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[Dis_Yoda]

@Dis_Yoda how did you take photos in the sistine chapel?

For private after hours tours, you are allowed to take photos without flash. I know Tauck is one of the few companies that has that option (ABD may have it too)

 

[sayhello]

Does abd offer a private after hours tour?

Yes, they do. I've read many reports describing it, and it makes me super jealous (I did the ABD add-on to the Med cruise, which included a regular Vatican/Sistine Chapel tour with a billion people and no photos).

From the ABD site:

Private After-Hours Tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel*
Experience an exclusive after-hours, privately guided tour of the Vatican Museum—home to masterpieces by the greatest artists in history in a collection spanning 4000 years. Also, be guided by a local expert through the Sistine Chapel where you can get an intimate look at Michelangelo's magnificent achievement.

Sayhello

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Back in October, my husband and I did a week long tour with Tauck of the Amalfi Coast, Capri and Rome. We did a small group tour (24 people) and we were the youngest there. It was amazing. I would probably stick to the smaller groups so that it doesn't get much larger than 24 people. More than that would just feel like too much to handle.

The hotels were top of the line - staying at Le Agavi in Positano, Quisisana in Capri and Hotel Majestic in Rome. I have no problems with any of them and would gladly stay at them again if life ever takes me back to those areas of the world!

Highlights:
1) The after-hours tour of the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel. It was only our group and another Tauck group there so we only have 50 people total in the Sistine Chapel with us. We also got to walk through the hall of Tapestries, Maps, Statues and some other ancient relics.
2) The in depth tour of Pompeii. Italy requires that a local licensed guide is used for tour groups which helps provide character to the tour in addition than your Tauck tour guide. The ones they used for the tour were excellent and you knew they had been doing this a while as they kept the group engaged and didn't need "flags" to keep a group together.
3) The mix of planned activities and down time. We felt there was enough going on each day that helped you really explore the area but you still got some on your own time in each city to do what mattered to you. This allowed us to visit on our own the Bone Church in Rome, Villa Jorvis in Capri and St Maria Domo in Positano. The major highlights were taken care of in manners where you didn't feel like you were being cattle herded and truly experience it. Their planned activities forced me to see things we may have missed otherwise like the demonstration of the wood layering for furniture, Villa San Michelle, Villa Ruffalo,
4) Getting to walk through the Gladiator's Entrance at the Colosseum. Not everyone gets to enter the colosseum that way and it gives you great perspective of it.
5) After the tour, they sent us a Vatican Museum book which had some amazing photos and articles about their collection.
6) Our tour guide. She had been with the company for many years and was such a great storyteller without being over bearing. She made sure she talked to everyone and found out interests about them.

Lowlights:
1) In Capri, we had a lecture in someone's private home about Italian Society. This could be personal taste but I found it really odd to be in someone's home for them to talk about Italians when she's an ex-pat of another country. The homemade wine she provided was good though!
2) The restaurant post Pompeii. The food was just bad! I would have rather us traveled somewhere else but I get they want to feed you immediately after that walking tour of Pompeii since it did take a bit.

We've booked another Tauck Tour for 2019 - 13 Nights through Normandy, Brittany, Loire Valley and Paris. We'll also will add a day where we stay at a winery partner with my husband's work and then head to Disneyland Paris as it should be the weekend of the Disneyland Paris Half Marathon. The "Gift of Time" offer will be saving us $1300 for the additional night at the super fancy Paris hotel at the end of the trip.

Waving to DisYoda from another RunDisney thread person. Fun to see you posting over here. I really appreciate your taking the time to report back on the Tauck tour. I know many of us who do ABD are always intrigued by Tauck who seem to have very similar tours to ABD. I can't remember whether you've done an ABD before? Just wondering how much a factor you thought the guides were? Did you have one or two? One of the things that many people around here love about ABD is the fantastic guides. I've had excellent experiences so far with my Nat Geo trips--the guides were every bit as awesome as they've been on ABD and wondered how Tauck compared. LOL on you and hubby being the youngest there. That is one of the negatives for many around here with doing Tauck, although personally I like traveling with an older set.

