Ireland Travel Agent Review: Dublin, Kinsale, 10-Day Tour

Review by traveler

Michele T.

6.25.2022

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

Ireland

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

Most, but not all, of the recommended/booked accommodations were great.
There was a huge lack of recommendations for bars, restaurants, sights, and activities within a town. What was recommended was consistently found on trip advisor, Google, and other touristy websites which we could have discovered on our own. My previous experience with other travel agencies, including through Zicasso, was that agencies provided significantly more unique, personalized, curated, and thoughtful recommendations. Overall, our trip felt like something we could have/would have booked on our own, which was very unlike our prior experiences with Zicasso.
Our travel company’s communication was marginal at best, which, again, was very unlike our experience with other travel agencies through Zicasso. While we understand staffing shortages, the extreme delay in communication before the trip was frustrating. Aside from delayed communication, there was little transparency and communication overall. We had a lodging location changed literally a few days before our trip began without explanation or discussion. Our international airport (Dublin) was facing extreme staffing shortages and thereby significantly long wait times, so much so that locals and airport employees recommended arrival to the airport at least 4 hours ahead of departure time. We heard nothing of this from our travel company; in previous experiences with Zicasso, the travel agencies were always abreast to travel information. In fact, our travel company had our airport transfer scheduled for us to arrive at the airport with less than the recommended time. It took us, the paying customers, to reach out to the company to change this. This, in our opinion, should have 100% been monitored and handled by the travel company. Likewise, the US dropped the COVID-19 testing to return to the states, while we were on our trip. Again, we heard nothing from our travel company (a US-based company) regarding this. It was us, the paying customers, who reached out to verify this information.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

Kinsale

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

I would use a different agency

Travel Company Comments:

Hi Michele,

Thank you for your detailed feedback regarding your recent trip to Ireland with us. We are very sorry to hear that your experience with us fell short of what was expected.

We pride ourselves on providing curated itineraries for each and every traveler and are disappointed to hear that you did not find our recommendations to be personalized to your liking. Our team has traveled extensively throughout Europe, especially Ireland; therefore, we use our own experiences as well as feedback from past and repeat travelers to provide recommendations that we feel would be a good fit. That said, we apologize that you were not satisfied with what was offered. We understand that sometimes it takes time to reflect on things that were not up to par, however, we would have loved to take the time to correct your itinerary if you were unhappy with it prior to traveling. Should you choose to travel with us again, we will make every effort to provide you with a customized itinerary that exceeds your expectations.

Your comments on delayed communication are fair and appreciated. While we don’t want to make excuses, due to the increasing demand for international travel and lack of availability both internally and externally, we weren’t always able to provide the level of service our travelers have come to expect. We realize this, and while we are in the process of staffing back up, we sincerely apologize for the impression this left on you as a valued client.

In regards to keeping you abreast of changes and travel restrictions, you are completely correct. As your trusted tour operator, we should have done a better job of keeping you informed so that expectations could be managed properly. Please know that we are addressing this internally and will be using your comments to improve our overall guest experience moving forward.

If you have further concerns or issues, please do not hesitate to contact your Travel Specialist or email us.

Thank you again for sharing your experience with us. We hope that we will have the opportunity to make things right in the future.

Warm regards,

Liz