our family groups so they could figure out the assignments more easily. How is this not done beforehand?!
In Versailles, we were given a bathroom break at the restaurant we lunched at. Then we rode bikes for 45 min and walked back to the bus. Then we rode the bus back to Paris. We then went to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower behind us. At this point it’s been 3-4 hours since our bathroom break. Half of our group was to walk to the Eiffel Tower and half were to reboard the bus and ride to the tower. We were bus riders. The bus riders were to hold at the picture area. We did, but after another 15 min of sitting, waiting, bored, I finally told Frankie that I needed a restroom. He yelled in front of the group that he had 40 people to take care of not just 1, and that he would start building in bathroom breaks every 30 min, and there was no place to go here, so I could go on the bus when we returned. It did not feel like good natured ribbing. As another guest said, “he’s really mad”. We went back to the bus, and I used the facilities there as did several other guests. Then we drove no where near the Eiffel Tower, got off the bus, and followed Cecile with no explanation AWAY from the tower. We went awhile when she realized she had missed her turn, so we turned around and had to retrace our steps back through street crossings to get to a seedy looking store on a side street. Here we had to wait while she purchased our tickets. I’ve NEVER had to go pick tickets up. They ALWAYS magically appear. I asked her why and she said that only 2 companies in France can reserve tickets in advance and her company is not one. So why is Disney not using the company that can get us access?!!
Our farewell dinner was a hot mess. It started out lovely, and then...ugh. We were doing great until the wait from the entree to the dessert. We waited. And waited. Like 45 min from the time they cleared entrees. No explanation. We preordered these meals on Day 1. Megan wanted the fruit for dessert. She does not like sweets, so this was the only option for her. They came to us and said they were out of fruit. How are you out for a preorder? In that 45 min, you could have run out and gotten her a banana or something! So she had nothing. Then after dessert we wait, and wait. No explanation. Finally they say they have been trying to get the slideshow to work. If we had known that was the hour and 15 min holdup, we would have left and gone to see the Eiffel sparkle it something fun. Communication once again did not happen.
For 3 days in a row we did not receive pins. We were starting to wonder. At the farewll dinner they gave us 4 pins which was weird. No explanation as to why that happened. Speaking of pins, as I was getting into my vehicle to go to Disneyland Paris, Frankie pulled my 8 trip pin out of his pocket, said he would mail one for Megan as he was short one, and asked me to give Kristen her 11 trip pin and Jordyn her 4 year pin as they had left in the car ahead of mine for Disneyland. Usually those are given out at the welcome reception with fanfare abd clapping. As Kristen says, those are expensive pieces of jewelry! This was an aside as if they meant nothing. We were also not given postcards on this trip. I do enjoy sending those to people back home. I guess they’ve stopped doing those? Also snacks were only offered on day 1. Never again.
One repeat ABD guest did say rather accurately “there’s no magic in the trips anymore”. Not only is there no magic, but there was not one activity on this trip that I could not have booked on my own. Nothing unique or special. They used to do a West End play and go backstage afterwards. They used to have a behind the scenes Eiffel Tower. No more. Tauck Bridges has trips this year with after hour Louvre visits. How awesome would that be!! The other reason beside special experiences that I book these trips is for the seamlessness. No details to worry about, seamlessly moving from one thing to the next. Not at all so in this trip. My time is precious. Do not waste it. They wasted so much, and you never got the momentum that comes from the excitement of the travel.
If this had been the first thing you ever sold me at this price point I would have fired you as my travel agent. I could have done this trip so much cheaper on my own with much less hassle. As I am a veteran of these things, I will probably shift my business to Tauck Bridges unless I see some huge recompense from Disney. “We are sorry” will not cut it. And I think you should reconsider selling this product. Please forward this letter to Disney. I think they need to know, and it puts the ball in their court as to whether they want to try to retain my business or not.
 
