Football Road Trips Reviews 

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!! This company is an absolute joke and a complete scam artist. Where do I start? Took all our money last year ready for a trip Friday 21st April….on the day before they cancelled it after a complete lack of communication throughout after they had all of our money. We have been promised a refund for the last 2 weeks and wake up today (the day of the refund) to an email telling me they can now only offer a monthly payment plan. Yet again a complete lie and another way to drag out not paying us back the money. Absolute disgrace of a company and please please please avoid them at all costs as you will only get mucked about constantly with no communication at all.

Update - they have tried to flag my review to get rid of it. Trying to cover there tracks. Absolute joke of a company

Absolutely disgraceful company who only want to know you when they are taking your money. We were booked to go on a trip in March. This was cancelled due to 'rail strikes', yes rail strikes effect a road trip! Fast forward to after the weekend and a review appears about how great the weekend trip was, the one we were told was cancelled! Communication is shocking and expect all attempts of contact to be ignored.

Offered a 70% refund and 40% off a trip next season which is unacceptable so after various phone calls and emails they were offered a full refund. This was 4 weeks ago, you guessed it no refund has been forthcoming and all contact is being ignored. We have since been told the trip was cancelled for us as we paid a discounted rate!!

DO NOT PAY A PENNY TO THIS COMPANY!!!

So the day before the trip we got our itinerary which was wrong so they sent another one so I called the owner and he apologised and said he would send another one. Whilst on the phone he just dropped casually that there would also be no second game as he couldn’t get FC Twente tickets. By this point, anger had probably left me as I was just relieved we were going. Got the second itinerary which was wrong again but I was not that stressed as Oli the tour guide called and said all was sweat and gave me the info I needed.
The only stressful thing was we had to panic around and get everyone’s passport details on a sheet the night before we went. Could have been avoided if you sent us this request weeks before we went.
Day 1 left London Kings Cross at 10 am and got to Brussels in the evening which was class. Nice hotel and only 10-15 euros in a taxi. The night out was decent but a whole day of drinking and everyone was back at a decent time.
On day 2 on our way to Dortmund, we got told we were not going to Dusseldorf that night anymore but instead going to Essen after the Dortmund game. “Yes Essen I said. No, you are correct I also hadn’t heard of it too”. To be honest, at that point we all only cared about 1 thing which was getting in that Yellow Wall. We got to Dortmund and got our tickets which were split in 2 blocks (a bit annoying), moment of truth is we got in and I can say for nearly the whole group it was the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. The atmosphere was electric and nothing came close to it. Dortmund also won 4-0 and went top of the league so class.
Come out of the Stadium and the group which was a stag had been f**ked over badly. 7 of them were arrested for duplicate tickets and spent the first half in a cell. Made me feel sick. Imagine that. £700+ spent and you miss the one thing that matters.
Got to Essen and absolute shambles at the hotel. No split single rooms. Instead, we had double beds booked. Not crazy bad we all mates, but sharing a double bed with a single quilt isn’t the best.
The massive co*k up thou was they we giving us rooms to ourselves which was a surprise then when the organisers realised thou were sending people back to reception telling them to share and people were walking in on other rooms which had all their stuff in it.
Fortunately, we were all fine and went to some weird Karaoke bar and had a class night. The other group which had been done over on the tickets also got done on the rooms and had to pay more money for another hotel.
Day 3 went to Amsterdam and it was what Amsterdam is, which is class. The only annoying thing was the hotel is 30-50 euros from the centre but being a big group we split them.
Day 4 returned home so was what it was.

Bottom line, this trip was successful for us in the aspect that as mates we had a brilliant trip and watched Dortmund win in the yellow wall. But on reflection we were lucky. 7 out of 11 trips were cancelled. Of the 4 trips we all had our second game cancelled which was bad because we are all big footy fans. We got a total of £300 compo for the second game which is ticket prices but in Amsterdam, that was 2 rounds.
This company does not use your money to fund your trip. They use someone else's money and pay for everything last minute. With the other reviews coming in you will see things are getting worse for them which must be tough but that’s not your problem. I also didn’t get a refund for the single room fee of £100. Do it yourself it’s cheaper and not worth the risk. I hope this helps someone.
Also to add. Tour Guides Ollie & Ally were both quality lads but I don’t think they would work there again with the crap they have to deal with. Can you blame them?

