Tucan Travel 

In many ways the trip went better than expected. It followed the itinerary, there were very few (minor) delays and the drivers and guides coped very well with those delays; were thoroughly professional, helpful and friendly. The accommodation was, on average surprisingly good for this type of overland tour. I chose this trip because I wanted to see as much of (Eastern and Southern) Africa as possible in the time available to me and as a single traveler, I wanted the security and shared experiences afforded by an escorted tour. I was aware from reading the tour notes that it was a "whistle stop" itinerary at times, but was very pleased with the number and variety of excursions. I really enjoyed the "included" safari tours, and was grateful to have a few lazy days as a break from the long travel times, and also to chose a few of my own side adventures. The tour also included several internal connecting flights which significantly reduced travelling times between key destinations. Over all, I was very happy with the tour, and would consider doing another one with TUCAN.

Excellent customer service staff that help plan out my trip very prompt replies, as I had 3 separate tours lined up their knowledge and turnaround kept my plans on track, can't wait for the tour to begin.

This was an excellent tour which accomplished what I wanted. I am not a traveler that wants someone to hold me hand throughout the tour - and that is what this tour did - it took care of things like lodging and breakfast and giving orientation to each destination - and it did include a few basic guided tours - however after that I had the freedom after being oriented to each destination to explore the things that most interested me and try foods that I wanted to try. The only thing that could have been better would have been if an extra night could have been included at the first and last destinations as the amount of time there was entirely insufficient to do much exploring. Fortunately I had noticed that when I booked the tour and also added a night to the first and also the last destination which made it perfect.

Did the Colombia Express trip - brilliant! our guide was a local, and knew so much of the history, politics, drugs history etc, which was a massive bonus. He did walking tours with us in Medellin & Bogota which were really interesting as he had so much knowledge of the areas. All in all a great tour, great tour member of staff and the accommodation was excellent! Worth every penny! What a stunning country. Apologies I can’t name the guide re the app, but he was a great guide!

A very good tour with great sights and excellent opportunities to explore different types of food. Buggy riding is an absolute must, superb fun.

I had an amazing time on this tour. The accomodation was lovely, the guides were great, the group was very good company and the trip was filled with spectacular experiences.

Tucan organised a private tour for us (family of 4) in china. Responsive, clear, orgabised and knowledgeable.

Very good trip apart from some sub standard Accommodation that was not value for the total amount paid for the trip.. ( 4x hotel rooms during the whole trip)

Excellent itinerary, and it came with the best tour guide, xxxxx( censored for privacy)

Well organised, very experienced friendly guides,great food. Once in a lifetime exlerience

Excellent in every way- only minor ( constructive) comments
Good tour guides, good 3/4* hotels.comfortable Mercedes mini buses. Itinerary generally good - a little overcrowded. A few extra monastries included , which could have been left out to provided a little free time.
The one important omission ( which fortunately we arranged ourselves) was the genocide memorial in Yerevan. An absolute must for future travellers and should be on the programme.

Tucan Tour Rwanda to Zanzibar
We are interested in Wildlife, Nature and local Cultures. We generally travel budget to midrange and have had plenty of experiences during our previous 7 trips to Africa. For our 8th visit we chose Tucan, because the itinerary seem to have a nice mix and opportunity to get an impression of these four countries.
On closer look it was 'bare minimum' and some of the mentioned places we actually never got to see, as we stayed in the outskirts of the cities (Arusha for example). In Tanzania we could not do any of the optional tours that are offered in the itinerary, including a visit to the Masai village or Balloon Ride over Serengeti or any of the other optional tours. In Stonetown Arthur told us to NOT go into the town, he suggested to go to a bar at the beach where we sat for 2 hours until sunset, while he was on his phone. As he had announced that he will give information for the next day, we had to be there and there was no way to see Stonetown's markets and art galleries like suggested in the itinerary. This was yet another incident where the itinerary reads exciting but you actually don't get to see or do these things.

Main Reasons for us to never book a trip with Tucan Travels again:
Their poor choice of Accommodations

Generally most of the accommodations were very very low standard.
With only one exception, we found most of the lodges and hotels appalling, especially when there were better lodges nearby, so it wasn't that these were the only, closest options.
Of the many low points were the accommodations at Nile River Explorers, with the Tents located next to an outdoor party location (!!)
The music was blasting until 4 am and afterwards loud 'Afterparties', drunken crowd and vomiting behind our tents until the morning made it impossible to sleep.
At Lake Buyoni the bathrooms were a hike away for us, no fun at night climbing many steep stairs or to find that the only bathroom is occupied when sick. (Two people got sick on the first day of the tour, most of the group got sick at some point of the journey).