Too fun that you are doing RunDisney Paris. Calfan and I had talked about that, but I think we may end up pushing to next year with the full calendar of RunDisney events we have on the plate for next year in Orlando. We want to do Wine and Dine and WDW Half. I'm king of hoping they'll get all the kinks worked out in Paris by then. Can't wait to read your report on that!

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Waving to DisYoda from another RunDisney thread person. Fun to see you posting over here. I really appreciate your taking the time to report back on the Tauck tour. I know many of us who do ABD are always intrigued by Tauck who seem to have very similar tours to ABD. I can't remember whether you've done an ABD before? Just wondering how much a factor you thought the guides were? Did you have one or two? One of the things that many people around here love about ABD is the fantastic guides. I've had excellent experiences so far with my Nat Geo trips--the guides were every bit as awesome as they've been on ABD and wondered how Tauck compared. LOL on you and hubby being the youngest there. That is one of the negatives for many around here with doing Tauck, although personally I like traveling with an older set.

Too fun that you are doing RunDisney Paris. Calfan and I had talked about that, but I think we may end up pushing to next year with the full calendar of RunDisney events we have on the plate for next year in Orlando. We want to do Wine and Dine and WDW Half. I'm king of hoping they'll get all the kinks worked out in Paris by then. Can't wait to read your report on that!

Hi! We have not done an ABD tour. We had 1 guide that was with us the entire tour. We would have other local guides join us at various towns or sights to give even more history or perspective to the tour - I think we had about 5 different ones throughout the tour. Our main guide was fantastic; very helpful when you needed suggestions. She tries to make sure that no one felt left out and that no one was having favoritism from her. Very professional!

We looked at National Geographic tours as well but my husband felt a lot of their tours that interested us were for after we get the major sites done in various countries.

I don't mind traveling with the older set for the most part. I think I posted about it some in my Dining Report for November but apparently we were oddities. Here is the quote from there:

"The majority of our tour were specialty doctors & their spouses, older lawyers & their spouses. These were the people that have done multiple Tauck tours. We did have a retired school administrator who was doing an one in the lifetime trip. My husband and I were the odd ones out since we're in our early 30s, no children (or plans for children) with normal professional jobs (Quality Engineer and Retail Manager) There wasn't a lot of common grounds there. We were friendly with the people we toured with but not people we would make life long friendships with. Apparently being a female engineer was an oddity to some of them and our non-trip related conversations revolved around that. I know that wasn't a typical career path for their generation, especially as a female. It will be interesting to see what happens on the tour in 2019 as with it being 13 days. We can do these types of trips once every two years with planning accordingly."

So if you push it to next year - that means you'll end up at RunDisney Paris with me in 2019! They do have some kinks there - hopefully year 4 will be smooth!

 

[aggiedog]

We recently did a Road Scholar tour and while we were much younger than the average also, I was happy that the mix was not doctors and lawyers. (Full disclosure, I AM a doctor.) It was a great mix of careers from engineers to musicians to a Red Cross volunteer coordinator. Many of the women had their own careers, though mid everyone was retired at that point. What tied them together was an active curiosity of the world. I did in fact make a good friend and she and I are traveling the Canadian Rockies this Fall. That said, they are not luxury tours, though we did have a fabulous guide 24/7.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Hi! We have not done an ABD tour. We had 1 guide that was with us the entire tour. We would have other local guides join us at various towns or sights to give even more history or perspective to the tour - I think we had about 5 different ones throughout the tour. Our main guide was fantastic; very helpful when you needed suggestions. She tries to make sure that no one felt left out and that no one was having favoritism from her. Very professional!

We looked at National Geographic tours as well but my husband felt a lot of their tours that interested us were for after we get the major sites done in various countries.