I was glad to see your post. I took the London/Paris ABD this summer as well. I agree with you that the activities were fun. But our particular trip did not go smoothly. Below is my letter to my travel agent. She forwarded it to ABD, and in true ABD style, I have had no response. I have the New York long weekend already booked for this November, and I guess I’ll go on it, but it will be my last I suppose. I, too, did not receive the survey. I’d rather ABD addressed my complaint instead of just focusing on new trips. At least send a letter acknowledging my complaint! Anyway, this was my letter:

Thank you for booking my recent London/Paris ABD. We saw many amazing sights, and met some really nice people. That being said, I feel as my travel agent you need to be aware that this trip was, as another guest on my trip said, “a s!*t show”. You know I don’t curse, and I’m not sure what that phrase even means exactly, but it feels like a pretty descriptive term for this Adventure! This was my 8th ABD and I’ve never had so much of my time wasted nor seen my guides so frazzled. As you know, I flew from Paris after the trip directly to Ireland to do my 7th Tauck Bridges tour. Tauck Bridges still sends the kids backpacks before the trips (ABD stopped this a few years ago) so Megan was wearing that backpack for this trip. At least five families by the end of this trip turned her around to take a picture of the Tauck Bridges logo as they had not heard of that company but were now wanting a new option for future travel. Some families had done ABDs before, and we all tried to figure out what the problem was with this one. I thought maybe it was a “big city” problem, but the other families had done Rome with ABD with no issues. I thought it could be that we had such a large group(38). But another family had been on an adventure with 45 people(are you kidding?!) and said it went better than this did. In the end, we could not figure out what the problem was, but the lack of communication from our guides did not help the situation. I think they thought by not addressing it, that people may not notice, but trust me EVERYONE noticed.
At every meeting point, we were waiting 17-20 min(yes, we all started timing) to get started. Everyone was prompt, so it’s not like we were waiting on an adventurer. When it was time to transfer to the Eurostar, we waited for over an hour, maybe closer to an hour and a half. Again, no one was told what the holdup was for about 45 min. Then finally they said the bus was stuck in traffic. When we did arrive at the train station, Fern was told by the woman that we were too late. Fern did a great job of holding her ground and we were let through with much racing about and palpable tension until we were all seated on the train. While we made it to Paris, our luggage did not. Well, it made it to Paris, but not to our hotel. Somehow it didn’t get delivered from the train station while we were at the Louvre for 3 hours. We would have all loved to freshen up for dinner, but without luggage that was impossible. So instead they moved up the dinner to 6:15 and we headed straight there from the Louvre. Not much Disney magic there!
In Paris we met our step on guide Cecile. No one really enjoyed this guide. She repeats herself constantly and her voice grates(she was sick so maybe this was the cause). She does not tell stories and make history come alive—she is fairly dry and long winded. In the Louvre, we were divided into 2 groups with the 2 step on guides. This involves sitting in the Louvre for 20 min while our guides figured this out. Sitting. Waiting. This is after a bathroom break. Sitting. No explanation. Finally they asked us to rearrange ourselves into our family groups so they could figure out the assignments more easily. How is this not done beforehand?!
In Versailles, we were given a bathroom break at the restaurant we lunched at. Then we rode bikes for 45 min and walked back to the bus. Then we rode the bus back to Paris. We then went to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower behind us. At this point it’s been 3-4 hours since our bathroom break. Half of our group was to walk to the Eiffel Tower and half were to reboard the bus and ride to the tower. We were bus riders. The bus riders were to hold at the picture area. We did, but after another 15 min of sitting, waiting, bored, I finally told Frankie that I needed a restroom. He yelled in front of the group that he had 40 people to take care of not just 1, and that he would start building in bathroom breaks every 30 min, and there was no place to go here, so I could go on the bus when we returned. It did not feel like good natured ribbing. As another guest said, “he’s really mad”. We went back to the bus, and I used the facilities there as did several other guests. Then we drove no where near the Eiffel Tower, got off the bus, and followed Cecile with no explanation AWAY from the tower. We went awhile when she realized she had missed her turn, so we turned around and had to retrace our steps back through street crossings to get to a seedy looking store on a side street. Here we had to wait while she purchased our tickets. I’ve NEVER had to go pick tickets up. They ALWAYS magically appear. I asked her why and she said that only 2 companies in France can reserve tickets in advance and her company is not one. So why is Disney not using the company that can get us access?!!
Our farewell dinner was a hot mess. It started out lovely, and then...ugh. We were doing great until the wait from the entree to the dessert. We waited. And waited. Like 45 min from the time they cleared entrees. No explanation. We preordered these meals on Day 1. Megan wanted the fruit for dessert. She does not like sweets, so this was the only option for her. They came to us and said they were out of fruit. How are you out for a preorder? In that 45 min, you could have run out and gotten her a banana or something! So she had nothing. Then after dessert we wait, and wait. No explanation. Finally they say they have been trying to get the slideshow to work. If we had known that was the hour and 15 min holdup, we would have left and gone to see the Eiffel sparkle it something fun. Communication once again did not happen.
For 3 days in a row we did not receive pins. We were starting to wonder. At the farewll dinner they gave us 4 pins which was weird. No explanation as to why that happened. Speaking of pins, as I was getting into my vehicle to go to Disneyland Paris, Frankie pulled my 8 trip pin out of his pocket, said he would mail one for Megan as he was short one, and asked me to give Kristen her 11 trip pin and Jordyn her 4 year pin as they had left in the car ahead of mine for Disneyland. Usually those are given out at the welcome reception with fanfare abd clapping. As Kristen says, those are expensive pieces of jewelry! This was an aside as if they meant nothing. We were also not given postcards on this trip. I do enjoy sending those to people back home. I guess they’ve stopped doing those? Also snacks were only offered on day 1. Never again.
One repeat ABD guest did say rather accurately “there’s no magic in the trips anymore”. Not only is there no magic, but there was not one activity on this trip that I could not have booked on my own. Nothing unique or special. They used to do a West End play and go backstage afterwards. They used to have a behind the scenes Eiffel Tower. No more. Tauck Bridges has trips this year with after hour Louvre visits. How awesome would that be!! The other reason beside special experiences that I book these trips is for the seamlessness. No details to worry about, seamlessly moving from one thing to the next. Not at all so in this trip. My time is precious. Do not waste it. They wasted so much, and you never got the momentum that comes from the excitement of the travel.
If this had been the first thing you ever sold me at this price point I would have fired you as my travel agent. I could have done this trip so much cheaper on my own with much less hassle. As I am a veteran of these things, I will probably shift my business to Tauck Bridges unless I see some huge recompense from Disney. “We are sorry” will not cut it. And I think you should reconsider selling this product. Please forward this letter to Disney. I think they need to know, and it puts the ball in their court as to whether they want to try to retain my business or not.
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

