“Original booking process was smooth and staff seemed to have good knowledge.
We were mislead regarding the honeymoon booking package, after specifically asking we were informed that any credit remaining would be available to us however it then transpired this was not the case and could only be redeemed with Trailfinders. This should have been and must be clearer for customers.
Unfortunately we encountered several issues during our trip, one of which left us in a very dangerous situation as a local tour was rebooked without our knowledge, we only found out the day before when enquiring with the hotel that the original company had gone out of business and was not reputable.
Instead of our day tour we joined 2 other tourists and spent the day arguing with the local driver who seemed to be messing us around, he even called backup and a group of thugs tried to intimidate us. We had to threaten calling the local police and eventually they agreed to return us to a hotel, we got out with the other tourists at their hotel fearing for our own safety. This company then proceeded to leave notices at our hotel and one came through our door and we realised they were supposed to be returning us to the airport, we refused this and made our own arrangements.
We were told in writing that resort tax was included however after being charged on arrival Trailfinders changed their mind, eventually realising their mistakes and refunding this.
We were left feeling very unsafe and unfortunately would not personally use or advise use of Trailfinders again after this.
For this reason I refused to even accept the £100 voucher they offered me as compensation.
I had to settle loss of enjoyment through section 75 and my bank eventually handled this in my favour despite having emails from Trailfinders admitting responsibility in writing.
In August 2024 I requested that Trailfinders erase my personal information, they refused to do so. I understand travel companies may retain this information for 3 years so I then requested they look to erase as much as possible, anonymise remaining personal information where possible and pass my request on to the third parties which they shared my information with. These third party tour companies did not prove to he trustworthy in my experience. This was a fair and reasonable request. Today Trailfinders again informed me by email that they have not attempted to action my request. I am not satisfied with their customer service to date, hopefully it will improve.
In November 2024 I received an email confirming that Trailfinders provided my data to a third party company, the non reputable tour operator in Dubai and not the one I agreed to originally book with. At no stage did Trailfinders attempt to make me aware of this change to my original booking.
Because of this, the company in dubai (who put my family safety at risk and proved to be unreliable) can now retain my personal data for another 2 years thanks to their own local laws!
I can verify everything in this review.”
“Disappointing Honeymoon Experience with Poor Planning and Service
We recently booked our honeymoon to South Africa with Trailfinders, and unfortunately, the experience fell far below our expectations. Despite explaining from the beginning that our baby was our top priority, it seemed like no consideration was given to him when planning our flights or accommodation.
To start with, after checking out of our lodge at Amakhala at 11am, we were left with nowhere to go until our flight at 9:30pm, which was extremely inconvenient with a baby. There was a 3:30pm flight available aswell as many others every hour that would have aligned perfectly with checkout, allowing us to land, have dinner, and get our baby in bed by 7pm—ideal for the early start the next morning. This was a huge oversight in the planning process. Arrived at Johannesburg at close to 11pm to get the shuttle bus to our hotel but we'll just be getting there to sleep as we're up again at 5am to check in our baggage, again!! As the luggage had to be collected at Johannesburg on our transfer to Mauritius. Our hotel wasn't even on the airport grounds and were doing all this with a baby. We're booked in for breakfast at 7am and we can't even have it. Absolutely shocking planning.
Our flight to Cape Town via Dubai also included a 4-hour layover during the night, which caused further disruption to our baby’s sleep. We could have flown direct from Heathrow for 11 hours, but instead, we endured this unnecessarily long, exhausting journey after already flying 9 hours.
The trip planning as a whole lacked foresight. For example, we had a single night booked in Franschhoek for wine tasting, but couldn’t partake as we had to drive 4 hours the next morning to our next destination. The accommodation throughout the trip was very basic, with no special honeymoon touches as promised—no complimentary wine or champagne, no private dinner, and no turndown service, despite it being noted in our booking that these would be included.
We also had a significant issue at the start of the trip, as a car seat was not provided, which led to us losing a day of our holiday trying to source one ourselves. This mishap caused us to backtrack and drive through the night for 4 hours, missing out on the scenic Route 62 views and unnecessarily putting ourselves at risk driving in an unfamiliar country with an 11-month-old baby.
To make matters worse, we requested a breakdown of costs after feeling that the holiday, which cost £10,000, didn’t match up to the value we expected. We spoke to other travelers who were on similar trips with better accommodation at nearly half the price, yet Trailfinders refused to provide any cost transparency.
Overall, the planning and service were far below the standard we expected, especially for such a special trip. We are incredibly disappointed with the experience and will not be recommending Trailfinders to others.