I don't mind traveling with the older set for the most part. I think I posted about it some in my Dining Report for November but apparently we were oddities. Here is the quote from there:

"The majority of our tour were specialty doctors & their spouses, older lawyers & their spouses. These were the people that have done multiple Tauck tours. We did have a retired school administrator who was doing an one in the lifetime trip. My husband and I were the odd ones out since we're in our early 30s, no children (or plans for children) with normal professional jobs (Quality Engineer and Retail Manager) There wasn't a lot of common grounds there. We were friendly with the people we toured with but not people we would make life long friendships with. Apparently being a female engineer was an oddity to some of them and our non-trip related conversations revolved around that. I know that wasn't a typical career path for their generation, especially as a female. It will be interesting to see what happens on the tour in 2019 as with it being 13 days. We can do these types of trips once every two years with planning accordingly."

So if you push it to next year - that means you'll end up at RunDisney Paris with me in 2019! They do have some kinks there - hopefully year 4 will be smooth!

Thanks so much for the feedback on the guides for Tauck. Sounds great. We've loved out Nat Geo Adventure trips, but they are definitely very active and focused more on the countryside than the major historical sites. I know they have non-active tours, too, though that are more traditional.

Very interesting on the older set comments. I would say that demographic is probably typical for the tours I've done that lean toward an older crowd. As a former lawyer though it doesn't bother me, LOL.

I totally read your RunDisney post wrong--I was thinking you were doing it this year. Awesome! It would be fun to connect in Paris I suspect we'll be 2019 unless we do something last minute. The whole medal fiasco put me off a little, and it's frustrating to have to book a package to guarantee bibs. But I digress...! Thank you for the awesome feedback. Hope to cross paths at a RunDisney event soon.

 

[Cinderella's Slipper 2015]

Thanks so much for the feedback on the guides for Tauck. Sounds great. We've loved out Nat Geo Adventure trips, but they are definitely very active and focused more on the countryside than the major historical sites. I know they have non-active tours, too, though that are more traditional.

Very interesting on the older set comments. I would say that demographic is probably typical for the tours I've done that lean toward an older crowd. As a former lawyer though it doesn't bother me, LOL.

I totally read your RunDisney post wrong--I was thinking you were doing it this year. Awesome! It would be fun to connect in Paris I suspect we'll be 2019 unless we do something last minute. The whole medal fiasco put me off a little, and it's frustrating to have to book a package to guarantee bibs. But I digress...! Thank you for the awesome feedback. Hope to cross paths at a RunDisney event soon.

Not all of the Nat Geo active trips are just countryside focused. The walking trips yes, but my Southeast Asia trip was an active adventure and we did a LOT of cultural and historical stuff and really very little "active" stuff for a 13 day trip. Over 13 days we cycled in Hue, kayaked in Ha Long Bay, hiked in Laos and cycled in Siem Reap. And those were not all day things. Cycling in Hue was at most 3 hours with a break in the middle (we had 2 because 2 people needed first aid). Kayaking was in 2 sessions, a morning and afternoon. You could do one or both. The hike was about 3 hours with a break in the middle. The final bike ride was about 1.5 hours with a break in the middle. For the bike rides, you had the option to either cycle on your own with the group or in Vietnam you could go with a motorcycle driver (option my mom and I took) and in Siem Reap, you could opt to take a tuk tuk (again what we opted for). You also had the option of not going at all and just meeting us at the next point. Someone in our group did this in Hue. She opted to go running along the Perfume River instead of cycling and the guides arranged for her to meet us at the final stop on the cycling tour. Other than those 4 "activities", everything else was site seeing on foot or going by coach or small bus to get to the sites and then touring. We toured Saigon on foot, seeing the major historical sites. We visited the historic Imperial Palace in Hue. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Temple of Literature in Hanoi. We toured Luang Prabang and some of the major temples there. We visited all of the important temples in Siem Reap and even some of the lesser known, less visited temples.

 

[Calfan]

We just returned from our first trip with Austin Adventures. We did their Yellowstone Family Winter Trip, and it was a fantastic trip. I would definitely book another trip with them. In fact, I’m actively considering booking with Austin Adventures for Africa in 2019 to take advantage of a 10% bounce back discount if we book another trip within 30 days of returning home. Depending on which Africa trip we choose, this discount could amount to a savings of $3,000 to $4,000 for our family of four! And, as a past Austin Adventures traveler, one perk is that new bookings are fully refundable up to 45 days out, so it would essentially be a risk-free booking if we go ahead.