That is just unbelievable! If you ever find out what happened, or get some sort of explanation from ABD, I'd *love* to hear it. "Something was just wrong" indeed!!!

Sayhello
 
I was glad to see your post. I took the London/Paris ABD this summer as well. I agree with you that the activities were fun. But our particular trip did not go smoothly. Below is my letter to my travel agent. She forwarded it to ABD, and in true ABD style, I have had no response. I have the New York long weekend already booked for this November, and I guess I’ll go on it, but it will be my last I suppose. I, too, did not receive the survey. I’d rather ABD addressed my complaint instead of just focusing on new trips. At least send a letter acknowledging my complaint! Anyway, this was my letter:

Thank you for booking my recent London/Paris ABD. We saw many amazing sights, and met some really nice people. That being said, I feel as my travel agent you need to be aware that this trip was, as another guest on my trip said, “a s!*t show”. You know I don’t curse, and I’m not sure what that phrase even means exactly, but it feels like a pretty descriptive term for this Adventure! This was my 8th ABD and I’ve never had so much of my time wasted nor seen my guides so frazzled. As you know, I flew from Paris after the trip directly to Ireland to do my 7th Tauck Bridges tour. Tauck Bridges still sends the kids backpacks before the trips (ABD stopped this a few years ago) so Megan was wearing that backpack for this trip. At least five families by the end of this trip turned her around to take a picture of the Tauck Bridges logo as they had not heard of that company but were now wanting a new option for future travel. Some families had done ABDs before, and we all tried to figure out what the problem was with this one. I thought maybe it was a “big city” problem, but the other families had done Rome with ABD with no issues. I thought it could be that we had such a large group(38). But another family had been on an adventure with 45 people(are you kidding?!) and said it went better than this did. In the end, we could not figure out what the problem was, but the lack of communication from our guides did not help the situation. I think they thought by not addressing it, that people may not notice, but trust me EVERYONE noticed.
At every meeting point, we were waiting 17-20 min(yes, we all started timing) to get started. Everyone was prompt, so it’s not like we were waiting on an adventurer. When it was time to transfer to the Eurostar, we waited for over an hour, maybe closer to an hour and a half. Again, no one was told what the holdup was for about 45 min. Then finally they said the bus was stuck in traffic. When we did arrive at the train station, Fern was told by the woman that we were too late. Fern did a great job of holding her ground and we were let through with much racing about and palpable tension until we were all seated on the train. While we made it to Paris, our luggage did not. Well, it made it to Paris, but not to our hotel. Somehow it didn’t get delivered from the train station while we were at the Louvre for 3 hours. We would have all loved to freshen up for dinner, but without luggage that was impossible. So instead they moved up the dinner to 6:15 and we headed straight there from the Louvre. Not much Disney magic there!
In Paris we met our step on guide Cecile. No one really enjoyed this guide. She repeats herself constantly and her voice grates(she was sick so maybe this was the cause). She does not tell stories and make history come alive—she is fairly dry and long winded. In the Louvre, we were divided into 2 groups with the 2 step on guides. This involves sitting in the Louvre for 20 min while our guides figured this out. Sitting. Waiting. This is after a bathroom break. Sitting. No explanation. Finally they asked us to rearrange ourselves into our family groups so they could figure out the assignments more easily. How is this not done beforehand?!
