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Does Tauck follow up on comment cards?

SCH78

We took our first Bridges tour a few weeks ago and it was.....very much not what I was expecting (largely around the extent to which our small family felt humiliatingly out of place among large intergenerational groups.) I spent a lot of time filling out the comment card (enclosed a whole extra paper with my thoughts) after the TD said how carefully and thoughtfully the company follows up on them. I'm surprised and disappointed that I haven't heard a word from the company....not because I'm looking for them to "make anything right" but because I thought I shared some really constructive feedback and would have liked to continue the conversation.

Comments

Claudia Sails

They will. Pre covid you'd typically get a response within a few weeks of tour end but now it takes longer.

From experience it's tricky if the tour group has large groups of family or friends traveling together. Everyone arrives on any tour with their own expectations of how and whether they will interact with the tour group. Some people want to get to know new faces and others want only to be with their spouse or group. Or even on their own for solo travelers. And they don't know what everyone else expects.

British

So sorry you seem to have been disappointed with your tour. Tauck are pretty good at following up, Arthur Tauck still wants to see a big sample of all comments even at about age 90. In your situation, I suggest you call Tauck and speak to Guest Relations. There is an option when you call that says something like’ if you have recently returned from a tour’ I would try that first and if not correct, they will put you through to the correct person, they record all conversations.
I mentioned before that we came back from a Bridges tour in July. Our group of 45 people included us, nine, there was another mixed group of 10 that kept to themselves. A dad and two teenagers who mixed badly and the TD had problems with them, two lots of grandparents with a grandchild each and then some smaller mixed generation groups. The TD kept us all in our groups when we were supposed to be all eating when we wanted, so adults could not mix as much as I thought we might. The kids all had a great time, apart from the dad and two kids, they did their own thing. We had a great time.
This was our only Bridges tour, so I can’t say if that is how it normally goes, but Bridges tours have been running for twenty years now and appear well oiled.

AlanS

Just speculating, but if your comment had valid, worthwhile, and actionable suggestions and caught the attention of the right Tauck person or people, it may take little while for them to evaluate your comments and come up with an “approved” response. A few years ago, it took awhile, but I received email responses from guest relations and even a phone call from Dan Mahar, Tauck CEO. Wait a bit longer.

mil

They DO!
I wrote a comment on mine about the lack of training my TD had and how poor he handled a situation... also how he neglected me as a client. (Several tours - Tauck client for more than 10 years with no previous complains)
Well, I got a letter in about a week after and a phone call from the department of client satisfaction or something like that- I told them about the issue and the negative impact I'd to go through while in the tour because of it.
The representative took notes, ask me some questions and told me they will be calling me in a few days. (exactly 4 days later) I got the 2nd. call and I'm 100% sure the TD was hearing the conversation... They asked me what my suggestion was... I told them they have to revise the training and make sure the client it's 100% satisfied with the treatment and service.
Not sure what happen, but I do know it went on the TD's record.

MCD

I returned from my Best of Ireland tour on August 9 and received a letter this past week (before September 1) with comments indicating that my comment card had been read. I think that AlanS has a good point. If there are systemic issues to be dealt with, it might take longer to get a response.

British

We always receive a letter and yes, any points we have made are indicated.

SCH78

Thank you, all. I will give it a few more weeks.

Kathy M

I agree with all of the comments above. I've only had one tour (out of 16) where I felt that the tour director was not competent. She had worked on river cruises and this was her first land tour. I don't think that she understood the differences. I detailed my issues in my response and received a phone call to discuss my concerns. It concerned me that there were people on their first Tauck tour who asked if this was normal for a TD. (It wasn't.) While we did not ask for it, my husband and I got credits to be applied to a future trip.

MikeHenderson

I wish they would allow you to do your comments on-line. They don't give you a lot of room to write on the form, and my handwriting isn't the best. I do much better typing.

Smiling Sam

I wish they would allow you to do your comments on-line

This has changed a great deal over time.

You used to be able to see people's comments on-line, including a 1-5 star rating of the tour. Now, at the bottom of each tour page then simply have links to the last half a dozen or so posts about the tour from the Tauck Forum.

So when you make a post about a tour on the Forum it becomes a reference from the tour page (for a period of time), but there is no assurance that any one from Tauck reviews the Forum posts, whereas they do make that assurance with respect to the comment cards.

