Macs Adventure Reviews 

Macs provided good information leading up to the trip we booked. There was a major problem at the end however. We arrived in Amsterdam on Friday the 2nd of September, a day ahead of the beginning of the tour. We had asked Macs for embarkation information earlier in the process and were told that the location would be given to us closer to the date the tour would start. We had not yet received exact embarkation details and we contacted Macs via e-mail to get this vital information. Caroline Sloan responded with a copy of information we had already received, but without the specifics needed. She ended with this: "I shall also check if we can find out where exactly the docking port will be for your sailing. Hope this helps in the meantime!". We never got any further messages from her or Macs. To make a long and stressful story shorter, the next morning (Saturday) we spent excess energy and time trying to find the boat and finally made phone contact with "Boat Bike Tours" the actual operators of the tour. This was 1.5 hours from when the boat was scheduled to leave!! One week ago we sent an e-mail to our contact at Macs, Charlie Weaver, with this information to allow him to respond to this complaint. We have not heard back.

Paid a lot of money for them to arrange hotels and baggage transfer for a TMB trip. The US agent knew absolutely nothing about the TMB and couldn't answer any questions. I never got my Information Package I paid them for with trail maps and the US agent didn't answer the last 3 emails I sent her before the trip with important questions.

Warning! DO NOT use Macs
Adventures. This company is a
disgrace and should not be in
business.
We have been ripped off blind by Macs
Adventures after booking the so called
"Luxury" Highlands and Isle of Skye
Hike and Rail tour. We are not only
severely disappointed but extremely
angry. Charging £1100 a day Macs
gave us tourist class hotel rooms, no
booked train seats (where we had to
scramble for seats or stand for the
trip), cargo ferry transfers that were £3
pounds a ticket, wasted days with
cheap transfers involving far too much
waiting around in transport terminals,
very basic off the rack large group bus
tours and very little opportunity for any
decent hiking. All this was contrary to
what was advertised in the brochure
and in our itinerary and we worked out
it would not have cost them more than
approximately £450 a day.
The company has knowingly
misrepresented its services and I
suggest fraudulently sold this trip to us
and I will be seeking a lawyers opinion.
Macs Adventures is single handedly
attempting to ruin the good reputation
the Scottish tourist industry has by this
blatant gouging. Not a very good
business model for any long term
successful and reputable business.

Disgraceful rip off.
We are into day 5 of our supposed “luxury” walking/rail tour of the Scottish highlands and Skye.
We would have been so much better off if we purchased a travel book such as Lonely Planet and planned and booked everything ourselves. We ended up paying 3 times the cost for a very basic tour on which we spent an inordinate amount of time working out what actually was booked or time wasting waiting for transfers.
Mac Adventures did no more than book hotels, trains (standard , no booked seats) and a couple of basic tours.
This tour was a cookie cutter tour sold at glossy inflated prices. Macs provided no value or service. In fact made our trip far more difficult and cumbersome than if we spent couple of hours planning an itinerary and doing the bookings ourselves

My husband and I just completed the 14 day Switzerland tour - arranged by Macs Adventure. Pros: The towns selected for this trip were wonderful. The hotels booked for us were amazing. The recommended hikes were good - although we did select a few hikes of our own from online sites.
Cons: This company was frustrating to communicate with. (1.) I contacted Macs to ask for more details on their directive that I "pick up the rail passes at my arrival airport". At that time I was told that procedure had been changed (not changed on their website), I would receive my passes electronically, and was given a date that I would receive them. That day (plus a couple more) came and went with no passes provided. I followed up on this for approx. 2 weeks ( emails, phone calls, chats), and whenever I was able to actually reach someone, I was made to feel that my concern over these passes was troublesome to them. The "Adventure Specialist" who is your contact/liaison person would get back to me in approximately 3-4 days - but could not answer any questions. Instead she always had to check with someone else - and then get back to me again. We did receive the rail passes the day we flew out for the trip.
(2.)When we received the booking made for us on the Glacier Express train, we were disappointed to see we had aisle seats instead of window seats. I contacted Macs Adventure, but was not able to reach anyone in a timely way to answer questions about revising this booking. We ended up booking our own window seat tickets at an additional expense. That was our choice, but if we would have had our rail passes as promised, we were told by GE we could have received a discount on the $600 tickets. (3.) During the trip, on a day that we hiked from one town to the next, our luggage was not at our hotel when we arrived. Our luggage had been transferred (arranged by Macs Adventure) to the wrong town and was sitting at that town's train station. We had arrived at our next hotel dirty from a long hike, wet from the rain, and had no clean clothes or toiletries. When I called the "Trip Emergency" hotline to report our missing luggage, the person assisting me commented, "Oh Bummer" several times, told me they were running on a "skeleton crew", and he would do his best. Our luggage (and any clean clothes) did arrive around noon the next day. It was fortunate we had accommodations with such a beautiful view as we were pretty much stuck in the room for one afternoon/evening and half of the next day.
We did enjoy this trip a great deal - how could you not love Switzerland! However, we will not book a trip with Macs Adventures again. Between online sites like TripAdvisor, AllTrails, Glacier Express and Swiss Pass - we could have arranged the same trip for much less money and avoided the frustration when trying to communicate with this company.

