Poland & Germany Luxury Trip Review: Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, 15-Day Tour

I would have given this travel company 5 stars, but due to some poor planning, how they handled certain situations, and were unable to setup a date/time to discuss the issues once we returned home bumped them down to a 2. I have planned my own and more complex international trips in the past, and with the amount we paid this company we should not have encountered the issues we did. If they tried to give us some reasonable sort of remedy (which was requested several time) I would have given them a higher score since about 75% of our trip was enjoyable and had great guides. However, the time, stress, and disappointment we had to deal with tainted what was suppose to be a very memorable trip with our 80 year old grandparents.

Reasons why they were given such a low rating.

1. PLANNING WEATHER DEPENDENT ACTIVITY: We only had one true weather dependent activity on the itinerary, the Eagle’s Nest. That area had an especially bad winter, and instead of booking this activity at the end of the trip they did it in the middle. We therefore missed our ONLY “must see” sight in the area since the Eagle’s Nest had a later opening date (I sent a list to them with the “must sees” and the “if we have time would like to see”). Instead of booking us at Salzburg (30 mins away) like they should have, they booked us to stay in Munich (2+ hours away), so we essentially wasted that entire day driving out to the Eagle’s Nest (more details on why we drove to a closed site in item 3). Not only did we waste an entire day, but we were in Munich for 2.5 days where they booked other activities we did not request. I was originally fine with these additional activities assuming we would be seeing our “must see” site. I normally do extensive research when planning my trips (it took 5 mins of googling to see that the opening date is fluid based on weather), but thought since we are paying for them to plan it I did not have to. That as a travel agent they should know to customize their trips around weather related activities, however I was apparently wrong in making that assumption.
2. BOOKED ACTIVITY DURING A LARGE FESTIVAL. The travel company booked our Nuremberg one day visit during the biggest rock festival in Europe where we could not see Zepplenfield (another “must see” on our list). Again, this planning was completely in their control, and they even told us in email that they knew the rock festival was going on. So I asked why did they not do Berlin -> Nuremberg -> Salzburg so we have a better chance at seeing our “must see” sites? They never responded to that specific question. It was hard seeing my grandfather disappointed that we could not see 2 of his big "must see" sights due to the company's poor planning.
3. EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE TOUR GUIDE: I have never seen such unprofessionalism and aggressiveness of a tour guide than I had seen of their Munich guide. I have been to more crime ridden countries and cities than Munich, but I have never felt more unsafe than I did with the guide they employed. His aggressiveness stemmed from me contacting the company about why our guide drove us all the way to Eagle’s Nest when it was closed. I pulled up the Eagle’s Nest website while we were there and it clearly states they were closed (there was basically no one was in the parking lot so others clearly received the message). Instead of apologizing that he should have checked the website that morning to see if they will still be open he told me I should have “emailed Hitler” to see if it was open! He waited until we all got in the van with our luggage the following morning to go to Nuremberg, locked the doors, waved some pieces of papers around erratically, and was yelling at me that I contact this travel company (this was only 7 hours after the company ensured me they would go above and beyond for the rest of the trip…). We felt like hostages in the van going to Nuremberg, and were afraid he was going to drop us off randomly on the side of the road or start a physical altercation. We declined his services when we reached Nuremberg due to safety concerns and us not wanting to be with someone who was not mentally stable.
4. MONTH TO BE REIMBURSED FOR DOUBLE BOOKING: Our first hotel charged our credit card for their stay even though we prepaid for it. It took over a month for the company to “sort it out” where I had to follow up several times.
5. UNABLE TO PLAN A CALL AFTER THE TRIP: The trip planner refused to setup a date/time to discuss the issues above even though I requested it 7 times over a month, but she would rather randomly call me to try and “catch me”. When she randomly called me I either missed her call or was busy at the time. The fact they could not setup a time to discuss shows a lack of professionalism. When I FINALLY gave them an ultimatum that I was going to go ahead and write my review if we talked or not she then thought emailing at 5:30AM to setup a call at 10:00AM would suffice.
6. NO REMEDIES:  For the amount we paid for I expected more from this travel company. They say they strive to go above and beyond. I felt I could have booked this trip myself at a much lower cost. I asked for some remedy due to the issues stated, but was never offered anything reasonable (minus an email about paying for one dinner they sent the day of that I did not see). If you are going to pay extra for someone to plan a custom trip I would consider looking at other providers.