I found the old way more informative.

There I go, liking the 'Old Way'. I guess I'm a candidate for a Progressive Insurance ad. 😂 MCD - Perhaps we can be in the same commercial. 😂 (FYI - this last statement refers to a comment I made in the 'My Packing Lessons Learn' thread on the Forum)

Sealord

We fill out the comment card, but if I have a significant issue I always follow up with a phone call to guest relations, and an email. I always get a response. I have never been advised about what action the company may have taken, but they always respond.
I would be interested in a bit more detail. What trip were you on? What were your expectations? What did you encounter that did not meet your expectations?

British

If you look at past posts, it was Cowboy Country and previous experiences were on Disney cruises, so I’m sure it felt totally different.

BKMD

MIke - Tell them, "No green book, no paper comments."

If they switched to online, they'd get a much smaller response. The TDs almost hit you over the head to get them returned.

loves2travel2

In June we completed two back-to-back tours. The difference between the TDs was glaring. On the first tour, the TDs were difficult to understand, constantly gave conflicting information and were way in over their heads. Many of the other guests also felt the same way. If it was our first Tauck trip and not our 16th, I would not have been impressed. On the second tour, the TDs were the gold standard. My comment cards reflected this opinion with specific examples. I wasn't looking for any compensation. We aren't high maintenance travelers but felt Tauck needed to retrain or reassess the caliber of those TDs. Even their personal attire wasn't at all professional.
We received a letter with a very generic response.

SCH78

Happy to share my thoughts on the trip. The itinerary, planning, service (bag pulls, etc.), coach were phenomenal. Exactly why we took the Tauck tour -- I would never have been able to/wanted to pull off a multi-location trip like this on my own. Where I felt I had the wrong expectations/my expectations were not met were two things: 1) an almost obsessive focusing on keeping family groups "parallel" rather than letting kids socialize; and 2) an overall missing sense of youthfulness/fun to a family trip.

As I said, I think we ended up on a very weird trip where it was all huge family groups except for my family (single parent with two children). In some ways, it was simply humiliating....what raft were we put on to fill things out after everyone else had a spot, at UCross dinner we were jammed into a tiny table in the corner, pulling into the last hotel the TD said "almost all of you will be in building 2..." and then, what do you know, my family was in the basement level of a different building. The trip was for the big intergenerational families and we were allowed along, is how it felt....and the other part of it was feeling that I couldn't/shouldn't expect that other families' kids might like to socialize with mine because it would be infringing upon their family time. We were on a long bus drive one day (and everyone was sitting in silence) and I asked whether any of the kids might like to head to the back of the bus to talk or play cards and, suffice it to say, this got a very cold reception from the TD. I happen to know that our family was the last to book on this tour so maybe it could have simply been the company notifying us in advance that this was an unusual group makeup and asked whether I might like to select a different week.

I think the above suggestion that I was expecting Disney when booking with Tauck is unfair, but I DID think the trip was missing a bit of youthful energy/joy. I NEVER expected someone to take the kids off my hands, but I felt there was no effort to create moments of magic for the kids or to offer activities that might particularly appeal to kids. The TD was so obsessed with rote fairness that I thought it caused a lot of missed opportunities for those little moments that make memories for the kids.....and thus that make the whole family's experience special. For example, on the day we were touring Yellowstone, it killed me that they didn't have all of the kids sit in the front of the bus to better interact with the park guides and better spot wildlife. This strikes me as MUCH more valuable than making sure that every adult gets their fair turn at sitting shotgun....but no. My 8 year old assigned to the back of the bus was sure not going to be captivated by a faceless voice on a microphone....

I don't regret the trip at all. We learned what works for us, by doing. We absolutely loved the exposure to so many amazing places and things in a part of the country none of us had ever seen (Mount Rushmore was a real bucket list item in particular). We also learned that the pace of switching hotels every night and being told where to sit for every bus ride and every meal is not so much for us. I can now look back at the Bridges website and read it with the context of experience and see that maybe we were foolish for booking it as an immediate family unit....but I simply didn't know until I tried.

Marla526

We filled out the comment card on our very first tour, which was a River cruise in 2022. We commented about the issues with the cruise director being snobby and standoffish …..we received a letter from the CEO with a very unexpected credit toward another tour. I did not write that expecting anything, so we were surprised. Since have taken a land tour and leave in 3 weeks for a small ship cruise.

