culturalitaly.com

Subpar accommodations and NOT an expert on Italy

After having a positive experience with them for a trip to Greece, we decided to use them for our 30th wedding anniversary to Italy. We were thoroughly disappointed in our trip to Italy as it cost us almost $20,000 and there was nothing about the trip that warranted such a cost. Our accommodations were subpar as were most of our tours. That cost did not include airfare or food. We were told that they were an expert in Italy and there was nothing expert about anything that we received on this trip. They didn’t even bother to let any of the hotels that we stayed at know it was our 30th wedding anniversary. I made it very clear to them that I wanted the experience to be as good if not better than Greece and nothing was nearly as good as our Greece experience. I also found out that the reason that this was is because they had a different travel agent plan our Greece experience. They used someone who was an expert in Greece instead of using one of their travel agents. We were completely ripped off and we asked multiple times for an itemized statement as to what our expenses were and we were told we could not have one. We were also told that their fee was 25–30% higher than if we would have booked on our own. I did not know this and had I known this prior to booking, I would not have booked with them. They refused to take any responsibility for our subpar accommodations and kept blaming us for our disappointment. The only thing they offered us was when we canceled our last ciry, Venice, they offered to give us some vouchers. They told us if we booked with them again they would make sure we had the trip of our dreams. I thought that was what I was getting when I booked with them originally. I told them I would never book with them again! And if I were you, I wouldn’t either.

Date of experience: Sep 30, 2022