In Versailles, we were given a bathroom break at the restaurant we lunched at. Then we rode bikes for 45 min and walked back to the bus. Then we rode the bus back to Paris. We then went to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower behind us. At this point it’s been 3-4 hours since our bathroom break. Half of our group was to walk to the Eiffel Tower and half were to reboard the bus and ride to the tower. We were bus riders. The bus riders were to hold at the picture area. We did, but after another 15 min of sitting, waiting, bored, I finally told Frankie that I needed a restroom. He yelled in front of the group that he had 40 people to take care of not just 1, and that he would start building in bathroom breaks every 30 min, and there was no place to go here, so I could go on the bus when we returned. It did not feel like good natured ribbing. As another guest said, “he’s really mad”. We went back to the bus, and I used the facilities there as did several other guests. Then we drove no where near the Eiffel Tower, got off the bus, and followed Cecile with no explanation AWAY from the tower. We went awhile when she realized she had missed her turn, so we turned around and had to retrace our steps back through street crossings to get to a seedy looking store on a side street. Here we had to wait while she purchased our tickets. I’ve NEVER had to go pick tickets up. They ALWAYS magically appear. I asked her why and she said that only 2 companies in France can reserve tickets in advance and her company is not one. So why is Disney not using the company that can get us access?!!
Our farewell dinner was a hot mess. It started out lovely, and then...ugh. We were doing great until the wait from the entree to the dessert. We waited. And waited. Like 45 min from the time they cleared entrees. No explanation. We preordered these meals on Day 1. Megan wanted the fruit for dessert. She does not like sweets, so this was the only option for her. They came to us and said they were out of fruit. How are you out for a preorder? In that 45 min, you could have run out and gotten her a banana or something! So she had nothing. Then after dessert we wait, and wait. No explanation. Finally they say they have been trying to get the slideshow to work. If we had known that was the hour and 15 min holdup, we would have left and gone to see the Eiffel sparkle it something fun. Communication once again did not happen.
For 3 days in a row we did not receive pins. We were starting to wonder. At the farewll dinner they gave us 4 pins which was weird. No explanation as to why that happened. Speaking of pins, as I was getting into my vehicle to go to Disneyland Paris, Frankie pulled my 8 trip pin out of his pocket, said he would mail one for Megan as he was short one, and asked me to give Kristen her 11 trip pin and Jordyn her 4 year pin as they had left in the car ahead of mine for Disneyland. Usually those are given out at the welcome reception with fanfare abd clapping. As Kristen says, those are expensive pieces of jewelry! This was an aside as if they meant nothing. We were also not given postcards on this trip. I do enjoy sending those to people back home. I guess they’ve stopped doing those? Also snacks were only offered on day 1. Never again.
One repeat ABD guest did say rather accurately “there’s no magic in the trips anymore”. Not only is there no magic, but there was not one activity on this trip that I could not have booked on my own. Nothing unique or special. They used to do a West End play and go backstage afterwards. They used to have a behind the scenes Eiffel Tower. No more. Tauck Bridges has trips this year with after hour Louvre visits. How awesome would that be!! The other reason beside special experiences that I book these trips is for the seamlessness. No details to worry about, seamlessly moving from one thing to the next. Not at all so in this trip. My time is precious. Do not waste it. They wasted so much, and you never got the momentum that comes from the excitement of the travel.
If this had been the first thing you ever sold me at this price point I would have fired you as my travel agent. I could have done this trip so much cheaper on my own with much less hassle. As I am a veteran of these things, I will probably shift my business to Tauck Bridges unless I see some huge recompense from Disney. “We are sorry” will not cut it. And I think you should reconsider selling this product. Please forward this letter to Disney. I think they need to know, and it puts the ball in their court as to whether they want to try to retain my business or not.
:sad1: Oh my goodness. I can’t even imagine your disappointment! We’ve got this trip booked for next year and have been so excited! Ugh. I can’t even imagine. Please let us know what comes of this!
 


