Jim Hayes
GBDisappointment with Ireland itinerary 1. In retrospect, disappointment in flight schedule from BNA to PHl. Delay in Nashville flight was responsible for our luggage not arriving on our Philly flight to Shannon. Based on short turnaround time from from Nashville to Philly, we nearly missed Philly to Shannon flight. 2. Philly to Shannon flight arrived on May 8th not May 7th. Due to this detail, our Ireland schedule/itinerary was, by our account, incorrect for the entire week (we agreed to 6 nights, yet itininery stated that we would leave on 7th &arrive on 7th - not 8th). Entire itinery had our group arrive a day early and leave a day early. This caused significant anxiety as we arrived at Adare Manor - Manor staff, perhaps with assistance of Sceptre worked to make our stay a wonderful experience. 3. Return flight schedule reflected departure on 18th which was correct, but due to confusion of arrival date, (7th vs 8th), the rest of the itinerary was incorrect. NOTE: I acknowledge receipt of incorrect itinerary, but did not closely review prior to departure .
CATHY
GBOne 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!!
Bob Loesche
GBTerrible 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.
KEVIN
GBI will never use Sceptre again We used a Sceptre package 2 times in the past in Ireland, where the pricing was great, the b & bs did not have to be pre-booked, and we did not get a hard-sell to upgrade our car. This time we had to pre-book, 1 month in advance of the trip, which meant we had to have a set itinerary, which we did not want to have. This was not made clear in the booking information. So several months after we had bought the air,car and b&b package, we learned that we had to pre-book; This information was poorly communicated and untimely. When we tried to pre- book b&bs, Sceptre essentially had a bait and switch: they had very few if any b&b offerings at the our price point, BUT we could pay more per day to get a higher grade b&b, that was available and had more offerings. There is something misleading about offering a b&b package, that has to be booked 30 days in advance, and this information is not conveyed to the purchaser. The best part of the package was our B and B hosts in
DEBORAH
GBGreat trip - Some feedback Great trip - Most everything was perfect except getting home...Our connecting flight home was scheduled with just an hour and a half lead time of our flight home... The flight ended up being an hour late, and the gate to our flight home was closed 30 minutes prior to departure...Would recommended a longer layover/ lead time otherwise I would have given a 5 star rating.