"Incredible trip - great value!"

Just got back after doing the 8 day Sail Turkey tour - had the time of my life would 100% recommend! The boat far exceeded my expectations, we had so much space and double sun loungers out on deck and ensuite cabins. Our tour guide Aykut was absolutely brilliant, always enthusiastic and fun yet informative and really helpful with advice on places to go when docking and booked transfers and even enquired about day trips after the boat trip for us. All the crew were so friendly and went above and beyond for us and we ate like kings! The optional activities were all great and worth the money! I really wasn't sure about going as I had read some mixed reviews but will definitely be booking with them again!!

"10 day tour of Turkey"

Just finished up our 10 day tour of Turkey. The trip was fantastic and seamless from start to finish. Our guide Mustafa was hilarious and knowledgable and would go out of his way for us at any part of the day- he even helped a group of us after the tour finished book entertainment and turned up to ensure we got in.

All hotels were COVID safe and a couple of hotels were completely empty. The coach was brand new (policy mean coach has to be younger than 2 years old).

If you’re thinking about whether to go on this trip give it a go, fantastic value- just check you’ve got Mustafa!

"DO NOT BOOK WITH TRAVEL TALK TOURS!!"

DO NOT BOOK WITH TRAVEL TALK TOURS!!

I am absolutely appalled by Travel Talk Tours and I would not recommend them to anybody. Their communication has almost been non existent with regard to current outbreak of COVID-19. I have had to follow up with them many times to confirm the tour will actually run. Each time I would ask them what the policy was if the tour does not run, and every time I was told we would be offered a refund or the option to rebook the tour. Now that the tour is not running they are saying they can not offer refunds and we have to rebook the tour for a later date. This is completely appalling and the fact is they have lied to me many times! You can not trust them at all. They ignore emails and only reply when they want to.

It took 5 days to hear from them once we saw the tour was cancelled on their website to receiving an email from them. If I could give them zero stars I would.

"Scammers and thieves"

Scammers and thieves. Stay well away. Refusing to refund after cancelling tour which is contrary to UK law. They stall, send generic emails and do anything to not pay back your money. Will never travel with them again. Your money is not safe with Travel Talk.

"DO NOT USE TRAVEL TALK"

Please please please please do not use travel talk! They love to take the money but will never refund it even if their is a global pandemic happening.. they ‘suspend’ trips so they do not have to refund you for them even though it is physically possible to delay a trip a whole YEAR! They only sent automated emails - fellow kiwis and aussies use someone who cares and doesn’t spend the money before the trip arrives.

"Do your research ...."

TTT was recommended to me via someone I met in Egypt. When a stellar deal arose, I nabbed it. However, when you add the deposit, the tour, local fee, flight and food the tour becomes much more expensive that what was advertised. Do not be fooled by a tour marked as half price because the local fee in conjunction with the deposit rival more reputable and well-established tour companies.
Additionally, our guide did not have the English language acquisition skills to completely understand our questions or sufficiently explain information regarding his country.
Lastly, the company cannot take ownership for their mistakes as evidenced by email and phone exchanges. For unknown reasons they refunded me my trip two weeks before departure. One week before departure they realized their mistake and contacted me to pay my tour once more stating that the transaction was my fault. On another occasion, no one was awaiting our arrival at the airport to transport us to the hotel. When we reached out to the company, they informed us that we must have overlooked their shuttle driver. We discovered that the shuttle driver did not pick up another couple as well.
In conclusion, I would not travel with this company again. I am satisfied with the experience in the country, but I would never travel with them again.

"Horrible company with horrible staff"

Our tour guide was quite unhelpful and seemed to be put-out by any questions we had. The guide was really unflexible with times and rude when the group asked if it was possible to move time (for example one day we ate lunch a 4 and dinner was booked for 8!). When someone asked if we could make it an hour later as many of us felt this was quite soon after lunch, he was snapped at and told if he didn't want to go to dinner with her, he didn't have to. He was only expressing the views of several tour members, we still would have liked to have gone for dinner as a whole group, instead we went in two separate groups.

The local tours we received were quite poor as our guide didn't seem particularly knowledgeable. In Santorini specifically, the walking tour lasted around 5mins, we were shown where the bus stop was and then the tour guide announced the end of the tour! In addition were we often made to feel that free time wasn't exactly free time, almost made to feel guilty about not wanting to do optional activities. The restaurants that were recommended by our guide were consistently really bad - it seemed that we were only going to these places and the guide was given free food and drinks to bring us to these places (a little unethical!). While these were 'optional' when we said we didn't want to go to one as a group we were told "well i'll have to cancel my reservation" and as a group we were scalded for not wanting to go to an 'optional' restaurant.

On our first full day in Ios we were given our feedback forms early and asked to fill them in and return them before we got on the bus. Once these were filled in, it was as though our guide totally gave up. We went on a boat trip that our guide said she was really exciting about, but when we got there she had not booked herself on. It later transpired that she hadn't booked on because her previous tour had booked her on and paid for her to be on the trip. Although no-one was made aware of this expectation in anyway, we were made to feel quite bad about it. That night she told a couple of girls on our tour that she had "another tour in a couple of weeks and hopes the people are better". The girls were understandably quite offended. At dinner that night she smoked a joint and said "i probably shouldn't do this but its nearly the end". She also got a tattoo and requested that we wait for her while she did so.

Once we got back to Athens our guide pushed past one of the boys on the way into the hotel and said "nice to see you're in a hurry now" - we think this was in reference to wanting to go for an 'optional meal' a little later than the guide wanted to. We were then given our room keys. There was some trouble with a room for a few remaining girls (in that that had to share and had booked not to). While they were trying to sort this, our guide said that they needed to talk to travel talk as we pay them and not her, then she literally ran out of the hotel and was never seen by us again. When we emailed travel talk about this we were told it was because she had a transfer to get, but we knew this wasn't true as she told us she was going back to her flat in Athens that night.

Travel talk have failed to take responsibility at any time for any of these issues. They took 36 days to respond to my complaint and I had to make an official ABTA complaint before they would get back to me. I received an email response dodging the worst bits of my complaint and making excuses for other points in my complaint. Avoid this company as best you can, you would have a much better time with Contiki or Top Deck.

"AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!"

AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!!! Disorganised, unhelpful and rude tour guides that took group to awful restaurants , dead clubs and even the locals were amused at her choices. Room bookings were changed without notification and company lied about booking policy. No help provided when we complained until they realised we were reviewing them online . Group has literally ditched the tour guide!