Poor choice of staff

One of the first things our Tour leader Arthur told us about himself was that he wants to retire. And that was pretty much the attitude that we felt obvious in his demeanor throughout the tour. Not only did he keep communications to a bare minimum, he got annoyed when someone did not understand his often confusion information, his tone was often condescending and overall passive aggressive to actually aggressive... “pay attention!' “as I clearly told you” were just some of the things he said when someone did not get his info right away.

Many guests were uncomfortable to ask him and tried to find out from other group members what we were doing. Our impression was that he clearly does not like his job. To us it is unfathomable, how he still has his job. There were many incidences of insult and he obviously had a problem when someone did not understand him.
At one point he gave the group an ultimatum to decide whether he and the driver should be replaced with someone else in the next town. This is how uncomfortable the tension got between him and the group. Of course, no one dared to say anything. His militant and intimidating demeanor made our time unpleasant and unnecessarily stressful.
His colleague the driver Alan showed hostile and even insulting behavior towards us.

The local tour guides, the staff at the lodges, campgrounds, hotels was very different: friendly, helpful, kind and just nice. None of which I can say about the Tour leader we had.

Also: To us it felt obvious that corners were cut in every possible way, and this was the least enjoyable trip we ever did.
I can not recommend this tour to anyone, actually I feel sorry for the people that are doing it right now.
There were a few highlights as well, but we feel that overall travel with this company it is simply not worth the money or the time.

Avoid Israel (due to tour leader). Better still, avoid Tucan altogether.

If you do choose Tucan (although there are better companies out there)…….Jordan was ‘mostly’ a great experience. Israel, you should avoid like the plague.

Issue with Jordan. Un-hygienic hotel in Petra. I’m talking about faeces, urine, blood and sweat stains on the bed, carpet and chairs. Unclean hotel in general, sewage smells in rooms. Feces also left in unclean bathrooms on arrival. Maybe it was just my room, you say….no, we tried 4 rooms, all the same. I have proof in the way of several pictures, but Tucan weren’t interested in seeing these. I had no choice but to leave the hotel and find another, of which I had to pay for. Tucan tried to suggest they paid towards the new hotel, but they didn’t, they negotiated themselves a refund from the horror hotel and gave me that. I had to pay the difference. Please note, the hotel (The Silk Road) is still listed on the tour’s website page.

Issues with Israel - rude tour leaders and drivers, and misleading itineraries

The tour leader Raed, the worst tour leader in the history of tours. He obviously had somewhere better to be, he showed no interest in presenting his country to us, nor us as a group.
- Tour days were cut short by him, as he was obviously in a hurry to return home. Despite Tucan website stating a full day tour, days finished as early as 2pm.
- On arrival at the hotel, he basically dropped us off and left us there, before we had even checked into the hotel. Also not leaving his contact details, should there have been any issues.
- He googled answers to any questions and used his phone to read from the bible. Obviously not as experienced as Tucan are insisting he is.
- Poor communication. He continued to speak extremely fast, despite numerous requests to slow down. The equipment on the vehicle used, was not functioning properly (e.g. the mic), so we couldn’t understand what was being said. Requests to fix it, fell on deaf ears. Refused to wait for the whole group before explaining about the site.
- During 37c heat, he decided to not include as rest stops, water or bathroom stops and ignored requests to slow down – again because he was in a rush to get home. He would rush past key elements of each site.
- Refused to stop at any shops. Insisted we rushed when taking pictures.
- Several sites were closed.
- He was argumentative when I requested that we slow down to absorb the magnitude of significant sites. On the 1 or 2 occasions when the whole group insisted, we do something, both Raed and the driver would act like a pair of children, become moody when not getting their own way. They both were unfriendly, unhelpful, rude, this list goes on

Some of Tucan’s responses (please note the quotes).

A simple apology and assurances that the disappointing end to a great first leg of the tour, would have sufficed, but instead I received no apology, they ‘shifted blame’, their tone was augmentative. Purley based on this response I escalated my complaint further.

They statement to the unsafe hotel in Petra - “should it be found unsuitable” they would act – but they never once asked for my pictures as evidence of the horror. It’s still listed on the Tucan website. Comment, “reimbursed you for your night’s accommodation” – this is false. As mentioned, they negotiated a refund and gave me these pennies for another hotel – I couldn’t find another for this amount, anywhere. So, I had to pay for one myself.

