Road Scholar

Many good reviews and prompting by RS that it is now time to travel again are flooding the internet. Let my review be a WARNING! First, RS is being totally irresponsible pushing travel during the surge of the Delta variant. We had our first trip to Rome, Greece, & Italy, with AON insurance, cancelled in September 2020 and were reimbursed. We rebooked the Italy portion, but learned Road Scholar had removed important components (watered it down) of the program; we were informed it was easy to transfer that money to another program in September 2021, which we did. We thought it was too dangerous to travel so now we are booked on the original 2 trips to Greece and Italy for spring 2022. We were newly vaccinated and the Delta variant had not yet made its appearance. Now that it is spreading rapidly around the world, and we are both in our 80s, we called RS to cancel. NOW we learned to vacant meaning of "cancel for any reason." That is duplicitous advertising on steroids. And RS refuses to reimburse us--we can only transfer to another program. We are both retired, living on social security and are stuck with a loss of $8601 that we have paid into Road Scholar through transfers and deposits over these sets of trips, including $4208 paid to AON. That's a total of $12,409! Apparently, we can claim $4800 from AON for the cancellation fees--yet to be seen. But AON & RS are adamant that refunds can only be made via transfer "vouchers." AON and RS are co-conspirators in making money off of our misery. We are devastated. I've now read dozens and dozens of similar complaints and now understand that this "non-profit" organization and lying "cancel for any reason" insurance company are bilking everyone they can to make up for the loss of revenues during the pandemic. It seems there is no way to fight this. Is anyone interested in a class-action lawsuit?

There are many repetitions in the listings. For example: based on the criteria I have selected the page indicates 67 trips to choose from. 10 or more of the trips listed appeared twice. The back button doesn't return to same place on the page. Waitlist information given on the site was confusing and didn't align with the info I received in a phone call to RS.

I had an issue with my mobile number. I don't have a home phone and the computer would not allow me to continue the registration process. I had to re-start the enrollment process. On another note. I tried to register for another program (6262) and was not able to do so although the website indicated there was space available I was very disappointed to learn that the program was full when I continued to register.

Generally good. Was hard to initially sort out which suited me. I am a 79 year old reseasonably mobile single traveler and the slower pace tour was about the last to come up. No big deal. Also it was confusing in that the Birding tour was stated to be in some way combined and which hotel in San Jose was not clear - I called and Road Scholar were very clear and helpful.

I've been on 3 RS trips and have no complaints. I also see that some people are upset as the Covid crisis caused difficulties for them. I booked and paid for Beyond Band of Brothers and the went bankrupt and I doubt I will see a refund. I have accepted that and moved on. It wasn't their fault that this Covid thing affected their business as all tour programs are struggling. Again, once has to accept and move onward and upward. I look forward to a RS trip in 2022.

My recent RS trip to Australia and New Zealand was great. Holland America provided comfortable amenities and our RS sponsored shore outings were filled with exciting adventures. Our team leader, Ngaire Douglas, shared her vast expertise with us and gave us wonderful insights into the history and culture of both countries. Ngaire offered options for our various levels of physical fitness so everyone could benefit from all the shore outings. This was my 14th RS trip and certainly near the top if not the top of my RS trips.

Ruthanne DeWolfe.
Evanston, Illinois

My trip to Japan with Road Scholar would have been excellent but for the unusable wifi "provided" (or really, not provided) by the Daiwa Roynet Hotels in which Road Scholar placed us. I was completely unable to work with colleagues in my home office because the wifi was usually so slow as to be unusable. The guides for our trip were superlative, but I couldn't enjoy the trip because I could not fulfill my work commitments, and people had been depending on me. The Daiwa Roynet Hotels claim that Road Scholar provide wifi, but it has been unusable for me, for my wife, and for many people on our trip. I consider their claim that they provide wifi to be a fraud, under California law, and it ruined my trip.

Error messages were not helpful. I kept getting the message "you must fill in all information" when I had done so. It turned out what this meant was Discover had declined the charge. Later Road Scholar called and I confirmed it was a valid charge and they said to try again, which worked. But I wasted alot of time tryint to guess what the web site was complaining about.

I have always heard wonderful things about road scholar and was excited that I was finally going to have the chance to experience one of their trips. However I have been trying to contact them for over a week and a half with no success. Last week their website just spun and spun when I tried to sign into my account and when I tried to call their message said Road Scholar had SHUT DOWN their phone to incoming calls in order to catch up on their backlogged calls and referred you to use their website! This week the website it working better but it doesn't allow me to make a change I need to do, so again I've tried to call. On Monday the recording stated the wait time was approximately 2 1/2 hours which I couldnt do, so today I've tried the callback queue option, it's been over 3 hours and still no call. I've also noticed an increased numbers of donation solicitations from them over the last several months. My concern is how easy they make it to give them money but how difficult they are making it once they have your money, thus is a big red flag to me.

Easy to navigate. But it would be easier if you would indicate earlier what availability exists. For example, it will say that there is limited availability. I then completed the 'form' to request booking two people, at which time a message told me that my request could not be accommodated. I called the 800 number to find that there was availability for just one person. There's a lot of review/work/discussions involved before making the selection, so that's a lot of time wasted and also frustrating.

Our trip to Egypt was cut short by a week because of the Covid-19 situation. I had purchased trip insurance through Road Scholar for that trip. Obviously, it had to be cut short, but Road Scholar assured us that we would be reimbursed for the part of the trip we missed. That did not happen. Road Scholar have sent me many requests for donations, and nothing about reimbursement. After almost 2 months are requesting some remuneration, they finally offered a small credit toward another trip... but it had to be by June 5th. Um... we are still in the middle of a pandemic, so that's not going to happen. They have not offered one penny of my money back even though I bought my insurance from them. Yes, they're an educational travel group... and boy! Did I get an education.