15 of us booked last year in October 2022. Seemed a massive sell with 2 games, Dortmund in the Wall & Ajax at home, 3 nights in 3 cities (Brussels, Dusseldorf & Amsterdam) for £700+ each incl hotels and transport (Our own Mercedes Sprinter).
£99 Deposits paid and 4 monthly payments to settle was a treat as we didn’t need to pay everything upfront. One additional fee of £100 too as we had an odd number so one person would need their own room rather than sharing.
Fast forward to January and I stopped getting my receipts which I usually got sent after I paid each month so I started chasing and got nothing. February came and I made the last payment, chased again for Jan & now Febs receipt. Got a response with Jans receipt but not Febs and the email saying we have no staff and are extremely busy so expect no contact now until a few weeks before the games with our itinerary.
Annoyingly in the email they blamed covid. It’s 2023 YOU CANT BLAME COVID. Also, we all work in recruitment so you can’t blag us with that line.
A few weeks before our trip maybe around a month and we learnt that the Ajax game was changed to an away game. We were told when booking this can happen and to be honest none of us cared. We were going to get another game either German or Dutch by looking at the reviews where this happened before. Being the organised freak I usually am I sent an email asking which game we were getting. I didn’t care so much about the game but more about where we were waking up on Monday as a few of the lads wanted to fly home but couldn’t book it as we didn’t know if it was Amsterdam or not.
Fast forward 2 weeks prior to the trip and I got an email saying the following.
“Hi there
We will be in touch early next week regarding your package as we are still awaiting vital information from our suppliers.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to respond to emails until next week due to ongoing staffing problems caused by the pandemic.
Regards”

So nothing came early next week. Instead, I got the below on Friday which was exactly one week before the holiday.

“Hi there
We understand that we are late with the itinerary which has happened because of factors out of our control.
We will be in touch as soon as we can.
Thanks for your patience.”

Fast forward to Tuesday evening (same week as the trip), we get an email which I have posted below.

“Good afternoon
We are pleased to inform you, that after the latest round of investment talks to save the company from administration, we are now close to finding a solution.
After 8 years of running amazing trips, we have struggled with the huge cost increases since covid and had to run trips at more than they were sold for. This has led to us having to release all our staff (hence no email or phone communication) and now has led to the cancellation of trips.
What's left of FRT staff have not been paid as there is no money in the company and the current ownership have literally got their house on the line but it now looks that we will have this resolved within 24 hours, meaning that this weekends trip could in fact go ahead as planned or at least we would be in a position to offer a refund plan.
This is of course contingent on us receiving the further investment this week, which we are now very hopeful of.
Please understand that this has been an awful period for us and letting people down is not what we set out to do. The covid after-effects have caused us to almost go bust but there is now light at the end of the tunnel.
Many, many travel businesses have fallen due to the post covid price rises so we are fighting very tough conditions.
We will have a 100% answer on this tomorrow.
Once again, we totally understand your frustration, but we are an honest company of 8 years, who have really fallen on very hard times. We are getting this resolved.
Thank you for your continued patience.
Kind regards”
Let's be honest the above is bullcrap. If things go up then put prices up and stop advertising old-priced trips. Also WTH? My final payment was on Feb 1st. £10k spent and your saying that my trip is being paid for by investors.
I decided to take a nice(ish) approach and not send abuse to the owner or send a bad trust pilot review because I thought if trips get cancelled then I don’t want it to be mine. We wanted this trip and it was literally 3 days away with people having booked flights and hotels the night before in London which I know we would not get back.
Turns out my email worked and I got a call in the morning saying no stress the trip was fine and all ok but up to 7 other trips would be cancelled. Makes you feel like crap for those people especially those that had flights and hotels etc.
During the call, I was told there would be no Ajax game which we knew already so this tells you they are way off the pace and clearly never had tickets. We were fine with it and were told we are getting FC Twente instead which we were fine with.

