Cox & Kings, The Americas 

Cox and Kings are not returning our money back!!

Last Sep 2019, my sister and I booked a trip with Cox and Kings worth >50000 Rs.

In Oct 2019 they declared bankruptcy and notified everyone that our money will be returned.

We submitted the required forms, mailed and did everything for this reimbursement.

Today it is April 2020.... 6 months now... and we still have NOT received our money back.

This is illegal . Please return our money back.

We have booked a trip to Egypt and last week received an email informing us that our trip is cancelled. No more details just an email.
Have tried contacting them via telephone and email multiple times and have had no success. Funny part is the Cox & King Americas website still advertises this trip yet we are informed that our trip is cancelled.

Beware of doing business with this company. Not sure what will happen. but as of now I feel like I have been scammed by Cox & King.

Travel Zoo was where I found this trip and they also have absolved themselves of any responsibility.

Be careful travelers - my trip was paid in full and now the battle of getting a refund from them is a nightmare.

We booked a private tour to Madagascar and our experience was shaky at best throughout the entire process which took almost a year including waiting days to have emails/calls returned, having our personal representative leave the company two months before our departure date, and a lack of general information during the process. We fully paid months ago and received a strangely typed, non-professional looking email saying that East India Travel Company went out of business. It took us a few hours to confirm that EITC is Cox & Kings, The Americas, but as others have posted this company is now insolvent. If you research both names it is clear they were having a financial crisis for months now, without ever informing most of their clients. As late as the end of September I had reached out to them and had everything reconfirmed. Not a word was said about any of their business woes. To make matters worse, travel insurance does not cover insolvency. We also found that C&K did not pay the tour operators on the ground in Madagascar even though we fully paid months ago. NIGHTMARE.

We 100% paid for a trip to Antarctica and Cox and Kings never forwarded our final payment to the tour operator. Insurance does not pay for an insolvent travel agency. They aren't answering phones or emails. Doesn't look promising....

We booked our SOUTH AFRICA travel through our local travel agent who used Cox & KINGS. We leave on Oct 8, on Oct 5th we received notification that Cox & Kings is going to file for bankruptcy if some one doesn't step in to buy them. NOW our trip is 100% paid for and we are told we can cancel for a full refund and get our money in 30-60 days or repay the local tour operator and file a claim to get our money back in 30-60 days. The problem is we do not know what they paid for already and what they didn't pay for. Kinda sucks to have to shell our 1,000's or Dollars again in hopes of maybe getting your money back.

We also bought travel insurance but it doesn't cover bankruptcy!

My husband and I just returned from a Cox and Kings trip to Jordan and Egypt. I was very nervous after having read a previous review about a Cox and Kings trip to Egypt advertised on Travel Zoo. We, however, were totally pleased with all our arrangements ... hotels, guides, drivers, and Nile cruise. The hotels were excellent, the guides, friendly, attentive and knowledgeable, and our time on the Mövenpick "Regal Lotus" was comfortable with excellent meals. Our tour group size was a very manageable 15 from the ship, led by Ammr, one of the best guides and lecturers we've ever had. All this was for a very reasonable price. The only, I repeat ONLY, downside was some long wait times in airports. I would suggest to Cox and Kings they offer an option, for a surcharge, of spending an overnight in Cairo on arrival from, and again, on departure to the US, hence alleviating the time spent in the airports between flights.

The folder I received had the wrong name on it. But the regional office did take prompt action to rectify the problem. The accommodation in Thekady was very good. The staff there were good. Also the food was very good. The accommodation at Taj Hotel in Cochi was quite good. But The food in the restaurant was just ok.

We visited multiple locations, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England . All our private transfers went like clockwork. The vehicles were new and clean, and the drivers were very knowledgeable and professional. We didn't have one glitch in the transfers or lodging. We give Cox & Kings high marks and would use them again.

Every aspect of our two-week trip through Japan was superb. All reservations were in place at the right places, the guides were uniformly excellent and the transportation arrangements were flawless. We’d award six stars if we could.

Excelent escorts during our trip specially Christian he was a very special person with our family. He made our experience even nicer. Thank you.

Everything was perfect. We traveled to Tanzania and Rwanda and never had to think about anything. Everything was taken care of. Wonderful guides, drivers, support people. I highly recommend Cox & Kings. The trip exceeded our expectations.

Outstanding tour, outstanding service. A lifetime experience.

We had an amazing trip. We signed up for a group tour, but it ended up we were the only ones in the group. We had a dedicated driver, guide and car for the entire time! Hotel first night in Lisbon was just adequate, all others were very nice. We definitely will travel with Cox and Kings again.