I cannot find a waiver form mentioned in my trip info. I was directed to a DOCUMENTS AND FORMS link in my account. There is no such link in my account. I emailed road Scholar about this and the response ignored my message that I did not have the Documents and Forms link. I have never been able to reach Road Scholar by phone, I always get a recording that Road Scholar can't take the call. No call back.

My wife and I recently signed up for a trip to Mexico this fall and Road Scholar was supposed to be making travel arrangements for our travel to and from Mexico. On the Friday before the Monday that payment for the entire trip was due, there were no travel arrangements made, and there is a fee to change any travel plans after the final payment due date. I made three separate calls before the final due date, and was assured that travel arrangements would be made before that time. On the final call, Road Scholar would not refund our deposit, despite failing to make the travel arrangements as promised. I asked to talk to a supervisor, but none were available. I was promised a return call/email from a supervisor but never received one.

In brief, this is a company which refuses to make a refund and does not keep its promises. The communications from the company between the time of the deposit and the final due date were almost non-existent. Road Scholar do not return phone calls as promised.

I suspect that some of these problems are due to COVID, but there is no excuse for poor communication, not returning phone calls, or refusing to return a deposit after they fail to deliver on their promises.

Considerable pressure was put on me to change dates for the trip. Even though I did not want to, I thought that the most economical thing was to do so as part of an attempt to get the trip insurance fees refunded. If I can do so, I think that we will just sacrifice our deposits. I do not believe that this is a trustworthy company at this time and would be concerned whether they actually are planning ahead for the trip itself, or whether we could expect more of the same treatment that we have already experienced should we actually go on a trip. I would not recommend this company to anyone and am extremely disappointed by the way we were treated.

I must be a slow learner. After 27 Road Scholar trips, I went on a trip with Caravan for half the price. The food, hotels and activities were superior in every way. I also found the fellow tour members with Caravan were so much nicer than Road Scholar tour members. I have met over 500 people on my travels with Road Scholar and so many are snobbish and angry.

Alaska is a very interesting place and rich with opportunities to explore. RoadScholar leaves the organization to Holland America. It's a good setup for certain travelers, mainly OLD. I'm 71 and found it very frustrating. Flew 3000 miles and spent the first night and morning in a conference room with no windows. The food was very mediocre at the hotels Road Scholar used but the worst disappointment was that this trip had been described as "active" which for RoadScholar must mean breathing because we have spent the entire week riding buses for hours on end plus an 8 hour train ride. Getting these geriatrics on and off the bus takes forever and Road Scholar seems to attract know-it-alls.
These trips are fine if sitting on your butt and looking out the window of a vehicle is the way you want to experience Alaska. I thought a hike might be nice. Not RoadScholar.
Don't get me started on the cruise.

The site did what we needed to do without any hitches. Everything was clear and understandable and all user errors and oversights were handled smoothly. This is notable in that a lot of high-profile web sites do not have as good a user interface as this. I know this because most of my career involved user interfaces for computer users.

Start for enrolment asked me to call a number to get on the newsletter list. I did, expecting that this would get me to the enrolment page. Instead, I got a notice that the average wait time was 20 minutes! I went back to the beginning and finally got to start to log in. As many Roadscholar trips as we have taken, it should have been breeze easy. Maybe I should have rated it 3 stars.

Road Scholar switched hotels on us after we had booked their tour of Southern Spain. The reservationist assured us that "the hotel change would cause no extra walking" during our trip. NOT TRUE! As we walked by the Hotel Ingleterra, Seville, on at least 6 occasions -- and were still several blocks from our new hotel -- it was clear the reservationist was either ill-informed or lied to us. The hotel switch caused as least and extra 6-7 miles in Seville alone. Complaints to the president of Road Scholar have gone unanswered so I guess the reservationist isn't the real problem with this travel company.

A recent hiking trip with RS to the Canadian Rockies was a huge disappointment. First, people who could barely get on and off the bus were allowed on this trip. Ridiculous. Only 4 of us could go on daily hikes Road Scholar called "motivated" or harder than the others -- all of which I considered easy to very moderate. The hiking pace was also crazy slow. The catalog/website descriptions of the trip were way off base. Simply not truthful.

The majority of meals were served in a windowless hotel conference room. Very mediocre food. Breakfasts were the worst. Restaurant meals for dinner were way better, but certainly not terrific restaurants I would go to again. A couple of us younger, energetic folk purposefully left the group on two evenings just to get away and have some time to chat and eat at GOOD restaurants.

RS is clearly not for people, like myself, looking for true rigorous activity with other happy, young at heart people. It was clear to me that RS attracts a much, much older crowd, which is fine, but that's false advertising in their materials. Their original name of ELDERhostel fits their group way better. Nothing wrong with being older, but it sure isn't fun being around grumpy, negative retired folk who have a very "old and tired" mentality. I won't be going on another RS trip. Lesson learned.

Overall navigation easy, although trip protection choice made it sound like must choose yes or no immediately when on past enrollments, given option to add trip insurance later esp. When enrolling a year in advance. Trip insurance does not make clear if Road Scholar cancels the trip, one's airfare is not covered as is implied. This happened to me in October 2021. RS cancelled the month prior. Airline gave credit but not a refund. RS said trip insurance was refunded instead of covering my airfare. Cancellation was due to RS, not my choice. If RS does the cancelling, then flight not covered. That is not made clear when reading thru trip insurance info.