I booked a trip in 2021 through Football Road Trips Ltd for weekend away to a couple football games in particular dortmund and then at Ajax.

We were told less than 2 weeks ago they had to change the Ajax game to FC twente (which was fine and agreed) we had flights and extra costs paid to get to London too (our meeting point) less than 4 days before going!! 4 days!! They cancelled the whole thing due to 'spiralling costs' with no proper explanation or what would happen next. Leaving us in limbo! Luckily we organised our own trip but with no refund in hand wasn't great! Then low and behold see they still went ahead with the trip!
Looking at reviews it looks like we avoided any further disasters but has taken until now (after lots of emails and messages - with a complete lack of sufficient and timely response) to get our refund! But only because they had 'secured further investment' why not just refund me the money we paid in the first place!!

I would totally avoid booking this place and organise it yourself and save the hassle. We've lost out over £400 on this with no form of an apology and a suggestion to claim through travel insurance.

I'm sure you'd have had some form of a good time if it went ahead but I seriously question their organisational and communication abilities to run this.

So we made our way to London to not waste a flight and hotel we'd paid for, at the cost of £200 or so per head. No response to the email from Tuesday stating there would 100% be an answer by Wednesday.

Today, around 3pm less than 24 hours before were due to go on the trip we receive an email about how the company has been saved, we can't run the trip now however as too short notice bla bla, not enough buses but we can offer 70% refund and a 40% discount on any package NEXT season (so after 7 months of waiting to get cancelled whilst in London with hours notice do they really think given our experience we'd hand over money again or wait?!) Also offered to put a trip on in 2 weeks - yeah cause we can just afford to sort accommodation, book time off and travel at such short notice.

We took the 70% refund reluctantly as we have now booked to go to Prague for the weekend from London to salvage the weekend, but only on the basis we got the refund today - which we did but only after an exchange of words where we were branded unfair for being angry 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Laughable. Save your money and do the trip yourselves! Probably get it cheaper all round anyway if you do it that way and without the high blood pressure, shocking customer service and stress.

We'd previously booked a trip in April 2019 only for them to cancel 2 days before the trip
They spoke about the business struggling and they were looking for investment. We did however get a full refund.

Fast forward exactly 3 years. We booked with them again giving them the benefit of the doubt for last time. What's the saying? A leopard never changes it's spots. So after plenty of communication when it comes to monthly payments we hear nothing for weeks. Trying to get an update on the itinerary fell on deaf ears. Once again they cancel the trip with the email stating Hello and thank you for you patience at this difficult time.

As mentioned in previous emails, the company very nearly went into liquidation. This would have meant everyone losing their money and having to make an insurance claim that takes months. However we managed to secure investment to keep the company alive and will now be running some packages.

The problem this week as that at such short notice, we cannot get all the required buses to run every bus.

What we can offer is the following:

- Dortmund v Wolfsburg package in 2 weeks from tomorrow, 5th to 8th May, going to Brussels, Dusseldorf and Amsterdam.

- Any package next season

- A 70 % cash refund now and 40% off next season.

Please note that this has been a terrible time for us and we apologise unreservedly for the issues but we are doing everything we can.

Please let us know asap which option you prefer.

Kind regards.

Funny how they don't use the word cancel.

Again it's just lies. Whether it's brexit, covid, administration. It'll be Putin next.

Please do not book with this company. You can tell lots of the good reviews are fake.

Stay away.