Excellent service provided by this company . Juan Carlos our main guide was extremely professional , well informed and also funny .He even added little things along the trip that were not part of the itinerary but because of his own interests he added them in as they fit into the schedule. Our lodgings were better than expected and as It was a fast paced trip, this was appreciated at the end and beginning of each day.

Great guide. Many interesting sights. Very nice hotels and restaurants. Great, great driver and assistant.

Excellent travel arrangements, accommodations and tour guides.
Thank you Cox & King’s for a wonderful experience.

Cox & Kings provided an absolutely superb 18-day trip to India for my brother-in-law and me!! EVERYTHING was planned, coordinated and executed with absolute professionalism; hotels were gorgeous, staff was immediately responsive, guides (especially Imran Khan in Agra) were knowledgeable, personable, and easily understandable, and unforeseen governmental bureaucratic glitches were quickly and completely satisfactorily resolved. Virtually no way that the trip could have been any better than what C&K provided!!

Our trip to Jordan was amazing and a trip of a lifetime. Everything was fantastic from the hotels to the food to the tour guides. I will definitely be using them again!

Not only was Cox & Kings a nightmare to deal with from the moment they had our payment, but the conditions we experienced on their “Wonders of Egypt” were well below the advertised "5 star" and truly took away from what should have been a special trip to a magical place. Upon returning, The 4 day Nile cruise was spent on a filthy boat with tiny cabins - 1* - just gross.

6/1019 update - For over 2 months, Travelzoo who advertised the trip, advocated on my behalf and was able to secure a small compensation from C&K. Travelzoo more than matched this on their own because they recognized Cox & King's failures. Thank you Travelzoo!

We travel overseas a lot.  I organize out trips and as seasoned travelers, know what needs to be done and how to handle ourselves. Cox & Kings has no idea of how to deliver anything near 5* anything.

It was quickly obvious why Cox & Kings demanded 100% payment upfront - after that, they just lie, pretend to take actions and forced me to make multiple phone calls and emails to have anything taken care of.  For instance, I insisted we wanted to pay for and reserve decent seats on the 10 and 12 hour flights (JFK - Cairo - JFK).  I think this took a month to accomplish, and when the tickets were issued, they weren't able to show our seats until we had boarding passes.  The way C&K group-booked the tickets, we were unable to access any of the tickets - only they could.   

In Cairo, we were supposed to be in the #8 ranked Kempinski Nile Hotel - a boutique style hotel with excellent reviews for service, rooms & multiple highly ranked restaurants.  A few weeks before departure, they announced we'd be at the Conrad.  Lower ranked, it was nice, a US 4*/Egyptian 5* with many positive attributes, except, they pulled things such as upon our arrival at 10:00 pm, after 22 hours of flying and over 30 hours awake, assuring us they'd give us something quiet, assigned a 3rd floor, inner room above the pool, across from the loud club and where the wedding below blasted up.  We had to go down, spend 15 minutes insisting to finally be assigned a quiet room on a top floor.  Please note, this room ended up matching/being a bit smaller than our friends' 2 rooms who checked in the day before - nice, but not an upgrade, so should have been assigned right away.  Overall, the hotel was fine - good service in the breakfast room, but mediocre everywhere else.  It was clean & attractive, but not to the level of the originally promised Kempinski.

We (3 couples) paid for a private vacation from the beginning.  Until a couple of months in, we thought our whole trip would be private (especially important, a guide for just the 6 of us everywhere).  Turns out it was only a private guide in Cairo (which is now correctly stated on the Travelzoo offer). The Cairo guide was great. I'll go into the issues in a bit, but on the entire 4 day Nile cruise portion, we had 1 nice but mediocre guide for 43 people - not even the "small group tour" promised.

Day 3:  the included lunch was at a horrible tourist dump with a scary buffet, and grilled mystery meat.  There is no excuse for their choice of such a bad restaurant.  We would have preferred to buy our own lunch at a good place, but they should have included a decent meal. 

Day 5: 5 am pick-up, flight to Luxor & transfer to the Iberotel Crown Empress boat, where our passports were taken (presumably to check us in while touring), and the large group bused with a guide to the Luxor and Karnak temples, with a promise of returning by 1:00 for lunch.  Remember, we haven't eaten since 4:30 am.  A good tour company/boat would have provided snacks or a boxed lunch to tide people over, but not Cox & Kings or the Crown Empress. The day was very hot, and it was 3:00 before we got back to the boat for lunch - no food was provided between 4:30 am and 3:00 pm! Additionally, none of the cabins had been assigned, so we still couldn't freshen up.  The Crown Princess staff was inept and we had to argue for almost 20 minutes to get a room assignment.  Then the worst happened - we saw the cabin.  Small and filthy.  I have pictures of some of the stains, dirt and old furniture.  