I was glad to see your post. I took the London/Paris ABD this summer as well. I agree with you that the activities were fun. But our particular trip did not go smoothly. Below is my letter to my travel agent. She forwarded it to ABD, and in true ABD style, I have had no response. I have the New York long weekend already booked for this November, and I guess I’ll go on it, but it will be my last I suppose. I, too, did not receive the survey. I’d rather ABD addressed my complaint instead of just focusing on new trips. At least send a letter acknowledging my complaint! Anyway, this was my letter:

Thank you for booking my recent London/Paris ABD. We saw many amazing sights, and met some really nice people. That being said, I feel as my travel agent you need to be aware that this trip was, as another guest on my trip said, “a s!*t show”. You know I don’t curse, and I’m not sure what that phrase even means exactly, but it feels like a pretty descriptive term for this Adventure! This was my 8th ABD and I’ve never had so much of my time wasted nor seen my guides so frazzled. As you know, I flew from Paris after the trip directly to Ireland to do my 7th Tauck Bridges tour. Tauck Bridges still sends the kids backpacks before the trips (ABD stopped this a few years ago) so Megan was wearing that backpack for this trip. At least five families by the end of this trip turned her around to take a picture of the Tauck Bridges logo as they had not heard of that company but were now wanting a new option for future travel. Some families had done ABDs before, and we all tried to figure out what the problem was with this one. I thought maybe it was a “big city” problem, but the other families had done Rome with ABD with no issues. I thought it could be that we had such a large group(38). But another family had been on an adventure with 45 people(are you kidding?!) and said it went better than this did. In the end, we could not figure out what the problem was, but the lack of communication from our guides did not help the situation. I think they thought by not addressing it, that people may not notice, but trust me EVERYONE noticed.
At every meeting point, we were waiting 17-20 min(yes, we all started timing) to get started. Everyone was prompt, so it’s not like we were waiting on an adventurer. When it was time to transfer to the Eurostar, we waited for over an hour, maybe closer to an hour and a half. Again, no one was told what the holdup was for about 45 min. Then finally they said the bus was stuck in traffic. When we did arrive at the train station, Fern was told by the woman that we were too late. Fern did a great job of holding her ground and we were let through with much racing about and palpable tension until we were all seated on the train. While we made it to Paris, our luggage did not. Well, it made it to Paris, but not to our hotel. Somehow it didn’t get delivered from the train station while we were at the Louvre for 3 hours. We would have all loved to freshen up for dinner, but without luggage that was impossible. So instead they moved up the dinner to 6:15 and we headed straight there from the Louvre. Not much Disney magic there!
In Paris we met our step on guide Cecile. No one really enjoyed this guide. She repeats herself constantly and her voice grates(she was sick so maybe this was the cause). She does not tell stories and make history come alive—she is fairly dry and long winded. In the Louvre, we were divided into 2 groups with the 2 step on guides. This involves sitting in the Louvre for 20 min while our guides figured this out. Sitting. Waiting. This is after a bathroom break. Sitting. No explanation. Finally they asked us to rearrange ourselves into our family groups so they could figure out the assignments more easily. How is this not done beforehand?!
In Versailles, we were given a bathroom break at the restaurant we lunched at. Then we rode bikes for 45 min and walked back to the bus. Then we rode the bus back to Paris. We then went to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower behind us. At this point it’s been 3-4 hours since our bathroom break. Half of our group was to walk to the Eiffel Tower and half were to reboard the bus and ride to the tower. We were bus riders. The bus riders were to hold at the picture area. We did, but after another 15 min of sitting, waiting, bored, I finally told Frankie that I needed a restroom. He yelled in front of the group that he had 40 people to take care of not just 1, and that he would start building in bathroom breaks every 30 min, and there was no place to go here, so I could go on the bus when we returned. It did not