Got our Green Book (UPDATED)

The Green Book for our 22 March departure arrived today. As usual, I compare the website and Green Book information and itineraries. A few Green Book descriptions differ from those on the website which is typical.

The Green Book sort of clears up the Jordanian visa question. It says, "All guests will be met at the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman by a Tauck representative. Upon your arrival, please proceed through Immigration, where a Tauck representative will be waiting with a Tauck sign" Then on the next page it says, "The Jordanian visa will be issued upon arrival to the airport at no cost." I said this "sort of" answers the question because you'll need a visa to "proceed through Immigration." Will there be two reps then? One before Immigration?? Or are our names on a list? I guess I'll call Tauck tomorrow unless one of the first group of J & E travelers reports in.

The Green Book does not address the Egyptian visa. You'll need to refer to the "Travel Documents" section of the "Before You Go" on the website which says,

"The Egypt visa will be issued on tour and is included in the tour cost."

Now to one of my favorite topics- the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). No mention is made of visiting the GEM in the Green Book, unfortunately that is what I expected. However, the itinerary in the Green Book for Day 10 has changed. Like the website, the Green Book itinerary starts out with, "We'll be disembarking ship for an early flight to Cairo" then adds this new text, "We'll visit the National Museum (Old Egyptian Museum) with a local guide." But then on Day 12 both the Green Book and the online itinerary include this text, "Join our local guide for a visit to the Old Egyptian Museum this afternoon, housing the world's largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including many of the treasures found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Join us for a farewell reception and dinner at your hotel tonight."

Do we visit the Old Museum twice? Is an error? Is one a placeholder for a behind the scenes tour which, based on what I learned recently, probably a non-starter? With all the objects that have already been moved to the GEM, what is left to see in the Old Museum; is it worth two visits? More questions for Tauck.

Oh, and one error; On Day 11- As I understand it, The Solar Boat Museum was not "built to house a replica of the cedar ship that was unearthed next to the Great Pyramid . . ." it houses an actual full size boat which was reassembled (the ship was disassembled around the funeral rites into 1224 small pieces and preserved about 2500 BC.) I guess since it has no mast or rigging and may not have been built to sail, but it bears some signs of having been used in water, theoretically you could call it a replica. But, at ****143 ft long****, it is not what I would call a replica!!!

Comments

  • edited January 2020

    Not only does the green book vary from the itinerary given on the website these days. When you arrive on the tour, the tour director gives you their version. I’m not saying you don’t do everything that is first mentioned on the website and why most of us book that particular tour, but things get changed around, and then there are the ‘surprise’ Items that happen. That’s why it makes it difficult for those people who wanted to do any extra things in what they think are amounts of spare time. That’s why we rarely schedule any extras during the tour before we arrive and at least are given the tour director’s version. Even so, on our last tour, whole days got switched around at the last minute. I didn’t mind at all, but the one thing extra we booked just the day before on one of the days, which was only a massage became a rush to get there, even though we had given ourselves lots of extra time to allow for arriving late back from our morning activity, once again, the itinerary had an added item and we arrived back just in time for us to rush there. When we really want to do or see a place, quite often it’s at the start city, so we arrive early and schedule it before the tour begins.
    Alan, I guess you will be calling Tauck about your green book today.

  • I called Tauck and got my answers-

    A rep will meet us with our visa/visa paperwork before we reach immigration at Queen Alia Airport in Amman.

    Our tour now visits the Old Egyptian museum on Day 10, not day 12.

    The rep said they will send me a corrected Green book. I suspect they will eventually correct the website itinerary, however, since this is essentially a new tour, I also suspect the itinerary will change several more times over the next year or so.

    I forgot to reconfirm about the dinner after Petra day. The website and Green Book say, "Join us tonight for a private tented dinner in the desert, enjoying a fruit-infused hubbly-bubbly smoke, music and dancing by a local troupe of sword dancers." That is similar to what it says about the farewell dinner in Petra on the the Israel & Jordan tour. However, during a previous call to Tauck, I was told the tented Bedouin-style dinner has been replaced with a choice of dining with a local family or dinner at the Movenpick hotel.

  • This is a new tour so I suspect all the bugs are still being worked out. In any event, hope you have the tented dinner and the Jordanian sword dancers. That was a truly awesome evening and it was so much fun. About two-thirds of our group would up dancing in and around the tables with the swordsmen - a lot of wine was had by all. Got some great videos and the music was pretty good to go with it.

  • Our group had 100% participation, which the TD said is a rarity :-)

  • We were glad the Jordanian Swordsmen weren't drinking !

  • So AlanS, I’m wondering why you got this Green Book for your 3/22 tour and we haven’t received anything yet for our 3/15 tour! Maybe we should make a call too.

  • edited January 2020

    When did you make the final payment? I made ours on 3 Jan. We haven't received the corrected one yet. I suspect all had the same errors so a number of reprints were necessary. Maybe they also decided to include the reported change to the dinner on the second night in Petra. Give them a call, the agents should be able to tell you the mailing date.

  • Thanks Alan. We did call and I suspect the info had fallen through the cracks because the travel agent sent a message later that our stuff is in the mail! I look forward to seeing it. I wonder if it will be the corrected one or the original one?

  • Virginia Sue - we sent you a separate email. Look top right of Forum page.

