Going Places Travel - Danville, California

Phil Parrish

My girlfriend and I had the pleasure of working with Pat at Danville Travel to plan a special trip to Mexico in February of 2021. From the first call, Pat proved to be a great listener, she asked important questions, and came up with an awesome trip for us. Pat developed a great feel for what we wanted on our vacation and she over-delivered on what we expected. To have a team you can trust to plan your trip and for Danville Travel's package to beat the price we would have received had we booked on our own proved to be invaluable. Pat was very responsive leading up to our trip and after we returned home. Booking through Danville Travel ensures you will have a great experience while saving time and money. The company also offers peace of mind with insurance that covers the trip. We are already planning our next vacation with Pat and Danville Travel. We can't recommend them enough!

Lindsay Heaton

Working with Danville Travel, and specifically Pat, has always been a stellar experience. We recently returned from our fabulous Hawaiian vacation, and can't wait to go back! We were provided with wonderful suggestions for places to eat and sites to see. All arrangements had been made by Pat (flights, car rental, hotel). We didn't have to worry about anything, and were able to relax and enjoy our time away.

Thank you Pat and Danville Travel for a 5 star experience!

dana

First, let me say that I sent this complaint to the company and I have heard no word back - not one apology. I would not use this travel company again. To summarize our experience: the lady didn t know what she was doing, she didn t do anything we couldn t have done for ourselves, the emergency line didn t work, and no help was offered to help when they finally did contact us. If I could give a 0, I would

Here is the letter I sent them detailing the ordeal that we went through...

First, my boyfriend had asked for travel insurance with Danville Travel and apparently, none was ever purchased by our agent. She even told us in an email that we had decided against it when we certainly did not. I buy travel insurance with almost every trip and my boyfriend thought it was a good idea. She said the insurance would not have covered the issues we had but the fact that we asked for it and it was not done is unacceptable.

After the cruise and plane tickets were booked, we began researching our ship s information. It seemed like after we paid for our trip, we had to plan the rest. I have used travel companies before and they assisted me with all the travel plans and not just the part of taking our money.

One of the themes I noticed on the forums and travel information on taking a cruise is that the traveler should get to the port of destination the night before. The flight Pat booked us got us to Fort Lauderdale at 6am the morning of the cruise. This may seem like plenty of time, but with the cancellations and delays, it was not. We talked with a couple on the cruise who is from Napa and they said they got to Fort Lauderdale the night before the cruise disembarked with no problems and boarded the ship as expected. I feel like this is an important piece of advice the travel agent should have known about and should have passed on to us. The couple from Napa also saved a considerable amount of money flying there a day early which more than paid for their lodging for the night.

The day before we leave, Pat calls my boyfriend and said she spoke with the cruise guru in the office and she said we were going to have a great time. I am just curious why we were hearing about this expert the day before our cruise and not in the planning and booking process. I have a feeling things would have run a bit smoother had this cruise guru been consulted more than just the day before we left.

So, we get to the San Francisco airport on June 22. We find out our direct flight to Florida was cancelled and the airline would get us there by going through JFK. When our plane began to have mechanical failures and we knew there were going to be more delays, we began to call Danville Travel s emergency line. Not only did no one answer, there was only an option to leave a voicemail on the regular business line. I ended calling 15 times in SFO and JFK airports. I even posted a plea on Facebook because I didn t know what else to do.

The first communication received was a voicemail on my phone at 1pm Pacific time on June 23. By then, we were already in Jamaica (so that we could catch the cruise there). If someone had gotten back to us sooner, however, we could have had help trying to find other flights, a hotel in Jamaica, and things to do in Jamaica. Instead, we were left to do the last minute planning on our phones in the airport.

Because we didn t know anything about Jamaica, we ended up spending $1500 on hotel, food, and taxi fares for 3 days. These were completely unexpected expenditures that possibly could have been avoided had we had some help planning. There wasn t even an offer to help us find things to do while in Jamaica while waiting for the cruise. Pat just told us she would call Royal Caribbean on the June 25th (Monday).

In a way, our trip was more stressful because we thought and expected to have someone help us if things should go wrong and that safety net was not there.