feel like good natured ribbing. As another guest said, “he’s really mad”. We went back to the bus, and I used the facilities there as did several other guests. Then we drove no where near the Eiffel Tower, got off the bus, and followed Cecile with no explanation AWAY from the tower. We went awhile when she realized she had missed her turn, so we turned around and had to retrace our steps back through street crossings to get to a seedy looking store on a side street. Here we had to wait while she purchased our tickets. I’ve NEVER had to go pick tickets up. They ALWAYS magically appear. I asked her why and she said that only 2 companies in France can reserve tickets in advance and her company is not one. So why is Disney not using the company that can get us access?!!
Our farewell dinner was a hot mess. It started out lovely, and then...ugh. We were doing great until the wait from the entree to the dessert. We waited. And waited. Like 45 min from the time they cleared entrees. No explanation. We preordered these meals on Day 1. Megan wanted the fruit for dessert. She does not like sweets, so this was the only option for her. They came to us and said they were out of fruit. How are you out for a preorder? In that 45 min, you could have run out and gotten her a banana or something! So she had nothing. Then after dessert we wait, and wait. No explanation. Finally they say they have been trying to get the slideshow to work. If we had known that was the hour and 15 min holdup, we would have left and gone to see the Eiffel sparkle it something fun. Communication once again did not happen.
For 3 days in a row we did not receive pins. We were starting to wonder. At the farewll dinner they gave us 4 pins which was weird. No explanation as to why that happened. Speaking of pins, as I was getting into my vehicle to go to Disneyland Paris, Frankie pulled my 8 trip pin out of his pocket, said he would mail one for Megan as he was short one, and asked me to give Kristen her 11 trip pin and Jordyn her 4 year pin as they had left in the car ahead of mine for Disneyland. Usually those are given out at the welcome reception with fanfare abd clapping. As Kristen says, those are expensive pieces of jewelry! This was an aside as if they meant nothing. We were also not given postcards on this trip. I do enjoy sending those to people back home. I guess they’ve stopped doing those? Also snacks were only offered on day 1. Never again.
One repeat ABD guest did say rather accurately “there’s no magic in the trips anymore”. Not only is there no magic, but there was not one activity on this trip that I could not have booked on my own. Nothing unique or special. They used to do a West End play and go backstage afterwards. They used to have a behind the scenes Eiffel Tower. No more. Tauck Bridges has trips this year with after hour Louvre visits. How awesome would that be!! The other reason beside special experiences that I book these trips is for the seamlessness. No details to worry about, seamlessly moving from one thing to the next. Not at all so in this trip. My time is precious. Do not waste it. They wasted so much, and you never got the momentum that comes from the excitement of the travel.
If this had been the first thing you ever sold me at this price point I would have fired you as my travel agent. I could have done this trip so much cheaper on my own with much less hassle. As I am a veteran of these things, I will probably shift my business to Tauck Bridges unless I see some huge recompense from Disney. “We are sorry” will not cut it. And I think you should reconsider selling this product. Please forward this letter to Disney. I think they need to know, and it puts the ball in their court as to whether they want to try to retain my business or not.
That’s just awful! DH and I are going to London and Paris next May, and we took a (brief) look at Knights & Lights, but it was too expensive for us. If we had bitten the bullet with ABD and had that experience, DH would never speak to me again. (We’re taking an Anne Boleyn tour before heading to Paris. Yes, I’m an English history geek.)

As @sayhello said, please let us know if you get a response from ABD.
 
Wow!!!! That definitely doesn't sound very magical. Were they new guides? Still no excuse, but I wonder how they could have let things go so wrong.

I, too, would be very interested in what ABD has to say.

Reading your letter reminded me of my feelings after the ABD Baltic cruise add on. I didn't have nearly the bad experience you did, but I also left with the feeling that it was nothing special that I couldn't have done on my own for much less money.
 