  • edited January 2020

    UPDATE on Jordan and Egypt Itinerary:

    Above I mentioned there were issues with the Jordan & Egypt tour Green Book itinerary. Today I called about another trip but used the opportunity to get clarification about Jordan and Egypt, specifically about eating in Petra. The information I received in a previous call about the dinner on Day 4 was actually for Day 3. We arrive in Petra late in the afternoon on Day 3 and have free time at the hotel before dinner. For dinner on Day 3 (not Day 4 like I said above) we have a choice of two restaurants at the Movenpick, our hotel, or dinner with a local family.

    Dinner on Day 4 (after touring Petra) is as the Green Book says, "Join us tonight for a private tented dinner in the desert, enjoying a fruit-infused hubbly-bubbly smoke, music and dancing by a local troupe of sword dancers." However, the agent provided additional information- the dinner is at "Little Petra"!

    Little Petra (Siq al-Barid "Cold Canyon)" is 15 min. north of Petra. It is similar to but a much small archaeological site than Petra, but it has a Siq and rock-cut temples, tombs and other structures. It was thought to have served as an agricultural center, trading suburb and resupply post for camel caravans visiting Petra.

    Until one of the previous travelers on Israel & Jordan or better yet a recent traveller on Jordan & Egypt weighs in to confirm or correct my info, I suspect we don't actually have dinner in the Little Petra site, but instead, at or nearby one of a number of "Bedouin Camps" in the area.

  • Virginia Sue
    10:44AM

    Thanks Alan. We did call and I suspect the info had fallen through the cracks because the travel agent sent a message . . .

    So you book through a Travel Agent? That seems to be a common reason for poor communications or delays in getting tour info and materials, and the reason we never use a travel agent- no need to have a middleman. If the tour is booked using a TA, Tauck is required to send everything to them.

  • Contrary to Alan's post we always use a Travel Agent for booking Tauck and any other company. He is a CERTIFIED TAUCK travel agent, voted in the top 50 out of 80,000 travel agents, costs us nothing, and makes life so much easier. His communications with us has been outstanding. He gets us great prices and flights on Tauck Business Class Air, and as another example was able to cancel our planned Kangaroo Island Australian trip and helped move monies to the Egypt trip in 30 minutes and even was able to work with Tauck to get the best room available aboard the Nile river boat. Far shorter time then what we would have needed and again zero cost. We prefer to use the middle man so we don't have to deal with airlines and the details for a trip. If we have a question we ask him and gets an answer quickly through his contacts. Would not plan a trip without his help.

  • edited January 2020

    Gee, I'm getting a lot of heat on the topic of TA's!

    Many people feel their TA is great, so by all means they should continue to use them if they feel they see a need or see some value added. But for others a TA is not needed for Tauck trips. With the possible exception of a discount (not permitted or approved by Tauck), possibly generated by commission sharing, I see nothing offered by a TA that I can't or haven't done myself, including getting my selected cabin on the Zahra for our upcoming J&E trip, cancelling a trip within a few weeks of departure and getting refund of 100% of my investment, including air fare not booked with Tauck, getting good air fares on my own (FYI, except in the case of a late booking, I ALWAYS beat Tauck air fares), moving money from one trip to another, etc. But, I have never had problems getting things from Tauck in a timely manner (Summary of Purchase, Green Book, luggage tags, duffel bags, etc.), unlike a number of people on this forum who have reported this problem because they used a TA and everything must go from Tauck through the TA. We actually had that issue with a TA last summer in the run-up to our Disney trip and cruise- they never got our luggage tags straightened out. Additionally, I had a few other questions for Disney- Disney explained since we went through a TA they would not/could not answer. Instead they directed me back to my TA who was unavailable- out of the office on a Disney cruise! While some would disagree, I find that for a rookie like me, booking a Disney cruise package is too daunting and too confusing to do without the help of a knowledgeable TA.

    That being said, if you are a hands-on person like me (retired and with time to spare), and really enjoy doing all the research and the planning involved in getting the most out of trips like these, you don't need a TA. It really is a "to each his/her own" situation. Though it is slightly different since it involves money, it is similar to using a visa application company instead of acquiring a visa on your own. I'm not against TA's as such and who knows, if we keep traveling, someday I might decide to go that route.

  • edited January 2020

    Yes, travel agent or just going through Tauck is a personal choice. But like Alan, both here on the forum and in hearing conversations while I am on tours, I hear over and over again that those who used travel agents were the people who did not receive things like green books, duffels or even basic correct information about what was included on the tour. On our first tours, we used Tauck a lot for our flights, but soon realized that they were not the cheapest and more importantly for us, not the most convenient or direct flights. We now almost always book through Amex as we get 5x points with them, good to use for any airline.
    Tauck just the other day canceled one of our upcoming tours and although we have had to go to the trouble of changing our flights for another date, Tauck will be issuing us a check for the change fee. I was also reading recently on another forum that someone who uses an agent was unable to get hold of their agent for a major problem because the agent was on vacation, so that’s something to consider.
    If we started to use an agent, we would have to find one and develop a relationship so they would know the type of vacation we like, so for now, we are stuck with not using one. But, I do wish that Tauck’s new website was better at looking at tours, I find it quite dreadful compared to the old site when I would frequently look at different itineraries. Now it’s so time consuming and difficult I barely bother And so I’m not seeing tours I might be interested in. A review section is also needed again, many people miss that feature.

  • I find it is especially difficult to compare departure dates/availability/boat/cabin cost, etc. for river cruises, something that could be by looking at one chart (page) on the old website!

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