DebiHoran90

SCH78, your trip sounds awful. I have been looking into Bridges trips with 3 generations and I would be disappointed if the children weren't given priority over viewings or kids weren't encouraged to make new friends. It sounds like the food is geared to children, which isn't always a plus. We will now, at least, look into going to the National Parks on our own, in a 9 person van (for7) and sign up for independent guides. We have experienced most of the parks in the west years ago and want the children to see the magnificent sites of it all.

Sealord

We often travel as a group of four or six, but we are not joined at the hip. We make a point of mixing with the group. I do find traveling with ‘large’ groups is less enjoyable. The larger the group, the more they seem to take over the priorities of the journey, and the smaller groups or individual couples and singles tend to become tag alongs. I make a point of interacting with the TD at every opportunity to avoid the ‘tag along’ position.

MotherOfPoodles

That “Bridges “ tour sounds like a nightmare. We have been on 13 Tauck tours and we always fill out the comment cards. In 2012 we went on one of the 2 week tours, The TD was subpar. We collected our thoughts, wrote a detailed letter after being home a week because we didn’t want to write the letter in anger, and sent it. Two weeks later we got a phone call from customer service and had a 15 minute conversation expressing our concerns. Eleven years later, the same TD is running the same tour and people are still complaining about him. So …. They listen, but they don’t. We still fill them out. On our last tour ( Morocco) , everyone complained about one of the hotels. I am sure there will be no change because it is the hotel that all of the tours use ( we had to go through a construction zone to get there, and the rooms, while beautiful, were completely nonfunctional). In Edinburgh, they use the George. It may be 5 stars, but the older part of the hotel has no air conditioning ( I know the cultural purists in the forum crowd will say I am a horrible, uncultured American - so be it.), and the bathrooms were accidents waiting to happen for the Tauck type crowd. There was a small coup in the lobby with Tauck guests while we were there in 2019. - they still use it. The Balmoral was far superior in all respects, and they stopped using it. In Ireland, half of the Tauck guests left the tour to go to Newgrange , a 5200 year old huge passage tomb right outside of Dublin. Last time I checked they were still not going there . We all wrote it in . So …. They listen, but they don’t. Nothing is ever perfect and I am an absolute Tauck fan. We have 3 planned for 2024 and at least one for 2025. Nothing is ever perfect. But….. I thank SCH 78 for that review. That is first hand and if all of the Bridges tours are set up that way, IMO it is not optimal.

Claudia Sails

SCH78, your experience sounds like what British had earlier this year but completely different from what people report about Bridges River cruises where the kids seem to be encouraged to mingle, have special activities focused on families, etc. That's what I would have expected from any Bridges tour - as in why else would you go on one vs a standard tour. I wonder if it's because the cruises have more TDs plus a CD vs a land tour where the TD is the only Tauck person....

Our first land tour we had 10 couples and a 3 generation family of 8. The 8 basically had little to do with the rest of us and would have liked your tour. Most of the time it was fine and the other 20 of us had a sort of small group tour without the price. However, one night we were to go to a Welch Food Center for a cooking demo and dinner. Everyone was on board the bus but the family got the timing wrong and had to be called in their rooms. We arrive at the center and file into the room for the demo with several tables. No one was paying any attention to who sat where. Then when we headed to the dining room we all wandered over to tables and before we could sit down the TD comes rushing in moving some of us because horror of horrors the family had gotten split up during the short demo and must of course be seated all together. Was very off putting.

Don't know which is the right way to do this but Tauck certainly needs to do a better job of describing what the tour will be like - not just the itinerary of sights and hotels. I hope you get a satisfactory response from Tauck.

British

I can’t recall what I wrote on my review of our Red Rocks in detail. This was our first Bridges tour but we have taken numerous regular Tauck tours. It certainly was almost opposite to what SCH78 describes. We were a group of nine, there was a group of ten that stuck together like glue….they would certainly have complained if they had been split up.
The first thing I said to the TD was that our family is not joined at the hip and were happy to be split up as we have experienced some big groups on regular Tauck tours and it’s a headache for the TD to keep them together if that is what they want.
From the get go, the TD totally encouraged the children to mix. Gosh, on the last day, they all were asked to do the seating plan on the bus they all sat with whoever they wanted and the TD said that by the end of the tour the kids often all sat at the back of the bus together. ( By the way, we love seat rotate on tours….you only have to experience a tour without it to see how selfish people are about sharing the best seating)
My one. Well not really ‘complaint’ was that at meal times, the TD had us in family groups. We had hoped to take the grandchildren to dinner separately to let our children have a break and eat dinner on there own. It was of course difficult for the TD to organize dinner times at busy park restaurants.
Our granddaughter cried floods of tears when she parted with her new friends, they still ‘talk’ to each other.
I’m sure the group makeup makes every four unique. We can’t wait for our next Bridges next year.
If I could post pics of all the kids having fun, I would but I fear posting pics of other peoples kids is not a good idea.

