Kensington Tours - Wilmington, Delaware

NA H.

We just returned from a wonderful trip to Paris and Normandy by Kensington. We worked with Megan Harvey who was great. All our hotels, drivers, guides and airport transfers were perfect. Any questions before and during our trip were answered promptly. Kensington worked with a fabulous local team in France who met all our needs and were very friendly. Highly recommend.

Billy F.

We've traveled all over the world, with a number of different guides, vendors, etc. in the tourism industry. I thought we'd seen it all (good and bad), but Kensington found a way to lower the bar. We received a partial refund (about 15% of the trip cost) after dealing with the following:

a. It became clear immediately in the Faroes and throughout the entirety of our trip that we had a completely different itinerary than nearly everyone else (e.g. drivers, guides,
and likely the Kensington staff member responsible for coordinating our trip). We know this because we asked guides and drivers and all had a different set of instructions from
the company than we had in our itinerary. We also suspect that efforts mid-trip to try and salvage some of the bungled logistical issues could not be resolved because no one at the company or in their contractor network was sure what the correct itinerary
was—I don’t know how else to explain the mid-trip efforts to confirm bookings and schedules that still did not result in us following the trip plan we agreed to in December. There’s simply no excuse for the failure to plan and execute this trip in general, but especially so considering the very high cost of this trip (this is the most expensive trip we’ve ever taken).
b. Very few, if any, of the transfer days were even logistically possible as advertised to us. Our transfers between towns often called for scenic drives or stops at key landmarks, but there was simply never enough time in the travel plan to do them—so we wound up spending considerable time in cars without any of the scenic benefits advertised to us and often wound up getting to our next destination without sufficient time to do the
planned activities there (which might have been for the best, since many of those plans were never actually booked by Kensington).
c. Most of our in-country bookings were completed very late (we have receipts showing purchases made between 27 May and 14 June—6+ months after we thought we’d reserved this entire trip). I suspect this is part of the explanation for why we were seated on the wrong side of the Oslo-Myrdal train and the lack of a kayak operator in Balestrand—that the company simply waited too long to book things for us and thus did not secure seats or reservations we could have reserved ourselves back in December.
d. While we enjoyed each place we stayed as much as we could, there was a very large discrepancy in what we consistently communicated we wanted (e.g. to be in remote and rugged locations away from hordes of tourists and able to see/experience more local cultures) and what I felt was pushed quite heavily by Kensington on us (e.g. the various cities and towns in Southern Norway which, again, were beautiful but absolutely overrun by cruise ships and very large tour groups—we were essentially surrounded by other Americans the entire time).
e. This may be standard practice, but we felt a bit blindsided on the trip to discover that most of our itinerary had been outsourced to a separate travel company, Easy Travel, based in Estonia. If this had been disclosed before purchasing, I’m not sure we would have booked this trip. It’s not a surprise that there was absolutely no coordination or communication between the sprawling network of contractors and companies responsible for planning and administering our trip given the use of so many third-party contractors—something that obviously makes sense in terms of in-country kayak rentals, but not for booking and managing the trip itself.
f. We were never provided with any local contact information for any of our guides or transfers. The only numbers listed in our Kensington app and materials went to a central call center. It was not until the final few days of the trip that any of them reached out to us so that we knew how to contact someone in the event of a delay, weather issue, etc.
g. We rarely had time to eat three meals in a day—either because the logistical plan by the company did not allow it, or because they falsely claimed that meal service would be available en route.

casablanca1989

I am so beyond disappointed in my 15 day trip to Thailand planned by Kensington. I’ve traveled all over the world and used other local focused tour companies and gotten a way better product. I thought I was getting a luxury product and was disappointed at every step of the process. I highlighted ALL these issues to them while on the trip and continued to escalate a resolution after. All they offered me was 20% back on the trip. They outsourced the entire itinerary to a local company and frankly put at least a 50+% market up on what was received. Neither the hotels nor the experience with the driver has equated to ~1k per day cost:
-My travel specialist, Nichole, consistently neglected to include essential information in her communication, expectation setting, and neglected requests.
-Requested small, curated, higher-quality boutique properties which was not done
-Consistent lack of information on what to bring ahead of time for each tour.
-requested that no morning activities, all were morning. Requested the change and did not receive an update of any changes nor had expectations be set as to why certain activities needed to be at 0800.
-when a second person was added, Nichole advised me that my rate was calculated for tours for two people. There was an additional charge made to the hotels where my friend was added on. I’ve never been in a situation of occupancy as a single person and been charged double for my tours or hotel. Then, an additional charge was added if someone was added after it was acknowledged that I had already been charged double.
-Lack of communication till after booking and till right before leaving that early checkin and late checkout would be at an additional cost and not automatically provided.
-For flights, she did not follow nor communicate that the Seat selection
-Charging for meal on flight/lounge access when not requested (Especially for 1 hour flights)
- PDF of itinerary did not include times and were not aware of the morning start time till the app was downloaded before the trip
-For the internal Thailand flights, I had communicated that I would have 2 large checked bags. She did not communicate there was a max limit per person vs per bag. when we arrived at the Chiang Mai airport (we did not have the same issue on AirAsia to Chiang Mai) we paid an additional $159 in luggage for just the one flight. Then proceed to pay online an additonal $210 for the rest of the flights.
-Being told it was a requirement to book the ferry ahead of time when it was perfectly fine to book on-site
-There was no heads up provided that the local travel tour company could/would change the start times on/or day before tour.
-Size of airport/activity transport vechile huge/rented as private. Should not be a per person charge as the size of vechile.
-Pickup in Samui was not ontime. Not were they in the right meet point. This team did not appologize for being late and refused to help with the baggage. One of their team was sick (actively coughing/sneezing) and was without a mask. They handled our luggage and got me sick and I had to cancel actives due to it.
-I escalated this ticket for compensation and did not get any communication on it back.
-We were directed to refer to the app for everything but the app did not reflect the need for specialty clothes -The app reflecting a 0800 pickup on 2 tours when it was updated without communication to 1000. This change meant we cut short 2 hours of activities.
-No late check out complimentary
-We were informer by tour operator that there would 1.2k steps with a steep incline for an activity. My limitations based on an ankle injury were communicated while planning and would make it impossible. I was told “I can rest” as I walk up.
- hotel property had a pool of stagnant water surrounds the rooms and No consistent WiFi throughout the property. The “gated” WiFi in the room has a one device limit. They didn’t offer non dairy milk at breakfast; the tables were cramped. Not enough towels in room for double occupancy. One bellboy got entire property.