Initially booked in 2020 but due to covid this was cancelled as apparently capacity in the dortmund and ajax stadium was restricted which is fair enough but after abit of research we found that this was not true. Anyways rebooked for 21st April 2023, less than a week till we are due to depart and we have had no communication from this company, I have sent numerous emails and Facebook messages with no response what so ever regarding our trip/itinerary. This company is a joke! Lack of communication is poor, apart from in the beginning when you are booking they seem to respond extremely quickly then. 6 days till we are meant to go and we are none the wiser. Unsure if we will get a refund or how to go about this due to being ignored and there is no phone number for this company either. I would stay away from this company md would not recomened using them at all

Had an amazing time with the football and beers and ste our guide was absolutely class guiding us around. As the other reviews say the organisation of the company needs to improve alot. Alot of this it felt last minute even though it could have been organised long before. It sounds like they don't have enough staff to do it properly. They rent the busses from a company and our driver was horrendous, turning way to fast, missing directions and speeding over speed bumps. They changed our second game not long before from Ajax to FC twente. The excuse was train strikes but we was on a minibus? Hotels was changed last minute aswell. They also didn't have everyone's name for the hotels and they had to sort once there. Apart from that it was a great weekend and one to remember.

Amazing trip I would highly recommend to anybody who loves football beers and a good laugh. Ste was a brilliant host and on top of everything from minute one a true legend! Very organised efficient company providing a once in a lifetime experience for which I am still recovering now 😂

I struggled with what to rate this. The weekend was absolutely fantastic, we had a stag do over the Easter weekend and it was full of laughs, beer and football. What made it amazing though was more the company, and the general idea. The organisation though was pretty poor, we first found out about a week before that they couldn't get us tickets to the Ajax game, apparently due to train strikes, and they swapped it out for FC Twente. We where left in the dark a bit when it comes to the actual day as well, we all got down to St Pancras and where told a couple of minutes before where the bus was, which by the way as you'll see in the other reviews doesn't have a playstation or TV, personally don't mind that but just don't advertise it. Our guide Ste was a fantastic guy, he helped when he could, but it was his first time doing it and it felt as if he was more doing it as a favour to the guy who ran it - but that's not his fault at all. We where left to our own devices for the most part, with an occasional pin in the WhatsApp group of good places to go, we also had a last minute change from a hotel in Dusseldorf centre to one 20 mins outside, not to mention the stag wasn't on the list of names for the hotels. All that being said, this could be such a fantastic business with just a bit more organisation, it's a brilliant idea & we had an amazing time - if we went into it knowing the full details before hand we still would have went ahead with it and had an amazing time, it was just the changes and timings of them.

Great weekend! I was really worried after reading some of the reviews and I was starting to prepare myself for the worst case scenario. The communication had been quite poor the few weeks before but steadily improved as we reached the date. The morning of the pick-up I was close to a nervous wreck and thankfully it’s at that point the communication improved further. Kai rang me quite early the morning of the pick-up date to apologise for the problems and explained the reasons behind this, he advised me our tour guide would be getting in touch with me soon and dropping a pin for the pick-up location.

Ste (our tour guide) set up the group chat and was brilliant throughout, he constantly gave us updates on the group chat and in person. He socialised with the whole group really well. Despite it been a stag do Ste was always professional and a calming influence when needed.

For the most part everything went to plan, we had numerous stop offs on all the journeys whether it be for a toilet break or to buy food and drink. Ste seemed to strike up a good rapport with the driver which made it really easy for us to relay to Ste our needs. The only minor gripe would be the pick-up from Amsterdam was 07:10 on Monday morning this had been on the original itinerary as 09:30 so did end any chance of a night out in Amsterdam for about half the group.

Other than the communication I don’t really have a bad word to say about the trip and it absolutely delivered above our expectations. The hotels were good, the bus didn’t have PlayStations but our group didn’t really care about that. It was comfortable ,had a fridge for beer and that’s about all that mattered to us.

Had a great trip watching Dortmund and FC Twente for my Dad’s 50th. Our guide, Ally, was very helpful, both in the day and on the night. Great trip all round.