Smiling Sam

It seems like Tauck should have some policy on the website associated with each tour that states something like,

'There is no guarantee that parties over size 6 can be seated together at any provided meal'

Claudia - To me, with such a policy in place, then splitting the family of 8 into two parties of 4 seems a perfectly fine solution.

CindyL

We make both our positive and negative experiences known on our comment card with mixed results. On one river cruise we commented on the inferior quality of the food, an opinion voiced to the tour guides by many passengers on the trip, We were given an apology and a credit toward a future trip.
On an our last trip we had multiple issues which we made known on our comment cards and received a form letter thanking us for letting them know how great the trip was. We sent a letter, again clearly outlining the problems we had on the trip. We received a phone call, which resulted in the response “there is nothing we can do for you.”

bucketlist

I was surprised when I got an acknowledgement of the comment card I never filled out! I had waited until I got home because I was a bit furious at the TD on our trip, although overall loved the trip. It was one where Tauck defaulted to the contract operator of the trip. The contract operator was very professional. The TD was an idiot to put it mildly. I wrote a long letter expressing my surprise at getting a reply to a non existant form. Then went into detail on some issues while giving praise where warranted. Got a call back acknowledging the error. I have no idea whether they took my comments into consideration. I suspect not. It was just a proforma contact to a long time Tauck traveler. Sloppy - I would have been extremely apologetic. I did not expect compensation just an assurance my concerns mattered.

British

I don’t see how Tauck could insist families split up. The tours are advertised as family bonding times. Whereas, all our family live close together and see each other all the time. Many families live states apart and of course want to spend time with each other and at every activity.
I’m not sure how many people were on the Cowboy Country, our Red Rocks tour had 45. I’m not sure how there can be so many huge family groups, there would have to be lots more people on the tour. Our tour had only two what I call big groups, ours and the group of ten. Everyone else that I can recall were three groups of three and then groups of four and I think one of five….that multigenerational family was very friendly. We did lots of fun things. Even activities on the bus. Quizzes and prizes etc At Zion, the TD provided a football and all the kids played and ran around screaming with joy, playing tag etc. That night, our adult children and a couple of other couples went off on an evening hike, we somehow found ourselves as babysitters.
Just today, when our family came around. My granddaughter came to me and said, Grandma, can you take me to Texas to see ….. one of the friends she made, then she named all the other girls she wants to see. No, I said, I’m taking you to Africa next year, you will make more friends there too….we’ve been saving for years for that family trip

SCH78

We had just under 45 as well. It was three groups of 10-12, one family of six (we shared their raft on the float trip but had to stand there while they decided which family members would have to split up and sit with my family in the other half of the raft to keep it balanced), and then my family. Clearly so much as one other small family with whom we could have felt some unity would have helped a lot.

On the final nights of the trip, the pace finally relaxed and the kids from different families got an hour to swim at the Holiday Inn and then to hang out at the bonfire at the ranch. They had a ball and it really made me sad that this dynamic wasn't encouraged (or heck, allowed) earlier in the trip. All of the families were honestly lovely and it was clear that people were delighted to socialize without feeling like it infringed upon their family time, but the TD was just so intense about it that I felt like a problem child for so much as suggesting it (she really did come give me a talk about respecting group expectations after I suggested the kids hang out on the bus). I was just itching for any moments of natural lightness or fun. (For instance, I know this is super petty, but the TD was handing out bandanas before the rodeo one day. This to me would be an obvious moment where you invite the young kids to gather around and have a moment of excitement picking a color they love, helping to tie them around their necks, etc. Nope, it was handing them out back of the bus to the front....again, this just rote, assigned fairness....telling adults who surely don't care about a bandana to pick them without regard for kids still waiting...)