Just completed the Hadrian’s Wall trail organised by Macs and had a brilliant experience from start to finish. All the accommodations they booked for us were high standard with really nice welcoming hosts. Baggage transfers were seamless, and with the maps and app provided, navigation was pretty easy. No complaints at all and I’d definitely book with them again. I was surprised to see negative reviews but can only go on my own experience.

Macs Adventures sent us out of our way to some poor accomodation. It turned out to be a locals boozer- there was no where to sit other than the garden and in the morning they did not have enough tables for breakfast. Our room had a low beam which was marked with builders red and white hazard tape across the middle of it. On another night they changed our accomodation and did not tell us other than sending an email a few hours before we were due to arrive- which we did not check until too late. They also failed to book one of our taxi's until the day before it was needed, and only then after we had phoned numerous times.

We booked the Hadrian's Wall service. On the third day at The George in at Chollerford, Mac's Adventure booked us mistakenly under the name Abbey Thompson. The hotel manager and staff were extremely rude about it, saying 'Go over there and figure it out, we can't help you.' And while we were figuring it out, a man from Hadrian's Bags (the courier service shuttling our bags from each b&b to the next) would not stop badgering us about the weight of one of our bags. Its a simple matter of redistribution but he was making a big deal out of it. The next morning, this same man called his manager to complain that we arrived downstairs TEN MINUTES late for baggage pick up. Mind you, their service had already been over half an hour late on previous mornings. The manager at Hadrian's Bags proceeded to shout at my Dad over the phone about this. It left a negative feeling hanging over us for the entire rest of the trip. And everyday after that, Hadrian's Bags were still late by half an hour. We called to Macs Adventure to complain but nothing came of it.
Apart from that, Macs Adventure didn't provide much direction about where we were staying in relation to how to get there from the wall hike so we ended up doubling back sometimes after comparing their directions with a Google maps.

I booked The John Muir Way, Scotland online 02/07/2022 for September 2022, having seen that they claim to organise most trips in 3 to 5 working days. After 8 working days & no confirmation of being organised I chased them to find out what was happening as I wanted to get trains booked. I was told there were issues with accommodation availability at 2 destinations on my trip. The solution offered was at the first problem destination to take a taxi back to our days start point at an additional cost of £70. Then the second problem destination to arrange our own accommodation and have a £130 reduction in our holiday cost. The point of booking through Macs Adventures was to leave all the organisation to them to save us time & effort doing it ourselves. Needless to say I cancelled the booking requesting a full refund, which in fairness they did straight away.
We then decided (purely out of interest) we would look at accommodation where they had struggled. The first destination they couldn't arrange we found several options available in minutes online. The second was more of a challenge but did find an AirBnB.
We then decided we would try & organise the whole trip. Between the 2 of us it took around 8 hours on the internet to arrange all accommodation and train tickets, yes we had to tweak the distance walked on some days but it worked out OK.
Doing this ourselves it has cost less than half the £2300 we were going to pay Macs Adventures and includes our train fares that were not included. The only thing we haven't booked is baggage transfers, but we are aiming to travel light, but have found firms that can do this if needed.

So having used Macs five times now, they deliver a pretty solid experience in terms of walking holidays. Luggage transfer has always worked without a hitch and accommodation is generally of a decent standard - sometimes you get an exceptional place, sometimes slightly below par, but on balance mainly fine. I've had to cancel and reschedule trips through covid and the team were pretty reasonable - in particular their 'peace of mind' policy allows you flexibility if plans change. Things to watch - the app is very much a work in progress - indeed the older version was much more user friendly, particularly the mapping. There are gaps in the information on the app - you do need your own maps and guidebooks as well. Macs also have a habit (in my experience) of booking accommodation off trail - my last walk, one day was billed as a 13 mile day but ended up being 18 miles, including a stretch of A road walking with no pavement, to reach the accommodation. This isn't an exception, so I'd suggest check your itinerary carefully. It also seems clear the trips they are really familiar with and therefore are used to booking, and those they have no real idea of (WHW runs like clockwork, Arran coastal path was messy and at times the itinerary just didn't work). I had one trip I had to cancel midway through due to injury, and frankly on that occasion Macs were hopeless, I did all the admin myself. The current team seem to be newer and less experienced. On balance, however, Macs do deliver what they say in terms of luggage, accommodation and routing, but you still have to put in legwork yourself.

