Review: Tour of Guatemala

We ultimately had a terrific visit to Guatemala, thanks to the on-the-ground tour operator, to whom our travel agency outsourced my trip request. This travel agency works with different on-the-ground agencies in various countries. For Guatemala, our trip was terrific mainly due to our tour operator's work, and our travel company served mainly as a middleman. I paid this travel company which is located in Wisconsin; but the actual recommendations and local knowledge (for Guatemala) resided with the contact who runs the tour company. 

Our agent at our travel company was helpful in booking us Int'l Airline Tickets, and to her credit, she helped pull together a trip at the last minute. However, I was disappointed that our travel agent had failed to understand that we wanted to travel at a high-demand time (Holy Week) and she did not communicate that a key domestic flight was NOT "on hold"; thus, we had to change our itinerary due to not securing an internal flight we wanted. Furthermore, instead of getting proactive advice on how to customize our trip, I had to follow up with emails and phone calls to make sure we "got the basics" locked down in securing hotel and flights, despite communicating I was very ready to make decisions, make payments and "lock and load" our trip.

Overall, I would have rated our travel company a 2. But they linked us to a good on the ground operator and we did pull off a trip with only 3 weeks planning, so for those reasons, I've bumped up a rating to 4 stars. They were the only agency to respond to my request through Zicasso.

To give the travel company the benefit of the doubt, I believe that for other countries (they serve South America too), they may have more local knowledge. But not for Guatemala!