The Berninia express was superb, Switzerland beautiful
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Brand: Great Rail Journeys
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A most enjoyable holiday. An excellent group of fellow travellers guided and directed by the excellent “Cat” our lovely tour manager. A thoroughly enjoyable experience. Wonderfully scenery, great hotels and food. Brilliant all round.
An excellent trip, beautiful scenery, good food , comfortable accommodation and a superb tour manager
Excellent value for money. Expertly organised by an amazing tour manager (Aubrey) Stunning scenery, superb trains. Faultless itinerary. Hotels in Strasbourg and Basel both very good. Tiefencastel hotel was a great location, nice but pretty basic rooms and food adequate but insufficient choice. Overall an outstanding and busy trip which provided a wonderful stay in Switzerland and trips on some of the most stunning train journeys on the best routes. GRJ organisation from booking to return to St Pancras was faultless - no mean feat as this was a complex trip comprising 40 fellow travellers. Communication throughout was timely, informative and educational Finally The group vibe was mainly excellent and certainly added excitement and enjoyment. 100% recommend.
The tour was everything I had hoped for. Communication from the company prior to the tour commencing was excellent and the trip itself was well organised and led by an experienced guide. It provided beautiful scenery, great experiences and wonderful memories.
amazing experience fantastic journeys
Hotel and the trips were fantastic although the size of the group presented a few problems with the number of transfers. Vegan meals which had been an issue on a previous trip were well catered for. The tour manager was very knowledgable and looked after the group very well.
Overall we really had an enjoyable trip. Julie, our tour manager, was excellent and Switzerland itself was amazing. Hotels were very good and the all inclusive package meant that the trip was good value. The train rides were super, especially in the Alps . Handling our own luggage for two full days though, was asking a lot and this element needs to be improved especially as some trains were double decker so we had to move up and down stairs with weighty cases. I would recommend this trip for active people and we will use GRJ again
A well organised trip with an experienced guide. Accommodation good but food only acceptable with no choice for dinner.
A great combination of rail trips and visits to towns embedded in beautiful scenery
The location of the hotel used as a base is poor, there are other tours which do not use this and I wish I had chosen one of those. It is down a steep slope so not really a level 2 mobility. There is nothing else in the village apart from a bakery and a church. Facilities are basic but staff friendly. Switzerland is beautiful, scenery really worth it and trains good, although our Bernina broke down.
Reply from Great Rail Journeys
Dear Mrs Street,
Thank you for your review.
I am sorry to hear that you found the hotel location was not convenient for your stay, being located nearby steep slopes. We always want to make sure that these locations are in line with the mobility requirements advertised, and so I shall be feeding this back to our Product team for review, as we are always trying to improve the customer experience.
I also understand that our Customer Relations team have been in contact with you directly regarding the breakdown of the Bernina Express, and so we hope that we have been able to fully resolve this for you.
Despite some of these issues we hope that you returned home with some wonderful memories of Switzerland and that we can welcome you on another tour in the future.
Kind regards,
Alex
Overall experience wonderful but too many changes of train on the outward journey. Overnight hotels were excellent but the base hotel below the standard we have come to expect from GRJ.
Excellent Experience Greater than a expected and tour guide Sara was excellent and very helpful thank you for a fantastic Journey
It was a good holiday. There were too many trains! Some very tight changes. But also wonderful trips on Bernina and Glacier Express.
Very hectic could do with more time between trains 🚃
A great holiday overall with fantastic scenery and plenty of trains which ran smoothly throughout our journeys across Switzerland. The only thing that let it down really was the hotel. This is our 32nd holiday with GRJ and the only time we've literally had no choice for the evening meals, which were somewhat hit and miss. It's a good job it was 4 courses and we're NOT fussy eaters, otherwise we'd have gone hungry some nights. The first starter was a salad bar, plenty of choice but too heavily dressed for my liking. Next came the starter, 4/5 nights it was watery, rather unappetising soups. The mains were very basic and sometimes a bit odd. Desserts were nothing special but passable. Interestingly, packed lunches on this "all inclusive" holiday was mostly pretty good we found, although once again, no choice. Breakfast was also decent, although a little limited and I found all the flies a bit off-putting. Our room was a little tired looking with frayed linen. I think we were just unlucky there, as many of the rooms I'm told looked freshly redecorated. I also found that the staff weren't exactly very friendly or helpful. Interestingly though, one night we had an "area performance manager" come to check out the hotel and that night was one of the better meals with noticeably more staff on duty giving a much better service! All in all, a very good holiday but the hotel could do much better in my opinion.
A wonderful full, interesting holiday with a great tour manager and group of people . Nice hotels, good food and great weather. The group was quite large, 40 of us including the tour manager, but we managed to navigated the train changes okay even with tight timings between some of the changes. I gave 4 stars due to the second day of travelling which involved lugging our cases on and off 4 different trains. On the return journey our cases where transported by van for us which made things much easier.
Very poor tour. Far too much time spent on public transport trains just going back and forth. Would not recommend this for anyone least of all older people struggling with their cases on a stupid journey to Strasbourg and then another whole day travelling on 4 trains to get to the hotel. When you could have gone from Paris to Basel and then a very short journey the following day. Very badly planned
Too much time on the clock. More tine at a number of the destinations would be better
Positives: The tour manager was exceptional. She had a very large party to manage and often had very tight schedules to adhere to and appeared calm and organised throughout. The hotels in Strasbourg and Basel were lovely, as was the tour generally, however it is very full on and exhausting in high temperatures. Negatives: Group size was advertised at 30 - 35 maximum, however our group was 40, should have been 41 but one dropped out last minute. This made travel uncomfortably crowded on occasions. A charge of £250 was made as a solo traveller, yet 5 out of 7 nights I was in a single room! Upon questioning this with customer services, I was told that prices for the tour were based on two people sharing. REALLY?? I would like to see them sharing a single room, it was merely an excuse to charge more. This tour was also advertised with a further £300 off just before I travelled (I booked 6 months previously) and I was told they had some vacant places to fill, yet the group size was much larger than it should have been. When questioned several times, the company simply apologised then varied the excuses, based around their general script. Would not use again.
Reply from Great Rail Journeys
Dear Mrs Kemp,
Thank you for your review.
We greatly appreciate your taking the time to provide your feedback for your tour with us.
I can see that you have been in correspondence with our Customer Relations team, but we were unable to reach a suitable solution for you.
I hope that despite this we have the opportunity to restore your confidence in the future.
Kind regards,
Alex