All that said, I'd like to give a SERIOUS shout out to the grandparents who go on these trips!! The pace and constant hotel changes are absolutely exhausting (and the hotels and food were far from luxurious on this trip, though that was totally communicated and expected and not a "ding" against Tauck at all). My mother is a very devoted grandmother but, had she come along, I'm fairly confident she would have dropped out by day 2!

OurTravels34

This is a fantastic post with a lot of valuable information. I’ve mentioned in different posts, that we started the family trips when my daughter was 7. She’s 30 now, and she still remembers those trips and the absolutely wonderful tour directors that orchestrated memorable activities for the kids. Camaraderie was definitely encouraged instead of families sticking together like glue. The kids ranged from young children to teenagers on those trips and everyone seemed to get along and friendships eventually blossom.

I am a reserved people person and enjoy meeting people on these trips if a lifetime. We’ve made the best of friends and have traveled on many Tauck trips. As British stated, we are also not joined at the hip. My daughter still has the African walking stick the kids all made together on that trip. The children’s pizza making cooking class with all the kids was fun in Italy when she was 10. I can understand that some families choose not to mingle and, on the other hand, I also think it is great when children and/or young teens make friends on these adventures. What a remarkable experience travel is for the younger generation.

British

SCH78, thank you so much for your clarification. So you had three large groups. I have no idea if that is more usual. Clearly, I like looking and contribute to the forum and see you were asking questions a year ago. I know it was your first Tauck trip. I never said you expected a Disney cruise experience , but you had mentioned you had taken Disney cruises which I am sure are different.
I knew in advance of the Bridges trip by reading here that I could call Tauck to ask about the breakdown of people on the tour , which I did about a month before. not too early as people do cancel. They will tell you the numbers and ages of the children on the tour, so I was able to talk to our family about what to expect. We knew there would be some other nine year olds as our two older grandchildren were and also that our youngest grandson would be the youngest, but he is extremely bright and articulate and used to hikes, so apart from being over excited at times, he was fine. I also forget to mention that at group dinners, the TD also had all the children sit together on their own tables. For our youngest, the Welcome dinner was the only time where it was maybe not a good idea because he was showing off and I think the teenagers were overwhelmed by him, but after that, he became a favorite and I wish I could post pics of him sitting on the knee of one of the teenage boys and fooling around on the bus, lots of laughing. He even inadvertently was giving the teenage boys a lesson on flirting with the teenage girls at one meal. The TD said he really helped the teenagers break down their reserve as teenagers are harder work on these tours.
Our TD had almost exclusively conducted Bridges tours during the summer for twenty years. As far as I understand, most of the Bridges TDs are the same and love kids. The TDs have to be seen to be fair with everyone, otherwise, they would get complaints. With such a big group, the biggest we have encountered with Tauck, there has to be structure or it would be chaos.
And yes, the pace was fast, so many one night stays at hotels. Our four adult children/parents, ages 40 to 43 did find it quite exhausting, the pace. The walking etc was fine, they are all super fit. They had a new respect for us, age 69 and 70 then, that we take so many Tauck tours, and they didn’t even experience any very early predawn departures on tours that we often expedience.
SCH78, I really would suggest you call Tauck Guest relations and talk to someone.

Mimitravels

Sorry to hear about your trip being so disappointing. Our family of 4 have done 3 Bridges tours and never had this happen. I'm hoping it was a rare occurance . The Bridges tours are what first brought us to traveling with Tauck. The TD's we have had have gone out of their way to include ALL kids in all activities and have made some great memories for my teens. We have made some really great friends on Bridges trips that we continue to travel with today. I think we are on our 6th trip with one of the families. So please don't give up on Tauck or the Bridges tours. Tauck will listen to you. We have done 10 Tauck trips and have gotten a response from every survey we filled out.

Kbh

I agree with Mimitravels. We have also done 3 Bridges tours (Alpine Adventure, Tanzania and Galápagos). All 3 were phenomenal. The TD definitely sets the tone and we had 3 great ones. My kids are now all in their 20’s but have so many great memories of the people we met. There have been some families that did keep to themselves, but thankfully enough other families with kids who wanted to hang out etc….. I’m sorry for your less than ideal experience and definitely encourage you to talk with someone at Tauck. I’d be sad to hear if they aren’t open to all comments - good and bad.