This trip would have been stressful enough for 2 adults let alone with an 11 month old baby which infuriates us as we specifically mentioned this to our travel advisor prior to booking and it's been just thrown together without any proper planning.”
“Disappointing Honeymoon Experience with Poor Planning and Service
We recently booked our honeymoon to South Africa with Trailfinders, and unfortunately, the experience fell far below our expectations. Despite explaining from the beginning that our baby was our top priority, it seemed like no consideration was given to him when planning our flights or accommodation.
To start with, after checking out of our lodge at Amakhala at 11am, we were left with nowhere to go until our flight at 9:30pm, which was extremely inconvenient with a baby. There was a 3:30pm flight available that would have aligned perfectly with checkout, allowing us to land, have dinner, and get our baby in bed by 7pm—ideal for the early start the next morning. This was a huge oversight in the planning process.
Our flight to Cape Town via Dubai also included a 4-hour layover during the night, which caused further disruption to our baby’s sleep. We could have flown direct from Heathrow for 11 hours, but instead, we endured this unnecessarily long, exhausting journey after already flying 9 hours.
The trip planning as a whole lacked foresight. For example, we had a single night booked in Franschhoek for wine tasting, but couldn’t partake as we had to drive 4 hours the next morning to our next destination. The accommodation throughout the trip was very basic, with no special honeymoon touches as promised—no complimentary wine or champagne, no private dinner, and no turndown service, despite it being noted in our booking that these would be included.
We also had a significant issue at the start of the trip, as a car seat was not provided, which led to us losing a day of our holiday trying to source one ourselves. This mishap caused us to backtrack and drive through the night for 4 hours, missing out on the scenic Route 62 views and unnecessarily putting ourselves at risk driving in an unfamiliar country with an 11-month-old baby.
To make matters worse, we requested a breakdown of costs after feeling that the holiday, which cost £10,000, didn’t match up to the value we expected. We spoke to other travelers who were on similar trips with better accommodation at nearly half the price, yet Trailfinders refused to provide any cost transparency.
Overall, the planning and service were far below the standard we expected, especially for such a special trip. We are incredibly disappointed with the experience and will not be recommending Trailfinders.”
“In August 2024 I requested that Trailfinders erase my personal information, they refused to do so. I understand travel companies may retain this information for 3 years so I then requested they look to erase as much as possible, anonymise remaining personal information where possible and pass my request on to the third parties which they shared my information with. These third party tour companies (selected and in business with Trailfinders) did not prove to he trustworthy in my experience. This was a fair and reasonable request considering the circumstances. Trailfinders again informed me by email that they have not attempted to action my request or accept their responsibility. I am not satisfied with their customer service.”
“Terrible experience. Wrong booking of the room, another hotel was so dirty. They forgot every time to organise baby car seat and when we called they didn’t even come back to us.”
“Thanks to the very high score of this travel agency, we organised our honeymoon with them (some friends also suggested us to try them). We both have specific needs:
- One of us is hyperactive and definitely needs to unload his energy with activities and tours.
- food is extremely important for both as one has a very restricted diet
- we both have high standards about food and drink
The agency then offered us a 5-star luxury resort ( Santhiya koh Yao yai in Thailand)
- High standards and structure tested and verified with really good feedback
- 7 restaurants with different cousins
- High standards
- A lot of different Activity during the day and the night
- Possibility to easier visit Phuket
- Resort English speaker
Considering the wonderful description, we trusted them and booked the property.
Upon arrival at the resort, unfortunately, the problems started immediately: it was expected a honeymoon welcoming in the room with decorations and fruit. we received a piece of cake wrapped in plastic wrap and written "happy birthday"
Below of how in reality is a “luxury 5 star hotel” for trailfinder:
- the beach is equipped with about 20 sunbeds and if you are late, you have to settle for the swimming pool. the use of the beach is also poorly maintained and very basic (thin mattress directly on the sand and kitchen towels on top).
- the bar service on the beach is present but in a "do it yourself" style with a QR code and no one nearby to ask for support in case of problems. The resort is unable to prepare drinks and you need to do by yourself. If you want ice, you need to pay
- The two swimming pools are essentially organized in the same way as the beach and to get beach towels you have to fill out a form every day for collection and return as often the staff disappears for hours
- on the beach and on the swimming pools areas there is no form of entertainment (no music, no animation, no games)
- there should have been several tours during the day to discover the local area and culture. a total fiasco: 4 tours are available and all for snorkelling. furthermore, the hotel reserves the right to cancel the tour the night before if there are not enough participants. to my question "but if you cancel it, what can I do?", they laughed on my face and replied "you can spend 10 times more and get a private tour".