I was glad to see your post. I took the London/Paris ABD this summer as well. I agree with you that the activities were fun. But our particular trip did not go smoothly. Below is my letter to my travel agent. She forwarded it to ABD, and in true ABD style, I have had no response. I have the New York long weekend already booked for this November, and I guess I’ll go on it, but it will be my last I suppose. I, too, did not receive the survey. I’d rather ABD addressed my complaint instead of just focusing on new trips. At least send a letter acknowledging my complaint! Anyway, this was my letter:

Thank you for booking my recent London/Paris ABD. We saw many amazing sights, and met some really nice people. That being said, I feel as my travel agent you need to be aware that this trip was, as another guest on my trip said, “a s!*t show”. You know I don’t curse, and I’m not sure what that phrase even means exactly, but it feels like a pretty descriptive term for this Adventure! This was my 8th ABD and I’ve never had so much of my time wasted nor seen my guides so frazzled. As you know, I flew from Paris after the trip directly to Ireland to do my 7th Tauck Bridges tour. Tauck Bridges still sends the kids backpacks before the trips (ABD stopped this a few years ago) so Megan was wearing that backpack for this trip. At least five families by the end of this trip turned her around to take a picture of the Tauck Bridges logo as they had not heard of that company but were now wanting a new option for future travel. Some families had done ABDs before, and we all tried to figure out what the problem was with this one. I thought maybe it was a “big city” problem, but the other families had done Rome with ABD with no issues. I thought it could be that we had such a large group(38). But another family had been on an adventure with 45 people(are you kidding?!) and said it went better than this did. In the end, we could not figure out what the problem was, but the lack of communication from our guides did not help the situation. I think they thought by not addressing it, that people may not notice, but trust me EVERYONE noticed.
At every meeting point, we were waiting 17-20 min(yes, we all started timing) to get started. Everyone was prompt, so it’s not like we were waiting on an adventurer. When it was time to transfer to the Eurostar, we waited for over an hour, maybe closer to an hour and a half. Again, no one was told what the holdup was for about 45 min. Then finally they said the bus was stuck in traffic. When we did arrive at the train station, Fern was told by the woman that we were too late. Fern did a great job of holding her ground and we were let through with much racing about and palpable tension until we were all seated on the train. While we made it to Paris, our luggage did not. Well, it made it to Paris, but not to our hotel. Somehow it didn’t get delivered from the train station while we were at the Louvre for 3 hours. We would have all loved to freshen up for dinner, but without luggage that was impossible. So instead they moved up the dinner to 6:15 and we headed straight there from the Louvre. Not much Disney magic there!
In Paris we met our step on guide Cecile. No one really enjoyed this guide. She repeats herself constantly and her voice grates(she was sick so maybe this was the cause). She does not tell stories and make history come alive—she is fairly dry and long winded. In the Louvre, we were divided into 2 groups with the 2 step on guides. This involves sitting in the Louvre for 20 min while our guides figured this out. Sitting. Waiting. This is after a bathroom break. Sitting. No explanation. Finally they asked us to rearrange ourselves into our family groups so they could figure out the assignments more easily. How is this not done beforehand?!
In Versailles, we were given a bathroom break at the restaurant we lunched at. Then we rode bikes for 45 min and walked back to the bus. Then we rode the bus back to Paris. We then went to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower behind us. At this point it’s been 3-4 hours since our bathroom break. Half of our group was to walk to the Eiffel Tower and half were to reboard the bus and ride to the tower. We were bus riders. The bus riders were to hold at the picture area. We did, but after another 15 min of sitting, waiting, bored, I finally told Frankie that I needed a restroom. He yelled in front of the group that he had 40 people to take care of not just 1, and that he would start building in bathroom breaks every 30 min, and there was no place to go here, so I could go on the bus when we returned. It did not feel like good natured ribbing. As another guest said, “he’s really mad”. We went back to the bus, and I used the facilities there as did several other guests. Then we drove no where near the Eiffel Tower, got off the bus, and followed Cecile with no explanation AWAY from the tower. We went awhile when she realized she had missed her turn, so we turned around and had to retrace our steps back through street crossings to get to a seedy looking store on a side street. Here we had to wait while she purchased our tickets. I’ve NEVER had to go pick tickets up. They ALWAYS magically appear. I asked her why and she said that only 2 companies in France can reserve tickets in advance and her company is not one. So why is Disney not using the company that can get us access?!!
Our farewell dinner was a hot mess. It started out lovely, and then...ugh. We were doing great until the wait from the entree to the dessert. We waited. And waited. Like 45 min from the time they cleared entrees. No explanation. We preordered these meals on Day 1. Megan wanted the fruit for dessert. She does not like sweets, so this was the only option for her. They came to us and said they were out of fruit. How are you out for a preorder? In that 45 min, you could have run out and gotten her a banana or something! So she had nothing. Then after dessert we wait, and wait. No explanation. Finally they say they have been trying to get the slideshow to work. If we had known that was the hour and 15 min holdup, we would have left and gone to see the Eiffel sparkle it something fun. Communication once again did not happen.
For 3 days in a row we did not receive pins. We were starting to wonder. At the farewll dinner they gave us 4 pins which was weird. No explanation as to why that happened. Speaking of pins, as I was getting into my vehicle to go to Disneyland Paris, Frankie pulled my 8 trip pin out of his pocket, said he would mail one for Megan as he was short one, and asked me to give Kristen her 11 trip pin and Jordyn her 4 year pin as they had left in the car ahead of mine for Disneyland. Usually those are given out at the welcome reception with fanfare abd clapping. As Kristen says, those are expensive pieces of jewelry! This was an aside as if they meant nothing. We were also not given postcards on this trip. I do enjoy sending those to people back home. I guess they’ve stopped doing those? Also snacks were only offered on day 1. Never again.
One repeat ABD guest did say rather accurately “there’s no magic in the trips anymore”. Not only is there no magic, but there was not one activity on this trip that I could not have booked on my own. Nothing unique or special. They used to do a West End play and go backstage afterwards. They used to have a behind the scenes Eiffel Tower. No more. Tauck Bridges has trips this year with after hour Louvre visits. How awesome would that be!! The other reason beside special experiences that I book these trips is for the seamlessness. No details to worry about, seamlessly moving from one thing to the next. Not at all so in this trip. My time is precious. Do not waste it. They wasted so much, and you never got the momentum that comes from the excitement of the travel.
If this had been the first thing you ever sold me at this price point I would have fired you as my travel agent. I could have done this trip so much cheaper on my own with much less hassle. As I am a veteran of these things, I will probably shift my business to Tauck Bridges unless I see some huge recompense from Disney. “We are sorry” will not cut it. And I think you should reconsider selling this product. Please forward this letter to Disney. I think they need to know, and it puts the ball in their court as to whether they want to try to retain my business or not.

