Hello All,

2 weeks till Heart and Soul of America. I have just been on Trip Advisor for the hotels in St Louis and Chicago. As part of 37 on this tour, some of us are going to be disappointed with choice of rooms 😞

Jan

Jan

After reading this had a look at reviews on a couple of sites (never trust trip advisor for reviews) and there is a mixed bag thats for sure. One of the main complaints was small rooms and to be honest would rather have a small room in the city centre than a big room somewhere on the outskirts as have had onother tours.

Main thing for me is clean, safe and good location and hopefully they will fit those requirements.

See you on 2nd :thumbup:

Mick

Would normally agree that you should take TripAdvisor with a pinch of salt, but have recently come back from a holiday where the complaints about a particular hotel were spot on.

Whilst not wanting to appear to be sticking up for TripAdvisor, in this case I think the complaints were justified, so there are times when their reviews can be trusted. I notice that next year JY are no longer using the hotel in question.

Avocet

Hello All,

2 weeks till Heart and Soul of America. I have just been on Trip Advisor for the hotels in St Louis and Chicago. As part of 37 on this tour, some of us are going to be disappointed with choice of rooms 😞

Jan

Jan

After reading this had a look at reviews on a couple of sites (never trust trip advisor for reviews) and there is a mixed bag thats for sure. One of the main complaints was small rooms and to be honest would rather have a small room in the city centre than a big room somewhere on the outskirts as have had onother tours.

Main thing for me is clean, safe and good location and hopefully they will fit those requirements.

See you on 2nd :thumbup:

Mick

2 weeks till Heart and Soul of America. I have just been on Trip Advisor for the hotels in St Louis and Chicago. As part of 37 on this tour, some of us are going to be disappointed with choice of rooms 😞

Jan

I've seen this happen twice on a JY holiday but didn't bother me as there was plenty of other people in the group so really was their loss for excluding themselves.

First time it was people that had grouped up on the trip and insisted they had the same table at meal times and wouldn't let anyone else sit with them. Of course was a total accident when a couple of us got there before them and sat slap bang in the middle of "their" table on the last morning :angel:

However I'll add the 2nd time this happend it was people that knew each other before the holiday (had travelled together) and I'm unsure of why they were on a JY trip in the first place. In fact it wasn't just one group it was two seperate groups but as there was 40+ in that group again not a major issue but would have been in a smaller group.

Not sure what can be done about it so best just enjoy your own holiday in my opinion.

This is a really interesting thread, thanks for your contributions.

Obviously, the downside of a smaller group is higher prices (because for example a $10,000 bus divided by 20 people rather than 35 people is a going to be a lot more).

So if it were to add £100 on to your holiday price for example, would everyone be happy to pay that? or would you rather pay the same price and accept that there may be up to 35-40 on your trip?

hi

I would rather pay a bit more, after all one hundred pounds is hardly going to be noticed on top of a few thousand in the original price.

I am one of those people who need more attention because of

physical problems. So far I have been really lucky with the tour

managers who have looked after me really well when I have been

ill. I would not be happy if the group was too big in case I was

overlooked and got left behind as I cannot walk very fast or far.

Sue Southampton

Hi Julia

Not a question really - more an observation which I would be interested in hearing other people's opinion on. I have noticed lately a few comments about how large a group was on a few trips. Having experienced this myself (40 of us in Hawaii) I felt that although this didn't spoil the holiday, I have enjoyed the trips which have smaller groups so much more. With larger groups it is virtually impossible to get to know everybody, let alone remember everyones' names and this leads to cliques being formed. As previously mentioned, on touring trips when you stop for coffee / lunch / loos the wait is so much longer meaning those at the back of the queue lose out. Checking in to hotels also takes so much longer as does service at meal times. I also was more aware of a feeling of being herded around like sheep and of course the poor TM has to work so much harder looking after everyone.

It may not be the case but it seems to me that group sizes are increasing - many of the Italy and US holidays in particular have 35-40 people on them and wonder whether JY could consider running more trips with fewer people. I guess the answer is likely to be 'no' as market forces control these issues, but I would be interested to see what other forum users think.

Sally

hi

I agree, I feel much more comfortable with a smaller group, as things go wrong you have more chance of getting noticed and things put

right. I am useless also at names and it does not feel so personal

when there are too many people. Twenty five people is a good

number as you are more likely to make friends. There is nothing

worse than feeling on your own which is what JY always says it does

not stand for but rather a friendly group who get to know each other.

I would rather a holiday was cancelled than have too many people

or at least given the chance of going on a holiday that has fewer

people on it. How about giving us say fortnightly figures of how many

are booked on each trip so we can decide what to do. I know it would

cost you money to change holidays for people, but it is better to have

happy people who will recommend you rather than complain. It is

a circle as if people complain they will not book holidays and you

will cancel owing to low numbers. hope this makes sense.

Sue Southampton

Regards

Treen

I've just returned from the 29th September Canada and New England in the Fall trip where there were 19 of us, there had been one late cancellation. I felt this was a perfect size, we were all able to have a double seat to ourselves on the coach and got to speak to all in the group. Some groups did always stay together but I don't think that they were cliques as such, just like-minded people who had got to know each other at the departing airport.

In my opinion, much nicer than being in a very large group.

I have to disagree with your the comment regarding cliques. Most of the groups that formed were happy to mix, but one group became very exclusive, never even spoke to 'outsiders". Just plain bad manners. Otherwise everyone got on well.