TAUCK CUSTOMER CARE: ONE STAR OUT OF 1000000
I'm just finishing my 16th tour. The Ultimate Alps tour Sept 2021 is about to end. I had an issue with Tauck quality room view obstructed by lawn furniture, buildings and huge potted plants. My room was 1st floor. I contacted tour director, called Tauck Sept 3 and got a call back from Customer Care Sept 8. I documented with pictures including one of 3 flys I had to kill in the room. The person calling me was rude, condescending and to paraphrase, didn't care how many tours I've taken or have booked through 2023 (8), your view is what you got and even though 1st timers got very nicer views, just because you are a good customer doesn't make a difference. He implied that 1st time Tauck Travelers need to be impressed and loyalty to Tauck means nothing. I have raised this issue and the phone call reply to the highest level in Tauck.
Comments
Nice attempt at trolling.
Bob, In all your years of traveling with Tauck you've only posted three times. Was anything to your liking on any of your 16 tours? Sorry things are not working out. Maybe you are spending too much time in your room.
I have found it’s hit or miss, sometimes you hear from others on your tour that seem to have fabulous rooms compared to you, sometimes it’s the other way round. Most times, you are only in your room in darkness so it really doesn’t matter what the view is.
There is only one time when Mr B was unhappy about room allocation and that was on our last Tauck tour in Rwanda at the very brand new One and Only. A first time Tauck couple and a few others got a suite that included a bath tub outside on the deck. He would really have liked us to have that amenity and he was miffed enough to write to Tauck about it. They replied that Tauck assumed there would be enough rooms like that for all of us. We had a fantastic room anyway. We were not expecting anything but they gave us a small refund which he accepted.
I think he was annoyed more than anything that the couple kept going on about their fabulous room and the bathtub.
We’ve had rooms with two bathrooms when others have had pokey little rooms and a tiny bath, especially in boutique hotels which Tauck used years ago, these days they go for the big name hotels.
The best thing to do is known that if you travel enough with Tauck, you will hit the jackpot at times or have a booby prize.
Most countries don’t have fly screens, so it’s easy for them to get into a room, I guess Windows might have been open to air the room before your arrival, but it’s not an excuse, I understand that.
Right now, I wish that the tours we had picked to go on, had not been cancelled. At least you got your vacation. We have to wait until March for our first one abroad.
Hope you have a better room experience if you travel with Tauck again. If not who will you travel with?
I have had a fair amount of contact with Tauck’s guest relations team, and I have a couple of their names in my address book. Bob’s story is not believable to me. I have in fact changed rooms a couple of times. The hotel management was happy to get us a room that we liked. On our most recent trip we had fabulous rooms.
I've taken 20 tours with Tauck as a single and have never had problems with a room, not always a great view but always a partially great view.
Since we drifted into ‘single’ issues, some may not know that there is no ‘single supplement’ for Category One staterooms on Tauck’s river cruises.
During my many tours with Tauck as a solo traveler, I've only had one room (Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem) that didn't have a great view (in fact it was a view of an alley). It didn't bother me as the room itself was beautiful and the location was great. It was on the first floor, which I thought I wouldn't like; however, it turned out to be great not to have the hassle of the elevators and it was far enough away from the high traffic areas.
I spent so much time wandering around Jerusalem with my fellow Taucktorians, day and night, that I was only in the room to sleep. There was never a desire to look out of the window. On the other hand, I have had spectacular rooms in India with a view of Taj Mahal and spectacular views in Russia, Australia and on and on and on....
Sometimes Tauck specifies rooms with a view when there is a notable view. This happened to us in Shanghi where we had a fantastic view of the Bund and the skyline on the opposite bank. The TD told me that Tauck paid extra to get those rooms and she had a room with no view. In other locations it's luck of the draw. The TDs always say that it's up to the hotel who gets what room. In Venice, we had a room with a view of a lightwell, no Grand Canal view. But who cares, all we had to do was walk outside to enjoy the city. After 16 years of travel, it seems that Tauck is paying for view rooms more often lately. In Capri, we were warned that our view might be another hotel across a narrow pedestrian street. When we got to the hotel, the staff told us "tutti upgrade" and everyone got a pool view room. Bottom line, you should never count on a view, but enjoy it when you get it.
When I was flying for AA I once got a suite in Las Vegas on a layover that was so spectacular i was trying to get my wife to fly down from SF … just not possible. Top floor, one entire wall of glass, four or five rooms, an in suite hot tub, dah di dah di dah. Only happened once … most of the time we did not get the best rooms. But our recent visit to Marseille involved an amazing piece of ‘room luck’. We have always had or ‘acquired’ good rooms with Tauck, but Marseille was really special.