Easy to work with My wife and I loved our Sceptre vacation to Ireland. Booking through Sceptre was easy, and the couple of times we called, Sceptre provided prompt and efficient help. The rental car, the hotel, and the bed and breakfasts we booked via Sceptre were outstanding. The one hitch we encountered was with JetBlue, the US domestic partner of Aer Lingus. Our JetBlue flight out of O'Hare was delayed to the point where we were going to miss our Aer Lingus flight at JFK and lose a couple days of our vacation. JetBlue could not rebook us on another carrier; we had to get our own tickets to JFK from American. We filed a claim with JetBlue and Aer Lingus for the value of our unused JetBlue flight, which is in the process of being settled. This is all not directly Sceptre's fault, but, they could have booked us with carriers who were more likely to rebook on another carrier in the event of a delay.

Terrible Experience with travel arrangements in Ireland We used Sceptre in the summer of 2018 for a trip to Ireland and it was a near total disaster--do NOT use them. We developed our own itinerary and asked Sceptre simply to book cars and hotels. Although they provided us with vouchers that claimed to represent reservations, those vouchers repeatedly represented nothing--the vendors had nothing for us. For our first vehicle rental in Dublin, the local car rental company representative pressured us into buying expensive insurance, claiming that the insurance offered through our credit card wouldn't apply because the reservation wasn't charged on our card but rather through Sceptre. Sceptre in New York did not answer the phone (a common occurrence), so we paid. We learned afterward that the local agent was wrong; Sceptre should have informed us of the insurance situation in advance and answered the phone when we called. The next day, we attempted to check in to our prepaid hotel in Kinsale, but notwithstanding that we had a prepaid voucher in hand, the hotel had no record of our reservation. It was a weekend and a bank holiday, so they had no available rooms. Again, no one at Sceptre was available to answer the phone, and so we relied on the hotel to graciously find us other lodging. They did, although the room was far inferior to what we wanted and had booked and paid for. When we finally were able to contact Sceptre, we asked them to reconfirm all our remaining reservations. They claimed to have done so and told us that all was fine--except for a problem with our hotel reservation in Galway. The hotel at which we were supposed to have a reservation was now booked. Sceptre did book us another place--which was lovely, but 15 minutes outside of the city rather than in town as we desired. The biggest problem came a few days later when we arrived at the Cork Airport to pick up another rental vehicle--because of the size of our group, we needed a minivan with an automatic transmission. Again, notwithstanding having a voucher, the car company had no reservation for us. This time, someone did answer the phone at Sceptre, but the agent was completely befuddled and unable to do anything other than tell us to find another rental car on our own. We had to spend vacation hours going to every car rental counter at the Cork airport. There were no minivans available at the Cork airport, from any vendor. There was one car in the entire airport that was marginally workable for our needs, so we grabbed it, notwithstanding that it was smaller than we desired; we were cramped and uncomfortable for the entire second half of our trip. When we returned home we documented in detail to Sceptre our claim for refunds. They repeatedly delayed in substantive response for months, and only after we threatened to sue did they finally reimburse us. Bottom line, Sceptre was incompetent, unprofessional and unresponsive.

One week trip to London Don't be fooled by the good price! The Scepture representative "Carmen" misspelled my name which thru everything into chaos! Our flights we were told to book independently to assure seating together took our money (Virgin) $100.00 and failed to assign our seats because of the misspelled name even though I contacted Scepture to fix the problem. Our hotel was under management change and our week was on the floor they were gutting with no heat. They moved us unexpectedly on the 5th day when we were on a tour. They gave us 10 minutes to pack our bags! Our tour trips with Evan Evans is in a bus with NO BATHROOMS and 2 of the trips were in excess of 12 hrs. People were peeing in their seats because the driver and tour guide shamed you into having to stop! We felt herded like cattle and treated the same! The drivers of the couches and the tour guides complained non stop about the traffic and their employers, Evan Evans, for those who understood English. They evan counted how their risk of demeaning their employer was. E.g.: 56 percent don't speak English or are in the back so it's okay to talk smack about Evan Evans. And to think we paid 4 years saving for this! This is probably just a format to ere your grievances but I happen to know some very important people and they will spread the word for us. Try the company Pret A Manger. Our VERY good friends. I hope you resolve your problems!!

Italy Excursion The overall trip and organizing of the trip was amazing there were some outings that we did not care for. For example, the Amalfi coast drive we took was not a trip we would reccomend. They also promised us they would send us either passport covers or travel tags and we got neither. Its a little thing, but if you promise something, you should deliver. All of the other adventures in Italy were great! We loved our hotels and our excursions. Our travel agent was able to plan the trip within a month. We were also able to make some last minute changes which were great.

Our confirmation said Adare manor would … Our confirmation said Adare manor would be closed the entire 2016 year. We just got back and it's still closed. Dan Dooley did not have a van for us. We booked 7 months in advanced and no van ??? We waited over a hour then we insisted on a ride to Adare. Needless to say we had no van until later that day. Prior to our trip we called Sceptre several times with questions and left messages and voicemails for the manager and no one ever returned our calls.