Great Value Vacations Reviews

My girlfriend and I booked our anniversary vacation through them and got their help in planning a romantic destination. They helped me get a great deal for a very good hotel in Hawaii which was so worth the price. We loved every single minute we spent there. Thanks a lot!

Had a trip scheduled at the end of may that has been cancelled even though both Ireland and USA will not be on lock down anymore. Told to reschedule by December, however the rest of the year appears to be booked already and a comparable trip is also $1000.00 more, with no guarantee that the trip will actually happen. These are extraordinary times, but the right thing to do is refund the money. I saw the previous response to a comment about non-refundable travel, but right now, Great Value vacations is incapable of delivering a paid for vacation. You have no expense for travel that has not happened, you have the booking power to get refunds. If I book another vacation, pay the additional $1000, it is probable that I will lose that money too. I have called twice now and asked to speak to a supervisor, no call received. Even when this pandemic is over, I will never book a trip with this company again and I encourage all other travelers to do the same. There are plenty of more reputable online booking sources.

We have taken 2 trips using Great Value Vacations and both have been excellent experiences.
Communication is easy and the Voucher system is fantastic. We have never had any problems whatsoever in the itinerary.
Most recently, we were in a country that was in the process of being quarantined, and without hesitation, Great Value Vacations was able to get us home safely, in a timely manner without questions and/or delays. Would recommend them for any trip you may be thinking of taking. We most certainly will use them for any future trips.

Our trip to Ireland was perfect. This company goes beyond great to ensure that everything is all done right. We will definitely use them again. We got a great value vacation.

Fantastic trip to Iceland! Will definitely use Great Value again in the future!

I have emailed numerous times, but have not yet received a response about cancelling my trip and receiving a credit. Because of the global pandemic, credit was offered to trips that were to leave the day after ours was to leave, but I have not received any explanation as to why we have not also been offered a credit.

We were very happy with our vacation package. The price was outstanding, the staff that I spoke to were very helpful, and the itinerary was great. All the staff, from the car rental to the hotels booked, were lovely and polite people. I gave GVV a 4 star because one of the hotels booked was very hard to find, the address printed on our GVV voucher was not clear and was, in fact, incorrect. However, it was worth finding because it was a LOVELY hotel. Sadly, we could not say the same about the hotel that was booked for us in Dublin; it was downright depressing. We had to ask for a different room because the first one assigned to us was just unacceptable. Overall though, we had a lovely time and would not hesitate to book with GVV and plan to do so in the near future.

The B&Bs and hotels were very good, not luxurious but comfortable, they met our needs. The 5 day Scottish explorer pass saved us money. The three days in Scotland & 6 days in Ireland was the right amount of time to spent in each country.

My complaints: GVV booked us on a flight from Scotland to Ireland, with an extended layover in Germany, arriving in Dublin one hour before dark. We would have to navigate the airport, pick up our car, drive 2 hours to the hotel in Kilkenny, driving on unfamiliar roads, on the wrong side of the road in the dark. We instead elected to book a one hour flight from Edinburgh to Dublin. This saved us a whole day for sightseeing.

We were booked into a Kilkenny Hotel for two nights, although only one night was needed. A one night booking would have allowed us to see the Ring of Kerry or the Isle of Skye, in addition to the Dingle Peninsula which we did see.

It was still a great vacation, although I believe that GVV needs to make a few tweeks.

We were beyond impressed with Great Value Vacations. Even in a time of uncertainty for our world during COVID-19 they took incredible care of us. Hotels were all 5 stars in my book! Our next vacation will be a Great Value one!!

No communication from Great Value vacations or assistance to change flights, etc. with travel ban in Europe. Waiting on hold for over 3 and half hours with no answer while in Ireland.

You affectively lost two days of our time being based in San Jose, the first day and last day.

Everything was perfectly planned!