Don’t waste your money

Stephanie D.

The only reason I gave them 2 stars was because of the flight reservation and the quality of the hotels that were booked.

The person we worked with, Ronda, did not listen to what we were looking for. I ended up cancelling all activities and booking them ourselves thankfully. She booked a rental car for us. Knowing our itinerary which included a long drive of about 100 miles the one day, she booked us an electric car which was only able to go 40-50 miles per charge. We were forced to upgrade our car when we arrived and the only vehicle they had that met our other needs cost us a surprise extra $3,000 and was double the size we wanted knowing the roads were narrow in the areas we traveled.

Then we get to our hotel and there was limited parking. They advised us that on the confirmation (which was sent to Ronda) that they needed to be notified if we were bringing a vehicle so they could reserve us a spot as they did not have enough parking spaces for all of their guests. This happened at 3 hotels we stayed at during our trip but fortunately the other 2 were able to accommodate us.

I wish I had saved myself a lot of stress during the trip itself and just taken on the stress of booking everything myself.

Charles-Gregory B.

We used this travel company for a trip to south africa. While the trip was we’ll organized according to our demands, we were shocked to find out about the hotel rates upon checking out and the actual cost of the tours. The markup of kensington is over 100% on these trips which means you will pay 3 times more if you had gone direct for the so called “peace of mind”.
They know that very well which is why they would not provide itemized invoices.

The pricing structure is insanely brutal, left quite a bad taste after a good trip.

Lois A.

In September we traveled to Ireland as a family of 8, 4 couples. We had a wonderful trip experience after a botch on the first day. Hotels were great and our trip was planned with our input. We had a most wonderful driver and guide, Sam Gavin (from Scales, whom we believe Kensington contracts with). After the first day, we loved every aspect of our trip and we were able to make daily changes as fit our needs. 5 stars on this part.

However, we gave Kensington overall four stars for the following reasons:

1) A driver/guide never showed up at the airport as planned. After many calls to Kensington's emergency numbers (which we found out is a company called Kelly/Maloney in Ireland), we finally took a cab to our hotel and missed the driver/guide experience in Dublin. Kelly and Maloney said they had no idea who we were and our trip number and our names were not something they recognized. It was a rude and unhelpful man that we spoke with. We were later told by Kensington that the driver had two pickups and couldn't be in both places at the same time. A simple phone call to us?

2) We purchased Kensington's recommended t insurance with Travelex, who was also Zurich insurance. 6 of us purchased this insurance at an overly costly price. 2 purchased insurance from another company at half the price. We had a claim unfortunately, and the cheaper insurace company paid double what Travelex paid us. Travedlex still made a haul on us, whereas the other insurance paid out more than the cost, so lost money. I wrote a review on Travelex's site only to find that 20% of their reviews were a 1 star. My bad for not checking this out in advance. We trusted Kensington to provide great insurance and to be helpful. That was not the case. There is definitely a conflict of interest between Kensington and Travelex that works against the traveler. Also we felt the travel book prepared for us by Kensington was misleading. Both issues led to the insurance company's lowballing our claim. Beware of insurance offered by a tour company!!!

In summary a four, which could have been a 5.

Alex F.

I am a professional planner, so I know how important it is to have every detail PERFECT. I wanted to find a company to help me plan the trip of a lifetime and Kensington Tours went WAY ABOVE AND BEYOND!! Jules, our assigned agent, is amazing. She is on top of every single detail and has made our itinerary look like something out of a movie. The Travel Department doesn’t miss a beat either. They are constantly tracking your flights. We know we are in great hands. We cannot wait to go to Hawaii!! Thank you, Kensington Tours!

Brian G.

I've travel with some high end travel companies before. Kensington arranged a tour of Spain for me. From the beginning I was very impressed. I worked with Sydney. She found out about my family. She really tailored a trip to our interests. She contacted me right before the trip and made sure I understood everything that was arranged. We had a great trip. I'll be using them again.