Horrible experience

My family traveled on the recent tour with Rachel Peer as Tour Director in June. It was me (45F), my two teenagers, and my 77yo mother. This was a very special trip to celebrate my son's Bar Mitzvah. My son is neurodiverse and has special needs; if you meet him, you know instantly he is an interesting kid but not a typical 13 year old. He did not speak at all until he was four years old, and therefore, his accomplishment and even being able to tolerate a trans-Atlantic plane ride was a big deal for my family. We spent a lot of money to give him the one thing he wanted to celebrate all of it, which was to go to France. Our experience was awful because of Rachel and Tauck. I am posting here in the hopes of SOMEONE reaching out to us from Tauck to try and make this right before I escalate this further. I have given you three weeks since we returned from the trip to reach out.

The four of us filled out our evaluations, and recounted the negative interactions, but we also celebrated the positives (the local tour guides and Paddington the musical were favorites). I wrote that should Tauck be seriously interested in more of my feedback, they should call me at their convenience. It has been three weeks and radio silence. I wonder if our evaluations were even passed along to HQ?

1. On the first day, I wrote on the form for Rachel that this was a special family trip to celebrate my son's bar mitzvah. I said I wanted a Jewish component and asked for help planning an afternoon tour in Marais (the Jewish quarter) in Paris on one of the two free afternoons. That request was completely ignored, and from then on, my entire family was dismissed and treated rudely by Rachel. I suspect I know why and said as much in my evaluation. Family friends who made similar requests on previous Tauck tours but did not mention a religious affiliation were accommodated with white glove service and provided a private tour guide. These types of reviews were not from one family, but multiple, and why we chose Tauck -- and they are all shocked and appalled at my family's treatment. If Rachel had said, "We don't do that or provide that service," I would have accepted that and made plans on my own. Instead, I was completely ignored, and then treated like a virus on the trip, so I can only draw one conclusion here.

2. I have incurable cancer. This was my chance to take my children to Europe for their first time and experience it with them. My kids, especially my 15yo daughter, wanted to spend time as a family with their grandmother and their mother. Heaven forbid, my kids like us and want to spend time with me in the time I have left! My daughter did not want to sit with the other kids in an assigned seat all week -- she wanted to be with me. It's fine for a day or two, but Rachel treated the adults and children like toddlers who could not even function in the world leaving their own homes alone. When I told Rachel that my daughter wanted to sit with me on the bus and at meals, and would be doing so from now on, with no mention of my diagnosis, she basically shamed us ("Well, you signed up for THIS tour") and then put the four of us at a separate table from the group for the entire trip. She "othered" us, and we felt like we were singled out because my kids actually want to hang out with me? My kids felt it too, right away. She called my daughter rude in my daughter's earshot (my daughter wrote on her evaluation that her feelings were hurt, if those reached you). My son was sick one day, and I was scolded for tending to him on the bus and getting him water at the Gare du Nord. Another child got sick and was vomiting on the train just like my son (but my son could make it to the bathroom and that child did not), and Rachel was kind to that family and sent a doctor to the hotel for them. But when my son was sick, we were causing trouble and problems for her, and I was left to handle it alone and yelled at when I went to a vending machine to grab water so he would not puke again until we got on the bus. No one cared how he was or asked if I needed any help when he was repeatedly vomiting. Cancer or not, Jewish or not, no family should feel singled out or be made to feel less than the other guests.

I am telling everyone I know about my experience and to never, ever to use Tauck. I have a wide reach both personally and professionally as I am an attorney in a prominent political position in my state. I would welcome a discussion from your legal counsel, attorney to attorney. But more so, I don't want any family to ever have this experience. Money talks, and we certainly won't be back with ours. For the money we spent, I expected at minimum a phone call to follow up on my complaints. Or a call to my mother who voiced similar complaints? I can only assume Rachel tossed or destroyed our evaluations because why have we not been contacted based on the things we said? She did mention to the full group, quite unprofessionally, that Tauck often "bans" troublemakers from future tours. If I am on your blacklist now, that is not a problem since I won't be back, but I do expect that in a professionally run business with a reputation such as Tauck's, some customer outreach is warranted here.

I am asking Tauck to make this right. You have my contact.
Jessica