Best Of

My wife and I just returned from our third tour with Tauck. Unlike our first two tours, we were
disappointed to find that this one was not up to the standards that we had experienced previously.
We currently have three more trips tentatively scheduled with Tauck for later this year and in 2025,
and based on our experience on this last trip we are considering cancelling all of them.
I thought you might be interested in hearing about some of the things that happened on this last tour
that we found very disappointing, and which are probably going to lead us to look elsewhere for our
future travels. This tour was your “Scandinavia” tour, which for us started on May 27th. Here are
some of the issues we had that made us feel that this tour was not up to Tauck standards:
1. The amount of time spent on the bus was excessive. We learned that in previous years this
tour used flights between Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo instead of the long bus and ferry rides
that we had to take. Flying between those cities would have significantly reduced the excessive
amount of time we had to spend on the bus, and also give us more sightseeing time. We understand
that some customers didn’t like those flights, and I’m not sure what the answer is, but what was done
here, especially on the trip between Stockholm and Copenhagen, is clearly not the answer. We were
on the bus for 7-8 hours to get to from Stockholm to Toftaholm, and then another 5 hours or so to
get to Copenhagen. Way too long to spend sitting on a bus.
2. During the first two or three days of the tour we had two different buses, both of which were
larger than the one we used for the rest of the tour. The third bus, on which we spent most of our
traveling time, was much more cramped than the other two. Not only were the seats narrower than
on the other two buses (to the point where some of the larger people on the bus had to get separate
seats from their spouses because they didn’t have enough room), but the legroom was considerably
less than on the other two buses. While it was theoretically possible to recline the seats, it wasn’t
really practical to do that because of the lack of space between the rows of seats. This made the
many long drives for the rest of the tour even more uncomfortable than they should have been.
3. One of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip was going on our “private,
after-hours visit to Stockholm's Vasa Museum... without crowds ...”. “ But instead of having the
relaxed private after-hours visit we were promised, we left the hotel at 4:00 and were rushed to the
museum, arriving there at around 4:30. The museum closed at 5:00! There was no private after-hours
visit, so at 5:00 sharp we were told we had to leave. That gave us 30 minutes to tour a museum that
you could easily spend a couple of hours in. It was way too short, and we were not the only ones who
were very disappointed that we did not have the private after-hours tour that we were promised and
thought we were paying for.
4. As a result of having to drive the entire tour route, we ended up spending one night in each of
four of the hotels used on the tour. It gets very tiring having to unpack when you get to a hotel and
then re-pack the same night so that your bags can be picked up first thing in the morning. Having to
do this in 4 out of the 8 hotels made the trip more stressful and hectic than it should have been.
5. Because we were driving from Stockholm to Copenhagen instead of flying, we had to make a
hotel stop in-between at the Toftaholm Herrgård hotel. This hotel might have been interesting from a
historical standpoint, but was not up to the hotel standards that we expected and thought we were
paying for. The room was small and dated, as was the bathroom. While it is possible that this was the
best hotel in the area, this stop was the direct result of Tauck deciding to make this entire trip by bus.
We trusted that Tauck had done this itinerary before and that the driving distances were reasonable,
but this was not the case, and apparently this was the first time (based on what we were told) that
this tour was done this way. It certainly taught us that we needed to look at Tauck’s itinerary more
closely than we have in the past.
In addition, the original itinerary indicated that we were to have a “private dance performance”
at the hotel. Instead, when we got there we were told that we were going to have instead a
storyteller and two musicians/singers. Then we were told that the storyteller lost her voice and had
cancelled, so we were left with two not very good musicians/singers playing a violin and an
accordion. While certainly not the most disappointing thing that happened on this trip, it was another
example of things being changed after the fact and not being up to the standards that we expected
from Tauck.
6. The Phoenix hotel in Copenhagen was another change from the Radisson, which is where
people on this tour have stayed in the past. The Radisson was right in downtown Copenhagen, a 5-
minute walk from Tivoli. The Phoenix was a 25-30 minute walk to Tivoli, making it very inconvenient.
To top that off, on the second morning, when we had to check out of the hotel to travel to Oslo, we
all woke up to NO WATER. I don’t mean just no hot water; I mean no water at all. No water to shower
with, brush teeth with, shave, flush toilets, etc. While Tauck may end up getting a credit from the
hotel for this, I doubt that those of us who were impacted and not able to shower that morning will
be seeing any compensation for that significant inconvenience.
7. In Oslo we noted that some people had large rooms with saunas, while the rest of us didn’t. I
think that all your customers should be entitled to the same level of accommodation. Also, we had a
tour of the “Stave Church”, which would have been interesting if the guide that Tauck used knew
anything about it. He was a Ukrainian whose English wasn’t great and whose knowledge of the Stave
Church was based on the paper from which he was reading. It would have been more useful to just
hand those out. We all just felt sorry for the guide. Again, we expected better from Tauck.
8. Finally, in Bergen the hotel was also changed, in this case from the Norge hotel to the Bergen
Bors hotel. I don’t know whether this was an upgrade or a downgrade, but we should have been
informed of it. This was probably the worst hotel in terms of the breakfast and dinner selections at
their buffet, and the only hotel that didn’t have oatmeal available at breakfast. The Chef's response to our request of oatmeal was "what you see is what you get." This would not be a big deal to most people, but it is one of the few things that my wife, who is allergic to dairy, is able to eat for breakfast, which we had informed Tauck about. Every other hotel we stayed in, not only on
this tour but on the previous two tours, had this breakfast staple available, and my wife was not the
only one to note its absence.
9. As you can see, this trip was full of disappointments for many of us, and we didn’t feel that way at all
in connection with our previous two outings with Tauck. I hope you will reconsider some of the
choices you made for this tour, since the end result of this disappointing experience may be that you
are going to lose two customers who plan to do a lot of traveling over the next few years and who
had 3 more tours booked with you. But at this point we are not sure whether we feel confident
enough in Tauck’s ability to provide the experience that we had come to expect.

Sent this 5 days ago, no response.

Tauck says it is full so wondering if anyone here is on the June 21st sailing?