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Has anyone ever traveled with OAT?

I get interesting brochures from them and some of the trips appear to be quite reasonable.

Please advise.

Does anyone know if teenagers can travel with Overseas Adventure Travel? -with their family of course!

OAT is primarily focused on older travelers. We have ben on a trip where someone's mid 20s son was accompanying them and one where there was a mid-20s couple. they said they could not find trips like this oriented to people their age. I am not sure a teenager would be comfortable traveling with 15 people their grandparent's age but there should be no reason they would not be allowed to do it.

Many, many times... excellent travel tours....

We just booked our 4th trip with OAT. They are a great company. You will not be disappointed.

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Very good trips with the OATS people and their staffs. I have been on river boat trips and land trips with the company. All reasonably priced, nice accommodations, very good guides speaking English, and very accommodating. One guide even went above the "call of duty" to find me a place to go horseback riding. Peggy, Charleston, SC

WE are recently returned from an interrupted trip to Panama with OAT. It was our 14th trip with them. It was the second trip to Panama that we had to abort, last year it was personal medical that caused us to leave the trip. We always buy the trip coverage and in this case we bought it BEFORE the pandemic was declared so the coverage is in effect.

OAT's " no single supplement" come on is really a shell game which I have figure out. They advertise no single supplement, but then offer couples a $1,500. to $2,000. credit to sign up. No. I repeat, no credit is offered to singles. HENCE, THERE REALLY IS A SINGLE SUPPLEMENT FEE.

Follow up to my recent post. Allianz has denied the claim using the pandemic excuse even though they said they wouldn't. I have spoken with OAT and am waiting for their reply. I have been told it may take 60 to 90 days!

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Horrible experience with OAT - Overseas Adventure Travel

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Wonderful trip aboard the beautiful Clio - with a marvelous staff and interesting destinations. As... read more

This was an amazing experience. Never expected to see animals so close up!! Our trip leader was... read more

Horrible experience with OAT

I wish I had read the plentiful negative reviews about OAT (Grand Circle Travel) before I booked a tour with them. 40% of the Yelp reviews are a 1 or 2 star rating. The complaints lodged with the Better Business Bureau add up to a 1.33 rating out of 5. Buyer beware. Do your research before booking with OAT. I will never travel with them again nor recommend them to anyone. My negative experience started when I booked an India trip but was not allowed to board my connecting flight in Europe because my visa was "incorrect." After much frustration and $2,000 in extra expenses while I applied for a new visa online, I joined my tour several days late and heard several horror stories from other travelers about visa issues. OAT has heard there is a problem but does nothing to correct it to ensure it doesn't happen to other travelers. Due to inadequate and misleading directions from OAT as to how to apply for a visa, my evisa was indeed incorrect, according to Indian rules. This has happened before with other travelers, but rather than change their directions to reflect what travelers need to know in order to get an adequate visa, they simply refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for their actions and fall back on "it is the passenger's sole responsibility....blah, blah, blah." My experience with their Customer Service Department after my return yielded only frustration as they refused to acknowledge their culpability in the matter. Steer clear of this company! There are plenty of others who get much more positive reviews, especially when problems occur.

It was an amazing trip. We loved our Pre-trip to Tasmania. We saw so many unique and unusual animals. Main trip to Australia and New Zealand was over the top. Post trip to Bay of Islands continued to be spectacular. Our 3 guides were knowledgeable, kind, and fun humans.

We have traveled 12 times with OAT and sister company Grand Circle. Our recent OAT trip was to Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, Calabria & Puglia with a pretrip to Malta. The pretrip was grand. Then came the main trip. We have observed that the tour guides/program directors make the trip and certainly can break them as well. Our experiences have been the tour guides were always great and were getting better than great in recent years as they added choice and flexibility into the trips. Examples: "You have free time this afternoon, or you and come on a discovery with me." We might have had to pay for transportation for the discovery, but it was a choice for those of us who do not spend every free minute shopping or eating/drinking. Then there are the ever increasing "dinner is on your own." Obviously a cost cutting move disguised as "eat with the locals...feel the culture...". Recently the program directors have announced, "You can have dinner on your own-- here are restaurants I recommend -- or you can join me." Again, at our expense. But a choice. It's all about choices. None of these things happened on this trip. Our tour guide for the main trip was inexperienced.....this was her first solo trip. She did not know the regions of southern Italy. Therefore education was lacking. She was not prepared for strong willed members of the tour group who would wander off, leaving the rest of the group waiting. Or ones that hung around in a shop while the rest of the group waited. I won't get into how she handled this, but it showed inexperience. Two weeks of this, her lashing out at the group for things that one or two people did that adversely affected the rest, and perhaps proficiency in English but certainly not mastery, and lost opportunities for educational explanations on bus rides when passing through areas, left us disillusioned. She tried hard but was clearly not ready to lead a tour yet. We told our story to an ex-OAT guide who said he wasn't suprised and indicated that pay wasn't the greatest. We were also quite explicit on our post-trip survey about our experences. Crickets from OAT. Not a word. So we are torn. We love the educational components of the OAT and Grand Circle trips. We were willing to chalk up one mediocre tour guide in 12 to the odds of something like this happening. However. we were unsettled by so many compaints being posted about trouble getting refunds and canceled trips. Further, when we actually considered another trip, we thought we would protect ourselves by using a credit card and forgoing the "good buy" discount. We were told the current policy is to not accept credit cards. That threw up a red flag.

The tour gave us a good picture of Japan's history and customs, which make it very distinctive. Our tour leader answered questions about topics old and new, giving us perspective on their fascinating culture. Highlights were visiting a local couple at their home, as well as experiencing the beauty, cleanliness, order and excellent, varied cuisine of Japan.

The Overseas Adventure Travel tour of Peru, Machu Picchu, and the Sacred Valley of the Incas is a wonderful way to see one of the world's natural wonders. We had two visits to Machu Picchu and several other visits to sacred Incan sites. The hotels were very good and the meals included in our tour were wonderful--as if we had a gastro tour of Peru added to our trip for good measure. I could not recommend this tour more highly.

This trip was a great mix of history, food, and cultural experiences, including the pretrip to the hill groups! From the rice paddies of the north to the Mekong Delta in the south, we enjoyed revelations of how these peoples lived long ago and how they live now. The entire panoply of adventures was made possible and amplified manyfold by our guide, Henry!