The reviews keep coming in ...

After a family holiday to Stockholm, Copenhagen and Florence the first two weeks of July we paid for it with a busy slate of trips waiting for us to get on the road.

They're all home now and this is what they said ...

• Two familes to Burgundy and Provence

  Just a quick note to say we had an amazing trip and cannot thank you enough. I am working on typing up my official feedback but just wanted to send this now just to let you know that I felt it was as close to perfect as life can be.

• A family of five doing an Italy 101 with a week on the Amalfi Coast

Thanks so much! What a fantastic vacation!

Hightlights?

The villa experience overall in Amalfi, gelato making a huge hit, gondola ride Venice and just sitting at a cafe at night in Venice on the water having drinks, kids loved watching glass blower in Venice arranged by Matteo, early morning private Vatican tour.

• Eight men golfing the SW of Ireland

Our favourite was a note sent to our referrer.
"At your suggestion, we retained Chris Tabbitt to book our trip to southern Ireland.  We had 7 golfers and just returned on Sunday, August 17th.   You should be aware that due to Chris' efforts everything was perfect!   The drivers, the hotels, the booking of the golf courses, caddies, all went according to schedule.Thank you very much for your recommendation and I recommend the use of Chris Tabbitt in the future for anyone booking a golf trip."

• A father and his three grown sons, who are all scratch golfers, were off hoping to play the Old Course and other classic Scottish Links

All back safe and sound and enjoyed the week tremendously and yes we all played the Old Course.
Mission accomplished!
Thank you for your patience and diligence in making the event a great one.

• A couple celebrating his 70th birthday with Dublin's best links culiminating with a stay up the coast with our favourite course Royal County Down

"What a trip! Everything was as smooth as silk and the courses were great. Your personal booklet for us was extremely helpful everyday... Congratulations on your exceptional service, recommendations and expertise."

• A family of five escaping to Maui and Kauai for hiking, snorkeling, biking, surfing and lots of other adventurous things ending in "ing"

A mid-trip missive went like this ...

House is stunning ! Weather great ... Hiked the north shore trail today and swam in a waterfall pool ... Doesn't get much better !!

• A long weekend celebrating a 65th birthday in Iceland

Iceland is stunning .....I loved it.

The Benefits of Working with a Travel Consultant

At Travel Impresarios, we consider ourselves master trip planners. There is not a minute that we are not thinking about what you're doing (or not doing) when planning your vacation/holiday (two different things, by the way). We believe a well-planned trip leads to maximum enjoyment of your precious, and often, limited holiday time.

Occasionally, we simply make hotel bookings. Our excellent partnerships offer our clients many amenities that the direct booking traveller cannot access on their own.

In most cases, it means the following:

• Room upgrade, if available
• Breakfast for two
• Often a food & beverage or spa or golf credit on average about ~$100
• Often it is free wifi (which it should be everywhere anyway)
• Early check-ins and Late check-outs

These amenities offer excellent value to the traveller all at the same price they would be paying anyway.

We are members of Virtuoso, a network of the world's finest travel agencies, hotels, cruise lines, airlines and tour companies. Essentially every Virtuoso partner in the world offers some added value unique to their agency partners.

While Virtuoso almost covers all the world's great hotels, our agency is also affiliated with the following:

• Four Seasons Preferred Partner
• Bellini Club - Orient Express Hotels
• STARs - Ritz Carlton
• Abercrombie & Kent - 100 Club
• Air Canada - Circle of Excellence
• Regent Seven Seas Cruises Council Top Producer
• Silversea Cruises Excellence Award
• Crystal Cruises Platinum Award
• Oceania Connoisseur Club

All of these partners offer us something that you cannot access on your own.

A good example is the Bellini Club offers a US$500 gift voucher per booking to each customer who purchases an Orient-Express experience worth a minimum of US$5,000.

Undoubtedly, the benefits are great, but it is the relationship that we have with these partners that ultimately benefit you. We are going to book with these suppliers over and over, you may choose to book with them once. We are lifetime clients, people they want to continue to impress.

Case in point.

Last month over the Christmas break we had a family at the Virtuoso property Tryall Club in Jamaica.

The family had booked a villa for 10 days and on the day of arrival, there were a few things not quite right.

Here is the email we received on Boxing Day, 18 hours into their stay

Here's how it has started at Tryall.  No food when we arrived.  No golf cart, now they are saying none are available.  No hot water upstairs in our unit.  Waited one hour for breakfast this morning at the restaurant , nothing fancy, just eggs over easy.  Went down to the beach, no chairs available and they were out of towels.  Not a very good start to our 10 days.  I have brought these events to their attention. Nothing has been addressed as of yet.

We sent a quick note off to our representative, who got the key people involved; Director of Villas and Director of Guest Services, who took immediate action to resolve the situation.

A day later, after asking if things had improved, we received this ...

We did meet with Richard last night.  He took care of our dinner, very good meal.  I feel that they have hammered out the kinks.  Sometimes the solutions outweigh the problems and in this case they have.  We have a cart to get around now.  The beach towels are brought to us every morning.  The hot water was fixed and our house keeper is just fantastic.  

I appreciate you hopping right on this.  They have righted the ship so to speak and we look forward to the next 7 nights.  We still may do an overnight in Negril as a mini field trip.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers!

Upon their return, we received this happy note.

Chris,

Everything was sorted out and we had a great time.  Thank you for helping us with this vacation.  

Tryall is very unique.  We would definitely recommend Tryall for families with Children/Teens.

The staff are amazing, very friendly and helpful.  The food is great but pricey.

We did venture to some local establishments but it was really hard to leave the resort given the offering onsite.

A golf cart rental is a for sure!  Based on the unit we stayed in you are looking at about $400-$800 more in activities etc…per day above the resort price.

Club Mobay at MBJ is a must as well.  Best airport lounge south of the Keys, at least that I've seen or heard of.

We will be going back…

Our clients could have booked directly, they would have received the same price, but in the end they received the benefit of someone looking out for them and solving their problems.

As for our relationship with Tryall, it is now stronger than it was before due their responsiveness and follow through.

A very happy ending for everyone.