One interesting thing is that even though this was technically a family trip, my kids (13 and 15) were the only actual minors on the trip. There was another family of four with 20- and 23-year-old sons, both in college. The other guests were three adult couples, and we had one other solo adult traveler, who I would guess is in her 30s. It was a great group of interesting people, and my kids had no issue at all blending in. It made me realize that we can branch out for our future trips and don’t have to consider only family trips going forward.

Here are the things I really really liked about our Austin Adventures trip:

--We had 15 guests and 3 full-time guides. (Austin’s stated guest to guide ratio is 6:1, so our ratio was right in line with that.) So vastly different from the 2 guides we had for 49 guests on our ABD Baltics cruise add-on, for example. All three guides currently live in Montana (where the trip started and ended), and each has guided in Yellowstone for multiple years, so they were very knowledgeable about the area, including Yellowstone’s geothermal features and history, the flora and fauna of the region, etc. They were friendly, personable and enthusiastic, but somehow also low-key, which I really really liked. They handled all of the logistics, including baggage handling. (The bags were waiting in our rooms at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge when we got to our rooms there, and they were delivered to our individual cabins at the 320 Guest Ranch within about 3 minutes of our arrival there, so no waiting at all for bags.) They also participated in all of our activities and meals and were our drivers in the Austin Adventures dedicated vans that we used when we weren’t in Yellowstone itself.

--The trip was very active (both from a physical activity standpoint and from the standpoint of having minimal down time), including cross country skiing, snow shoeing, hiking/walking, dog sledding and a sleigh ride. We had one afternoon on our own at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, but all of the other days were pretty full of activities. We’d typically have an hour and a half or a little longer to relax, shower, etc. before dinner each day. The trip was really well planned out with a minimum of dead/transition time, but it never felt like the guides were rushing us or herding us around. There was plenty of time to stop to take pictures of the wildlife we saw (which included many many bison, as well as elk, coyotes, Trumpeter Swans and bald eagles, and grizzlies and wolves at our stop at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, MT) or to have the guides answer any questions about what we were seeing/doing.

--We received lots of Austin Adventures swag, starting with these water bottles when we first met as a group in Bozeman, MT before starting out for Yellowstone:



On our first night at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, these draw string backpacks were waiting for us in our rooms after dinner, filled with the goodies shown:





After our farewell dinner, we all received these t-shirts (they are navy, even though they look black in the pics):



We also received flash drives of the slide show the guides put together for our farewell dinner (similar to what ABD now does).

We did an evening Steam, Stars and Soundscapes tour while in Yellowstone, and everyone got to take home these travel mugs that were used for hot chocolate during the tour:



--The guides were constantly pulling out trays of goodies or pouring hot drinks in the middle of cross country skiing or hiking or snow shoeing. These included hot chocolate and hot apple cider for the drinks and trays of chocolate chip cookies + peppermint bark, oranges + salted caramel chocolates, dried fruit arranged in the shape of a morning glory flower for our cross country ski to Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone, salted caramel pretzels, etc. During our evening tour in Yellowstone, they brought along bottles of Baileys and Peppermint Schnapps for the adults to supplement our hot chocolate. On New Year’s Eve, they brought bottles of bubbly to our dinner tables.

--All meals except for one lunch were included. Non-alcoholic beverages were also included, including espresso type drinks at our lunch in Big Sky, Montana. (Alcohol was extra, except for the examples above and unlimited adult coffees or hot chocolates on our evening sleigh ride in Big Sky.)

All in all, a really great, well-run trip, and I was very impressed with Austin Adventures. I think it is very likely that we will be traveling with them again. I’m happy to answer any specific questions.

 

[carpenta]

Sound wonderful! Glad you had a great trip. We did Yellowstone with Nat. Geo and loved the use of the vans rather than the 40+ bus. Just bookmarked the Austin website and thanks for the "heads up". Happy New Year.