- of the famous 7 restaurants sold, there are only 2 and both with Thai cuisine and the IDENTICAL poor MENU. we tried the buffet restaurant but we didn't have the courage to swallow those dishes: food hours old, dry and with the semblance of having been prepared the day before.
- connections with phuket are not guaranteed: first boat available at 10 AM and last boat to return to the hotel at 3:30 PM. therefore impossible to visit the city
- recreational activities in the multifunctional centre: present only 2 times a week 1 hour yoga course
- The general maintenance status is not really good
- At 3-4 PM the resort staff asked to all the customer to leave the beach because they need the space to prepare the tables for private dinners. So no possible to stay on a beach
At the end of the first day we called the canary wharf agency to ask for help and transfer to a structure that was in line with the amount paid and contractually agreed. After 2 days, the trailfinders customer service basically replied that it’s our business (one of the 2 duty managers). The fact they have not respected and honored the contract was not their problem seems. The solution proposed at the phone was "pay us for another hotel at your total expense and then maybe when you come back to England we'll see if we can possibly give you something".
After an official second complaint, a second duty manager of the travel agency decided to give us 500 pound (consider to have a 5 star hotel here for 9 days you need at least 3500 pound).
Desperate, I reviewed in trustpilot my experience with them. After a couple of hours they call me back asking to remove my review because they decided to involve some high managers in order to solve the problem in a couple of days (from our request of help passed now 5 days). After 2 other days the outcome from TRAILFINDERS and Santhiya koh Yao yai was to add on a menu the champagne and that it. They also told us “you decided to take this resort and not another one more expensive so the fault is yours” (probably we are really idiot to think in a 5 star luxury resort, maybe not the most expensive one in the entire world, we should expect fish at dinner, some activities during the day and night, medium level of service., staff able to understand English and just an eatable food. Yes travelfinder, we are idiot)
Please be careful when someone in travel finder is assuring you about how amazing is a place because they don’t check and you are alone, as if you book a structure by your shelf.
Terrible assistance”
“This review refers to the Trailfinders travel agency, not the Safari itself or the company who runs it.
Awful experience. We spent almost 6 days out of a 14 day vacation stuck in airports and crappy airport hotels. A waste of time and money (because they did not cover our extra expenses, of course) that could have been avoided had they booked the flights we asked in first place (we even offered to pay for them ourselves on top of the vacation package) A travel agency who won't even book a flight? What is the point? And, by the way, the seven-day safari in Kenya is actually only five days. Day one is spent stuck in one of the worse hotels we've ever been to, without even an outdoor area! and Day 7 is spent driving back to the airport. I've never dealt with such an incompetent, dismissive, disrespectful and deceiving company. Do not recommend.”
“We had no support in contacting Air France to get our delayed luggage delivered whilst on a Treasures of Cuba tour. We had to endure 11 days without any luggage and personal essentials in a country where you cant buy/source replacements. We also have no support now home in gaining any compensation for loss of enjoyment and pain/suffering. They inform us they have no leverage or influence on luggage problems. When we did manage to get to a phone line always plus 40 in the queue. Email responses were not helpfull in anyway.”
“Been using Traifinders since 2008 never any problems , but in recent years there customer service has gone down hill and long waiting times in phone queue , unfriendly staff , unrelible staff that don't call you back , I basically lost my booking which was primarily booked according to the gentlemen, he did not call me back , so I had to call back then was told it would be a extra £200 .
Never use them again”
“Currently in the USA on a Trailfinders vacation.
Car via Alamo is not as ordered. Contacted “urgent assistance” at Trailfinders UK only to discover its full of untrained, unhelpful, arrogant fools who do nothing to help. And I do mean NOTHING. Once Trailfinders (UK) have your money you don’t exist to them. They’ll try every trick in the book to do nothing. They are 100% untruthworthy.
Got a problem? … expect no help from their helpline.
Want a manager response? … expect to hear nothing.
Like to have a normal conversation with an intelligent person? … forget it.
The UK team are dreadful. DO NOT BOOK WITH TRAILFINDERS. THEY ARE SIMPLY APPALLING.”
“No reserved seats on our £5500 special holiday!?
We booked a celebration holiday in St Lucia in Feb 2017 with TrailFinders who failed to reserve our premium economy seats on Virgin Atlantic both out and back. Consequently we had no confirmed flight bookings until 48 hours before on way out and 2 hours before on return flight. This caused us both high stress and unnecessary time spent trying to resolve especially in St Lucia for return flight. Lots of apologies and a token compensation voucher off next holiday!! ...which we will NOT now be taking with Trailfinders??”