My wife and I just returned from Ireland.We visited 4 cities in 7 days. I’m giving this 4 stars because we feel that we got a very fair deal and I would use Great Value again and I would recommend them to friends and family. With that said there are a couple of things I learned & areas for improvement. Some of this is totally out of their control & I don’t think should reflect negatively towards Great Value but I wanted to share to help others.
I will start by saying that we look forward to visiting Ireland again and next time want to see the northern part of the country. In our trip we went to 5 different cities that basically covered the south. We got our car in Dublin and went to Kilkenny Waterford Trulee Clare and back to Dublin for two nights.
If you can fly directly to Dublin I would because Heathrow is huge, dirty and hard to get from one terminal to another. The car rental experience at Enterprise was fast & easy and we’re glad we took their rental protection & I strongly recommend choosing the prepaid fuel option. Check your wipers because ours needed to be replaced & Enterprise comped us when were returned car half our fuel charge. We only had to fill tank once and we drove a lot. Our Google maps worked great too so I don’t recommend paying extra for GPS. It was my 1st time driving in Europe so I was nervous but I’m glad we watched a bunch of You Tube videos with helpful tips. Overall experience with Enterprise was great and they do offer to up sell you on your car. I’m glad I got an automatic transmission.
After a long day of travel & customs & car rental it was time to head to Kilkenny which was only supposed to take a couple hours but this is where my wife & I made a big mistake. There was a bad accident on the main freeway & we followed the “alternative” Google route. Well 2 hours & about 50 roundabouts later we got lost and basically ended up where we started but now it’s dark & we’re feeling pretty stressed. Pro tip set your Google maps to major highways only & stick to it as much as possible. You’re going to end up on some very narrow country roads regardless & we enjoyed getting to see so many small towns & beautiful Irish countryside.
Kilkenny was amazing. We took in the castle tour which was included along with Smithwick’s brewery and churches & shops. You can walk everywhere. The Hoban hotel served a fantastic breakfast & I would say the best of our trip. Very friendly staff. Our shower broke & they did every thing they could to accommodate us for the inconvenience.
Next was Waterford. Be sure to keep Irish coins for the tolls. Most tolls are €2. We loved Waterford. The weather was really bad until the morning but we had beautiful sunny morning & the city to ourselves in the morning & purchased a nice crystal vase that will be delivered in 4-6 months after they make it lol.
Next was Tralee. This drive was through the county side and at times you follow roads that would barely pass for golf carts back home. We discovered an antique store along the way & enjoyed speaking with the owner & negotiated a fair price for our small treasures. We checked into The Rose Hotel which hands down the nicest hotel of the trip. We enjoyed our 2 nights and the food, bar & staff were wonderful. Our trip included the Ring of Kerry bus tour. Unfortunately the weather was so bad we really couldn’t see much so that didn’t work out so well. The next day we went to Clare & stayed at the Dromoland Hotel. I should mention a few times we arrived a couple hours before checkin time but each time we called ahead & they always were very nice & let us. So we were able to drop of our stuff get refreshed & make our way to the spectacular Cliffs of Mohr.
We enjoyed our stay at Dromoland and recommend the food in the bar & staff was very nice.
The last leg was back to Dublin for two nights at the Bonnington Hotel. While the restaurant & staff were nice we were disappointed in rooms & location of hotel. Out of space. Cheers!

My fabulous wife and I just returned from a vacation to Panama and then Cartagena, Columbia. A total of 8 nights, the package included airfare from ORD to Panama City, hotels/resorts and transfers to & from airports. We loved Panama City, very metropolitan and we took a “cab” ride out to the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal for an expedition. We are both engineers and loved the locks. Book a cab using Uber and it is about $10 to travel vs. $60+ for a crummy tour bus with no flexibility. You still have to buy your entrance tickets to the iMax and lock viewer decks, cost is $30/person. Well worth it.
Our GVV tour included The Gambia Rainforest Resort. I really liked this all inclusive resort. My only complaint is that you arrive prior to check-in and they will not give you a wristband, etc and you just want to have a drink and relax. I would suggest GVV and the Resort work out a deal to improve this. The river and canal tour is outstanding. Great guides and scenery.

Columbia was fantastic. Cartagena was a beautiful, picturesque city that is absolutely delightful. Great food, great scenery. Walk the wall around the city, the tour included takes you to the fort. I strongly recommend using the inDriver app to easily book your rides and have a known cost prior to jumping into a cab. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow the federáles may come!”

We got a really good deal on our trip to Paris and London. Only hitch was the London hotel was booked for May not March. I’m guessing that because other countries put the day then month it got entered wrong - however that could have been a big deal if the hotel was fully booked. All else went well, and the hotels were in a good location for easy access to site see. I definitely would and have recommended great value vacations!

Great trip! Excellent communication and guide. Really good recommendations and very organized.