 

[Calfan]

I neglected to mention that our group size of 15 was apparently one of the larger groups for an Austin Adventures trip, at least according to the alumni in our group. That’s another thing I like about them as a tour provider. I’m just done with group trips with over 20 or 25 travelers. Based on my Nat Gep hiking trip experiences, my Thomson Family Adventures trip to China and now this Austin Adventures Yellowstone trip, I’d say 10-15 guests is my ideal size for group travel. The other thing I should have pointed out is that, out of the 6 parties on our Yellowstone trip, 4 were repeat Austin Adventures travelers, and only 2 (including my party) were newbies. One couple had done something like 15 Austin Adventures trips, and the other family in our group had done 5 before Yellowstone. I think that speaks well for them as a provider and also for their loyalty program.

 

[carpenta]

Now you're really forcing me to book with Austin.....WOW! Sounds ideal.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

We just returned from our first trip with Austin Adventures. We did their Yellowstone Family Winter Trip, and it was a fantastic trip. I would definitely book another trip with them. In fact, I’m actively considering booking with Austin Adventures for Africa in 2019 to take advantage of a 10% bounce back discount if we book another trip within 30 days of returning home. Depending on which Africa trip we choose, this discount could amount to a savings of $3,000 to $4,000 for our family of four! And, as a past Austin Adventures traveler, one perk is that new bookings are fully refundable up to 45 days out, so it would essentially be a risk-free booking if we go ahead.

One interesting thing is that even though this was technically a family trip, my kids (13 and 15) were the only actual minors on the trip. There was another family of four with 20- and 23-year-old sons, both in college. The other guests were three adult couples, and we had one other solo adult traveler, who I would guess is in her 30s. It was a great group of interesting people, and my kids had no issue at all blending in. It made me realize that we can branch out for our future trips and don’t have to consider only family trips going forward.

Here are the things I really really liked about our Austin Adventures trip:

--We had 15 guests and 3 full-time guides. (Austin’s stated guest to guide ratio is 6:1, so our ratio was right in line with that.) So vastly different from the 2 guides we had for 49 guests on our ABD Baltics cruise add-on, for example. All three guides currently live in Montana (where the trip started and ended), and each has guided in Yellowstone for multiple years, so they were very knowledgeable about the area, including Yellowstone’s geothermal features and history, the flora and fauna of the region, etc. They were friendly, personable and enthusiastic, but somehow also low-key, which I really really liked. They handled all of the logistics, including baggage handling. (The bags were waiting in our rooms at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge when we got to our rooms there, and they were delivered to our individual cabins at the 320 Guest Ranch within about 3 minutes of our arrival there, so no waiting at all for bags.) They also participated in all of our activities and meals and were our drivers in the Austin Adventures dedicated vans that we used when we weren’t in Yellowstone itself.

--The trip was very active (both from a physical activity standpoint and from the standpoint of having minimal down time), including cross country skiing, snow shoeing, hiking/walking, dog sledding and a sleigh ride. We had one afternoon on our own at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, but all of the other days were pretty full of activities. We’d typically have an hour and a half or a little longer to relax, shower, etc. before dinner each day. The trip was really well planned out with a minimum of dead/transition time, but it never felt like the guides were rushing us or herding us around. There was plenty of time to stop to take pictures of the wildlife we saw (which included many many bison, as well as elk, coyotes, Trumpeter Swans and bald eagles, and grizzlies and wolves at our stop at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, MT) or to have the guides answer any questions about what we were seeing/doing.

--We received lots of Austin Adventures swag, starting with these water bottles when we first met as a group in Bozeman, MT before starting out for Yellowstone:

View attachment 292549

On our first night at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, these draw string backpacks were waiting for us in our rooms after dinner, filled with the goodies shown:

View attachment 292553

View attachment 292554

After our farewell dinner, we all received these t-shirts (they are navy, even though they look black in the pics):

View attachment 292555 View attachment 292556 View attachment 292557 View attachment 292558



We also received flash drives of the slide show the guides put together for our farewell dinner (similar to what ABD now does).