Macs Adventure do not operate safely or with concern for their travellers. One of the days we took the "safe" path option round a glacier and Macs Adventures had no idea the trail had been closed which resulted in us crossing 500 metres of pure ice at an extreme angle above a cliff without the right gear because we were unable to turn around. My wife and I both nearly slipped off and died that day. When I called them to report the issue and asked them to contact others and tell them to avoid the trail, as far as I can see, they did nothing. When all it would take is a mass email asking people to choose one option - I can't quite believe I haven't seen them do anything or even received a call back to ask if we are ok.

I booked a 25 days walking trip to Camino del Norte and Camino Primitivo.
One week before the trip is due to end, I requested to reduce the trip by one day, by combining 2 walking days.
To reduce the trip, the estimated cost of change is £300!! In Spain!
In the end, I retained the original plan and booked my accommodation with booking.com for €53 per night.
They are really unresponsive and unhelpful. Thank goodness I have had no health issues in previous days or it will likely cost me a lot for changes.

I booked the Isle of Sky walking, then I had to change it because it was too difficult for my mum . They changed the trip with the West Highland Way. It was really well organised and with really nice accommodations. Excellent customer service and problem solving .

Totally waste of time and money. We have done many self guided holidays this was by far the worst. No added value at all they literally gave us one private transfer and took our bags from one hotel to another. They then gave us a bus timetable - on one day (a bank holiday) the bus would not give us anywhere near enough time to do the walk. On arrival we were told one walk awas not possible due to a landslide - no alternative plan given. When challenged they were not able to help. One hotel was incredibly noisy - next to a night club with thumping music until 3am. Again asked to be moved - no joy. Anything they provided could be done by a quick google search.

Really great service provided all the way. Helpful app made navigating the trails easy and the onward delivery of luggage a big plus. All bases and eventualities were covered so that you are free and confident to enjoy the walking, which we did immensely. No hesitation in recommending this company. However, the accommodation in some areas was a little below parr but for the price paid understandable.

We haven't even started our walk yet on the Northern Section of the Pennine Way, and we are already experiencing difficulty with the logistics of the taxi transfers. mac's schedule is not getting us picked up in the mornings until 1045 when we have at least 16 mile days in front of us. Booked in Jan 2022 for May of this year. Their option is to suggest that we use our own cars!!!!

To begin with, there was no one to greet us and adjust the bikes, however, we were told that this was the case contrary to what is on the Macs Adventure website. On the first ride, one person was riding an e-bike and the pedal broke off. The person and the bike fell over onto the road in front of a car. She scratched her leg, hurt her wrist and shoulder. The bike was replaced however we were told that the pedals on that type of bike had been recalled. The two small frame bikes were in poor shape, no bottle holders, a loose phone holder, and no bike bag of any type on one, the other small bike had no indicators of what gear was engaged, they were broken off. On the rack that holds the bag was clearly written: "DO NOT RENT". The Residence Inn in Portland did not have our reservations and we had to wait over one hour and a phone call to Summer Feet and to Macs Adventure, while they got it straightened out due to the paperwork being done improperly. Also, some of the accommodations we requested i.e. number of beds, was not honored. BTW Summer Feet based in Portland, Maine was the bike outfitter. The bike mechanic, Michelle, who brought the replacement bike, however, was very helpful with some of the other problems on the other bikes.

We just did the Vermont cycle trip. The accommodations were great and the luggage transfer as well. Other than that, the cycle trip was very difficult. They should have told us an ebikewas needed. Also the time expected to complete each leg was highly inaccurate. The routes were bad and we had to consult local people to stay off dangerous roads. Definitely not a trip for those over 40.

I booked Hadrian’s Wall west to east. The directions were highly inaccurate and misleading.
Instructions to one of the overnight stops was based on walking from east to west which meant I was expected to go to Once Brewed then turn around and go back almost 3 miles to Haltwhistle!!
I queried them and spoke on the phone and they said they would look into it. Nobody called or emailed me. Instead I logged on to my account on my first evening and found the itinerary had been edited.
The total mileage increased from 81 to 90!
This organisation claims to offer excellent service and quality. Not True.
I would advise people to steer clear of Mac Adventures because you receive poor service and inaccurate information.

Pretty good overall .some of the accomodations could have been better .but all things considered 4 stars