Just got back from our football trip over Easter all in all a very good trip. A couple of things that were not great was the communication! Tried emailing to find out who we were to meet at St Pancras and didn’t hear anything from anyone until morning of departure. A telephone number would be great as would a more prompt reply to emails. Could send out a email to all people on trip a week or so before saying you will get someone call you on morning of departure for a bit of reassurance etc. It states that there is PlayStation and Xbox and faulty towers etc, that is not the case there isn’t even a tv that works and the power points to charge phones on bus don’t work. Also your guide only takes you out on guided tour on last night In Amsterdam the others nights you just get told what best bars are! Hotels were very good but only issue is they were a good taxi ride away from the bars! Was to see Ajax but got told that had changed etc, tour guide JP was first class!!!! Always there and would answer any questions you had and put out our plan of action for day well in advance. Yellow was amazing! And JP was so right in getting us in there over an hour before because it fills up rapidly! Düsseldorf is a banging night as is Amsterdam! Very good trip would do it again but if they could just iron out a few of the issues that would be great!!

The football side of the trip was amazing, being in the yellow wall at Dortmund is bucket list stuff. The nights out in Brussels and Amsterdam were great too, two places I’d never been before but absolutely loved. Our tour guide Ally was great, clearly tried his best to give us the best experience possible, and as an experience it was a brilliant few days.

But…. We almost missed the whole trip because our itinerary email was copy and pasted from a previous trip, meaning the bus was set to depart an hour before we were told to be there. Luckily Ally warned us in time and got us on the bus in time. On the bus itself, the play station with FIFA as advertised on the trip was nowhere to be seen. Whilst getting to know the other passengers on the bus (all of whom were lovely) we discovered that our trip had been adjusted with our second game changing from Ajax to FC Twente. As disappointing as this was we understood that these things can happen with games being moved etc. Our issue was that we had to wait half an hour into the trip for another passenger to update us instead of receiving a communication from the company. The final issue was that although there was plenty of beer, the whole bus could have benefited from more toilet breaks as some passengers were apprehensive to drink and enjoy themselves to the fullest whilst others had to use bottles on what was pitched as luxury transport.

While the trip itself was an enjoyable experience and something I’m very glad we did, I just wish the company itself would be that little bit more caring and honest in its advertisement and communication. Thanks to Ally though for turning an incredibly frustrating situation into a trip I’m sure we’ll never forget!

Just got back from Brussels, dortmund and Amsterdam and I'm a shadow of my former self.
Boss sent me home early from work today I've been that useless, constantly shiiting/shivering
Can't wait to go again!!
Rich the tour guy was sound as, keeping us all topped up with ale and getting us everywhere on time despite the wheels literally coming of the bus(story for another time).
FRT could be better with communication and the vans were ok but far from luxurious
A company propped up by its tour guides.

All in all a really great trip

The trip started with a night In Brussels which was much more lively than I expected. Best bars were identified by our coach guide JP. Next day Dortmund v Berlin Great experience in the yellow wall before a night out in Düsseldorf again with all the best bars and clubs identified by JP. Up early to to get to FC Twenty (this was originally going to be the Ajax game but the late kickoff forced the late change. On to Amsterdam for the last night. JP took us on a tour of all the highlights lol and made sure all the bus knew what bars and clubs were best in class.

The information pre travel was not as good as it should have been and JP no was having to relay new information to us during the trip.
Everyone on our minibus \ coach had a good time.

Communication leading up to the trip was extremely poor. When spending nearly 5k for 6 of us to go and not hear anything until 5 days before we leave is not the way to run a business.

However, once we stepped foot on the bus and were introduced to JP (Jammy) the trip became one to remember.

The Borrusia Dortmund game was by far the highlight of the trip. The atmosphere was electric and the best I've ever been too. Rightfully told by Jammy to get into the yellow wall early as it fills up an hour before kick off.

Amsterdam was a great night out which we shared together as a group. Dusseldorf and Brussels we were left to our own devices which was fine but the hotels were a taxi fare away from the main drinking spots.

A throughly enjoyable trip consisting of a lot of banter. Met some great people on the bus too!