We did an evening Steam, Stars and Soundscapes tour while in Yellowstone, and everyone got to take home these travel mugs that were used for hot chocolate during the tour:

View attachment 292559

--The guides were constantly pulling out trays of goodies or pouring hot drinks in the middle of cross country skiing or hiking or snow shoeing. These included hot chocolate and hot apple cider for the drinks and trays of chocolate chip cookies + peppermint bark, oranges + salted caramel chocolates, dried fruit arranged in the shape of a morning glory flower for our cross country ski to Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone, salted caramel pretzels, etc. During our evening tour in Yellowstone, they brought along bottles of Baileys and Peppermint Schnapps for the adults to supplement our hot chocolate. On New Year’s Eve, they brought bottles of bubbly to our dinner tables.

--All meals except for one lunch were included. Non-alcoholic beverages were also included, including espresso type drinks at our lunch in Big Sky, Montana. (Alcohol was extra, except for the examples above and unlimited adult coffees or hot chocolates on our evening sleigh ride in Big Sky.)

All in all, a really great, well-run trip, and I was very impressed with Austin Adventures. I think it is very likely that we will be traveling with them again. I’m happy to answer any specific questions.

WOW!!! Love all the swag. Compared to ABDs pathetic zip pouches for China, I'm really impressed. Funny how something so small can make sure a great/negative impression. I almost feel that if ABD is going to be so cheap they should just not do swag anymore. Go big or go home, and it looks like AA went big. Great trip report and sounds like an amazing trip. Your FB pictures looked awesome. This trip will definitely be on our list at some point. 3 guides for 15 guests is pretty amazing, and I love all the active activities. Looking forward to getting even more details from you next week in DLR

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

P.S. I meant to ask if you can rank the companies yet. I suspect Nat Geo is hard to rate since it's an adventure trip v. a family trip, but I'm guessing among the other three ABD is 3rd, but what about AA and Thompson for 1 & 2 or not enough data yet?

 

[acndis]

I neglected to mention that our group size of 15 was apparently one of the larger groups for an Austin Adventures trip, at least according to the alumni in our group. That’s another thing I like about them as a tour provider. I’m just done with group trips with over 20 or 25 travelers. Based on my Nat Gep hiking trip experiences, my Thomson Family Adventures trip to China and now this Austin Adventures Yellowstone trip, I’d say 10-15 guests is my ideal size for group travel. The other thing I should have pointed out is that, out of the 6 parties on our Yellowstone trip, 4 were repeat Austin Adventures travelers, and only 2 (including my party) were newbies. One couple had done something like 15 Austin Adventures trips, and the other family in our group had done 5 before Yellowstone. I think that speaks well for them as a provider and also for their loyalty program.

We are doing Belize with them this summer and I can’t wait!

 

[Calfan]

P.S. I meant to ask if you can rank the companies yet. I suspect Nat Geo is hard to rate since it's an adventure trip v. a family trip, but I'm guessing among the other three ABD is 3rd, but what about AA and Thompson for 1 & 2 or not enough data yet?

Our AA and Thomson trips were pretty different, so it’s hard to rank them head to head, but I guess based on my limited sample size, I’d give AA the nod based on the special guide touches, and the generous swag, lol. Plus the re-booking discount. You are right that I would put ABD third based on the group sizes being much larger than I’d like (34, 42 and 49 for the three ABDs I’ve done so far) and the poor guide to guest ratio in comparison to the others (plus the guides just being a lot more knowledgeable with AA and Thomson — I adore Hanni and Zoe, but neither of them knew a thing about Scotland, e.g.). Nat Geo is pretty much on its own, but I’ll be able to do a better comparison with them for a trip with the whole family after Peru this summer.

 

[Calfan]

Our AA and Thomson trips were pretty different, so it’s hard to rank them head to head, but I guess based on my limited sample size, I’d give AA the nod based on the special guide touches, and the generous swag, lol. Plus the re-booking discount. You are right that I would put ABD third based on the group sizes being much larger than I’d like (34, 42 and 49 for the three ABDs I’ve done so far) and the poor guide to guest ratio in comparison to the others (plus the guides just being a lot more knowledgeable with AA and Thomson — I adore Hanni and Zoe, but neither of them knew a thing about Scotland, e.g.). Nat Geo is pretty much on its own, but I’ll be able to do a better comparison with them for a trip with the whole family after Peru this summer.