If I were you I would be livid. Based on what I have heard, however, I guess I wouldn't hold my breath for a response from ABD.

I also did Tauck Bridges Ireland this summer and it was one of our favorite trips ever! We truly loved Scott, if he was who you had in Ireland. Our trip was even a bit messed up in Dublin because of the local marathon, but activities were reshuffled and it was handled so well.
 


This is such a bummer!

We took this trip a few years ago and Christmas time and we did have 'city' delays but we had the wonderful Laura B. and Francesc and they kept us constantly informed and it had no impact on the trip.

I do have to admit that I am starting to get bummed with ABD. We had a great trip to Belize with another company this summer at a much lower price point (it was a shorter trip than ABD generally does but I have found I can add OYO days with a much lower price tag) and did an OYO trip to Washington DC where we followed the ABD itinerary and the cost (for the three of us) was less than for one on the ABD.

I have loved this product so much but there do appear to be changes in quality and I was so dismayed with the survey to see prices just continue to rise. We are doing Backstage Magic this coming summer but that will probably be our last, too. So sad!
 
If enough folks say their views maybe they will hear us even if they are run by a different company.
 
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That’s just awful! DH and I are going to London and Paris next May, and we took a (brief) look at Knights & Lights, but it was too expensive for us. If we had bitten the bullet with ABD and had that experience, DH would never speak to me again. (We’re taking an Anne Boleyn tour before heading to Paris. Yes, I’m an English history geek.)

As @sayhello said, please let us know if you get a response from ABD.


An Anne Boleyn tour??? Sounds amazing! Who is that with? (I’m an English history geek too, lol)
 
The actual head-chopping block is on display in the Tower of London. One of the Beefeater describes the details of how it was done in the yard outside the castle.

-Paul
 

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