Not happy booked this in 2020 and got postponed due to Covid so fair enough, but then to cancel the trip on us a week before we go. We had already made travel arrangements to London and accommodation plans so lost money on that as well. Not great

Nothing short of a disgrace.
This trip was booked in 2020 and at a reduced rate offer of £589pp.
Covid came around and so understandably it was postponed.
The following season we had a call from the MD to discuss our booking. He advised that they could run the trip but it wouldn't be the full experience due to a lot of restrictions being in place in Europe, so we agreed to postpone again to the 22/23 season....not that we had a lot of choice here because he said we couldn't get a refund as technically they could run the trip it just wouldn't be very good.
We would then be given priority choice for the following season and there would be no additional cost to us so overall, no harm done.....or so we thought.
The weekend we chose was 7th April 23 and we were set to see Dortmund v Union Berlin and then on to Ajax. There was communication issues in general but according to a lot of the reviews, this seemed to be par for the course so whilst not ideal we weren't too bothered by this and questions were eventually answered.
Fast-forward to Thursday 23rd Mar and we received the following e-mail
'Hi there, We want to let you know that as we are short staffed, our responses have been slower than we would like. Our management has also been dealing with an unexpectedly huge rise in costs ahead of the trip. They are considering available options and will have a game plan ready by Monday. Please bear with us as we won't be able to respond to individual questions until then'

The vagueness of this e-mail caused a lot of concern and I took to Facebook messenger to try to get more information. I was in a on there and quite frankly, her attitude stunk and essentially she told me that I didn't know what they did or what i was talking about - at no point was there an attempt to reassure me and at one point quite bluntly said that the worst case scenario was the cancellation of the trip. I did get to the bottom of the 'price issues' during this chat which was that the bus company had put their prices up from 550 per day to 1000 and that the tickets had increased considerably due to Dortmund being top of the league. Their business plan seems to be reliant therefore upon Dortmund not doing well - madness. At one point she, in capitals, told me '7 TIMES I HAVE TOLD YOU WE WILL CONTACT YOU ON MONDAY' - customer service is clearly not her strong point.
Anyway, we had no choice but to wait until Monday...except, Monday came and went and we heard nothing. I requested an update via e-mail and messenger, nothing.
Tuesday, we then received an e-mail entitled Package 10 cancellation, summarised as follows:
*Unable to run all buses due to rising costs.
*Recently bus providers increased costs by 60%.
*Could run most trips at very very low margin still.
* Tickets for dortmund then increased to over 250E
*Anyone who paid less than cost to run trip (£700) faces cancellation.
*As this is an official confirmation of cancellation, we now have 14 days by law to refund you.
*We apologise for the cancellation but it is out of our control.

2 and a half year wait and we have our trip cancelled at 10 days notice!!! Through no fault of our own!

I responded to ask for more info and to suggest that we could potentially pay the difference, we didn't want to but we were desperate for the trip to happen having waited so long.
**It's worth noting here that the e-mail was a group one to all of the organisers of the cancelled trips - a breach of GDPR** so I e-mailed them about this and about quite a few things, as did numerous other people...all of which were ignored. They've blocked me from commenting on their facebook posts and from messaging them on FB messenger too.
Due to the cancellation and at such late notice we have also lost money on train tickets and overnight stay in London the night before the trip - a few people had even booked flights back from Amsterdam as they had to be back sooner so have lost money there too.

We've had no communications since they cancelled on us and we've been in touch with other groups who were cancelled showing us an e-mail that they've had offering them 30% off a future trip!

Clearly they can't guarantee that they'll be able to honour this price given our experience and can only assume it's an attempt to keep the money rolling in and they'll decide 2 weeks beforehand if they fancy running the trip.

If you read the T&C's you will see that you are completely at their mercy and they can essentially do what they want - they also don't seem to have any complaints procedure or escalation process and worryingly they said to me that the MD doesn't work for FRT anymore despite him being listed as the sole director on companies house.

Refund has landed today, exactly 14 days since cancellation - last minute, shock.

Seriously, save yourself the stress, don't book with these amateurs.