I should have made the point above that, so far at least, my experiences with Nat Geo, AA and Thomson have been positive and similar enough that my approach is likely to be to decide among them based on which itinerary I like best for a particular location. I will say, though, that AA’s 10% re-booking discount could definitely push them over the edge where itineraries are close. I’ve also been looking at Natural Habitat as a provider, but they are the priciest among ABD, Thomson and AA, so those might be few and far between.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Our AA and Thomson trips were pretty different, so it’s hard to rank them head to head, but I guess based on my limited sample size, I’d give AA the nod based on the special guide touches, and the generous swag, lol. Plus the re-booking discount. You are right that I would put ABD third based on the group sizes being much larger than I’d like (34, 42 and 49 for the three ABDs I’ve done so far) and the poor guide to guest ratio in comparison to the others (plus the guides just being a lot more knowledgeable with AA and Thomson — I adore Hanni and Zoe, but neither of them knew a thing about Scotland, e.g.). Nat Geo is pretty much on its own, but I’ll be able to do a better comparison with them for a trip with the whole family after Peru this summer.

This is great--thanks for laying this all out. Makes total sense. Number is huge to me too, so I suspect I will be branching out or waiting last minute for ABD when I know how many are signed up and the trip will go. Refundable until 45 days out for aa is pretty amazing too (meant to comment on that). Please don't remind me of that 49. I get upset just thinking about it. I think the only trip with ABD that I would be willing to sign up for way ahead of time is Japan because of the itinerary/park access--I really hope the rumors about that trip are true.

 

[WishUponAStarryNight]

I neglected to mention that our group size of 15 was apparently one of the larger groups for an Austin Adventures trip, at least according to the alumni in our group. That’s another thing I like about them as a tour provider. I’m just done with group trips with over 20 or 25 travelers. Based on my Nat Gep hiking trip experiences, my Thomson Family Adventures trip to China and now this Austin Adventures Yellowstone trip, I’d say 10-15 guests is my ideal size for group travel. The other thing I should have pointed out is that, out of the 6 parties on our Yellowstone trip, 4 were repeat Austin Adventures travelers, and only 2 (including my party) were newbies. One couple had done something like 15 Austin Adventures trips, and the other family in our group had done 5 before Yellowstone. I think that speaks well for them as a provider and also for their loyalty program.

Thank you so much! I was hoping you’d report back. We’re going to Yellowstone with AA in June and your review has made me even more excited. Sounds like a great trip! Love the re-booking discount, too. I’ve been looking at their other itineraries hoping we’d like our first trip so much we’d want to travel with them again.

 

[sayhello]

I'll have to look into Austin Adventures. See whether I like their itineraries or not. What you've described sounds good to me, but ultimately, it's the itinerary & the Guides that make my decision. It's nice they have so many Guides (Backroads does, too) because I just can't see doing a trip with one Guide, especially if that Guide is not allowed to eat meals with us (I've been told that's how Tauck works). The NatGeo trips just seem too physical and not enough cultural for me, and Thompson doesn't want me. Maybe AA will turn out to be the ABD alternative that works for me...

Sayhello

 

[Dis_Yoda]

I'll have to look into Austin Adventures. See whether I like their itineraries or not. What you've described sounds good to me, but ultimately, it's the itinerary & the Guides that make my decision. It's nice they have so many Guides (Backroads does, too) because I just can't see doing a trip with one Guide, especially if that Guide is not allowed to eat meals with us (I've been told that's how Tauck works). The NatGeo trips just seem too physical and not enough cultural for me, and Thompson doesn't want me. Maybe AA will turn out to be the ABD alternative that works for me...

Sayhello

That is true with Tauck that guides won’t eat at your table. I still felt we got quality time with her though