Will probably not use Great Value Vacations in the future.
We were scheduled to leave the USA March 14, 2020 for a 10-day vacation to London, Paris & Rome and were looking forward to this trip. Unfortunately (for many of us) the Corona Virus struck (late Feb. or early March) and we had to decide whether to go on the trip. We are both elderly and my wife has some health issues, which, under normal circumstances wouldn’t be a problem; however, with something like the Corona Virus, her health would be in jeopardy so we decided to cancel or postpone our vacation until later.
After waiting over 2 hours to get through to GVV by phone, we decided to go through their website to ask if it would be possible to forgo the Rome portion of the trip and extend our stay in London or Paris. GVV never replied and did nothing to assist us so the next day we decided to just cancel the entire trip. Again, we waited online and finally spoke with a representative who said we would get no refund for any portion of the trip. He did suggest that since we purchased trip insurance to go through the insurance company to get reimbursed. But, as of now, we’re not sure if the trip insurance will cover the cost of our trip.
Our frustration is with GVV for not making any concessions for this problem which affects many people. Seems like GVV is keeping all the money they collected and not returning even a portion of the trip cost when through no fault of our own, we can’t go to Rome and take a chance of catching the virus or possibly being quarantined and unable to return to the USA at the end of the vacation. Since our airline tickets were purchased through GVV they aren’t even permitting us to use our tickets, at some later date, with the understanding that we’ll have to pay a change fee. So, where does all the money we paid go? To GVV? Or are they at least paying something to the hotels and airlines that are losing business? Luckily, we scheduled our tours through Viator so we’re getting back the money we paid for the tours, but the money paid to GVV is being kept by them.
Here is the UPDATE that Great Value Vacations initially posted to my review
Here is GVVs response:
We are constantly monitoring the situation and are contacting anyone that is affected with an alternate option
I attempted to contact GVV again at the address they provided and received another reply from GVV saying that we successfully canceled our trip: however, they never addressed the problem about no refund at a time when the CDC recommends that travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Italy.
GVV appears to have a "take it or leave it" attitude for travelers scheduled to go to Italy. You either go or cancel and hope your travel insurance covers the cost

Hotels clean and very nice, but would have liked to have them a little closer to some of the major attractions. As it was, we ended up having to drive at least an hour and a half to get to most of the places of any interest to us. But have to say that after all that driving up and down those mountains on those tiny roads I may be ready for LeMans racing.

Everything was smooth and perfect until there was an emergency outbreak with this coronavirus. I do not feel comfortable going to Italy especially since I am a student and cannot spend 14 days in quarantine if things got worse within a week. I spent hours and days contacting this agency and they kept pushing my feelings and fears aside and insisted I continue going. Flights are being canceled and cases are arising and they will not help me. Our flight leaves from Philadelphia and has a layover in London and we are trying to just stay in London and not take our connecting flight to Italy. All the airline companies said that they have no problem with this but the agency has to do this. The agency refuses to help or look into this situation and said if we do not board from Rome to London our entire flights going home will be canceled. This is a mess & nightmare.

Villa Casagrande was a charming historic villa only a block from the town square. The wine tasting and cooking class By Anna were fantastic and far above expectation. The room was small and I would inquire about upgrading to one of the suites.
As we were planning on the Pisa tour, we discovered we needed to get to Florence to board the bus. The meeting location on the voucher was not clear that it was in Florence. Also the bus ride from Florence to Pisa was nothing special.
The voucher we had for the Florence tour listed the wrong meeting time for the start of the tour, so we missed the bus tour and walked a mile to catch up with group at the Academia.
All in all it was a good tour, I just feel optional tours could have contained better and correct information.

It started off bad with the flight changes. We had paid for extra hotel night cuz we were supposed to reach Santiago a day early. We couldn’t get that refund
When we reached Easter Island the hotel was horrible with no air conditioning the bathroom was bad with the water not draining in the shower. We tried to contact the emergency contact with no help. They told us you have a fan in your room so that should be fine. But with 90 degrees the fan was blowing hot air. I called great value and they told us to contact the emergency number but that number also had bad service so we couldn’t communicate. I texted them on WhatsApp but all she said that you have electrico fan use that. We can’t help you with changing the hotel. Those 3 nights were hell with my husband suffering from asthma. The icing on the cake were the flights coming home. We had to take 3 flights to get to jfk. It took us 30 hours to get home
We travel a lot but have never experienced anything like this. We had spent a lot of money on this trip and to be in a hotel with no air conditioning was unacceptable.

Honestly not crazy about the experience
The seats for the flight were in the back of every plane/ train and the hotel rooms and mediocre. Not to add there was a huge miscommunication while booking and they were unable to accommodate. I do not think I would use great value vacations again

Great hotel, very easy to get around with bus transfer, great value answered all my question. very helpful

We loved our trip to Ireland. The flight was good, the car rental easy (not a big deal driving on the other side of the road), and we loved Adare Villas. Super nice villa and the grounds are lovely. Would easily do this trip again!

This was the first time using a travel agency, I'm generally averse to doing so. The experience was wonderful and well-planned
thank you, we will do it again