-The cabins are so small, you have to turn sideways to pass the bed, or get to the window of the cabin.  
-There was one outlet available for personal use,
-the bathtub was gross, patched and cracked
-There was a 3-d stain on the rug by my side of the bed, just where you swing your foot - uck, I often stepped on it before I could get my flip flops on and there were many other stains & dirt throughout
- The sliding closet doors couldn't stay open, and one wouldn't slide over enough, so the drawers couldn't be opened or used.  Losing storage space in a tiny cabin is extra problematic.
- There was no place to store luggage (all other cruise ships/boats I've been on have space under the beds), so we spent the week with our luggage on the furniture, blocking the window.
- The beds were bad - you really couldn't sit on the edge of the mattresses without it bending so much you fell off.
-The sheets were thin and pilled.
-Cabin door locks barely worked, 80% of the time I had to get the front desk to open our cabin. There was only 1 key per cabin.
- A sticker in the way upper corner of the bathroom mirror warned not to drink the tap water, however, bottled water had to be purchased - a daily bottle should have been included (and the sign posted more prominently)

Food was mediocre, but we could usually find something decent to eat from the assortment.  Every morning, the breakfast room was hazy with oil smoke from the omelet stand, and our clothes reeked for the morning activities.   

The wait staff in the dining room and bar/pool worked hard and were friendly - a rare positive on this floating dredge - we really appreciated our waiter, bus boy and pool bar waiter!

Two people at the front desk were helpful, but all others couldn't help or ever solve problems.  The boat isn't equipped to take care of guests, for example, a woman needed sanitary supplies, but the boat had none and wasn’t able to secure any for her.  

Our cabin had no hot water for a complete afternoon and evening, and I wasn't able to shower until after dinner - not a good thing after hot temple visits!  A 2nd evening, the boat ran out of hot water, and it never warmed up - I finally took a sponge bath before bed.  So, 2 out of 4 days, no hot water!

There were either 43 or 44 people in the group - way too many for one guide to handle.  The important excursions were really diminished because we could barely hear the guide, and he wasn't really able to answer questions.  His time was often spent trying to keep this large group together.  Way to high a ratio to learn anything.  Guide was nice, but didn't seem very knowledgeable.  He was nothing like our great guide in Cairo and with the big group, just couldn't deliver.

The only liquor offered was off-brand Egyptian liquor at $28 a mixed drink!!!!!  They did have 2 drinkable Egyptian red wines, at least.

One day, 5 boats were docked side by side, so we got to walk through some others - all were nice and 3 of them were gorgeous - they actually looked like 5 star (you could see the dining rooms, walked through lobbies, etc) - just emphasizing the Crown Empress is a one star at best.

The 1/2 day in the wonderful Valley of the Kings was not enough - this deserved more time and should have been adjusted.

Day of debarkation We had a 2:00 am wake up call for our 3 cabins. Instead, they called us all at 1 am, and knocked on our doors at 1:10. Loss of precious sleep on a busy travel day. 

Back to Cox and Kings.  They always reminded me they care and to rest assured everything was okay, but it took weeks for anything - to get seats, to request an upgrade on the boat (which we didn't get), to learn about flight details, to learn about the boat, etc, etc.  On the day we were booked to leave the US, American Airlines sent a late notification of a flight delay on our 1 hour flight from DCA to JFK to catch the big flight to Cairo.  Cox and Kings was not helpful at all.  While I was on one line with AA, I called & emailed Cox and Kings asking them to contact EgyptAir (group ticket) and see what could be done.  Half an hour later, I called them back, to learn they had called AA, and had not even tried EgyptAir.  We had to call and scold to get them to even try to call EgyptAir.  C&K then claimed they were trying, but couldn't get through.  I got through, but since they owned the ticket, couldn't get help.  We ended up losing that ticket and I booked additional one way tickets on our own dime, of course.  C&K was totally unhelpful. Upon return, I learned from AA refunded C&K, and upon informing them, received $100 pp - nothing for the hellish 4 day Nile trip.

Cox and Kings has no idea of what "5 star" is.  They would actually lie about things, and I'd have to say, "I'm on-line and can see the flights" or "I'm on line and can see the hotel and rooms," etc.

C&K was always making excuses that they were trying to reach or waiting on an answer from their Egypt partners.  If true, boy do they have a bad or tenuous relationship - one that is important to customers.  In Egypt, there was much confusion about things. Avoid this company - I truly regret we used them.

We’ve used Cox and Kings for our trip to Australia and South Africa. Both trips were amazing! They took out the stress of traveling internationally and set us up with great guides. We will definitely use them again for our next adventure.