“leave the hotel at 9:00 a.m. to visit the listed sites and to return to the hotel by 14.00” – despite the itinerary stating a full day’s tour. I suggested Tucan update their website to reflect the truth, they did not. Tucan’s response “I think this is quite long enough”.

Please be aware that despite the Tucan website stating, ‘a tour of the city’, significate sites are not included (and you are not given extra time to visit them yourself), eg Western Wall, the last supper room, significant churches, and tomb of King David etc etc. Raed insisting that ‘extra stops and extra hours’ were included on the tour – this is another lie. Other sites were excluded in order for us to visit key ones – which suited him, as they were close together, ensuring that he finished early for the day. Tucan’s response “it does not seem he was in such a hurry to return home”

In reference to an adequate number of stops or rest from the 37c heat, to include water, etc, Tucan’s flippant response “you booked during the summer months in the Middle East when temperatures can be very hot”. So basically, it was my fault because I decided to visit in the summer months. This does not mean it’s acceptable or safe to avoid water breaks, the shade nor does it give the tour leader the right to rush us from one side of the city to other in a short space of time. In fact, in this extreme heat, he should have made extra stops to avoid heatstroke.

“your Israeli guide and driver gave you and another client a complimentary extended drive to the airport in Tel Aviv so that you could see more of the city” – again another pure lie. We were driven directly to the airport – this airport transfer included on the tour. Several instances where the tour leader (Raed) completely lied about something.

In reference to the rudeness of the tour leader, Tucan’s response “rudeness is of course objective”

Tucan made the decision to just completely avoid addressing quite a few area’s of my feedback – lacklustre response, proving they just don’t care.

The end result to my feedback was “For your benefit it may be best for you to look at an alternative tour operator for your future travels”. This is how Tucan deal with negative feedback. Another words, ‘if you don’t give us positive feedback’, we are not interested, go elsewhere.

During every single email response, I requested a ‘feedback link’ to ensure that future travellers are aware of what they are dealing with when it comes to Tucan – they continued to refuse me this link, until the very end, when they realised I wasn’t going to give up.

Do your research, there a thousand of reviews about Tucan, similar to mine. They are dishonest, arrogant and irresponsive. They are running too many tours and are completely out of touch with reality on the ground. Tucan merely discount any negative feedback as false and defend the actions of their staff instead of trying to take the suggestions to improve the tour in the future. As such I feel they have no intention of taking any feedback seriously. They steal your hard-earned cash, a trend seen online in the reviews. Worst display of customer service I have ever seen, they basically call you a liar, putting fuel on the fire. I'm a seasoned traveller. My whole Israeli experience ruined because of Tucan and their contracted 3rd party tour leaders.

As you can see from Tucan's response below, and as I pointed out in my review - "You have done several tours with Tucan Travel and on each have expressed complaints. We feel that our tours are possibly not the right fit for you and wish you all the best in your future travels" - so basically they are saying - 'although we ask you for feedback, we are actually only interested in positive feedback - if you give us feedback related to area's that we need to improve on, then we don't want to hear this and we will ask you to take your business elsewhere'. - this is how much Tucan care about improving their trips and how much they care about their customers - they just want your money - avoid, avoid, avoid.

Great trip! Covers the main highlights of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile in 2 weeks. Those who decide to hike up to Manchu Picchu need to be aware that it is challenging and by the time you get there, you are exhausted but still need energy to explore the ruins (better to go by train if you wish to conserve energy). Salar de Uyuni (Salt Plains) is very cold during July and remote accommodation means that you don't get power outlets, no showers, no heaters, insufficient blankets, unisex toilets, etc - so be prepared! Suggest the optional tour of Valparaiso at the end of the tour in Santiago - it is excellent.

Honestly could not have enjoyed my trip on the Inca trail with tucan tours more (except maybe not having to deal with the squat toilets! But that is not a tucan tour issue). The guide, food and set up each day was excellent. We didn't have to worry about a thing except putting one foot in front of the other and taking in the spectacular sights.

Wonderful holiday: Rwanda, Uganda & Kenya. Super guide @ driver(s) and a very nice group when undertaking this adventure.

Loved my tour and the people. Was the time of our lives and we were so well looked after every step of the way. Thank you Tucan Travel!

Tucán travel farmed our or balkans tour to another company from Serbia, that company was very cheap with everything! Not even a bottle of water was included, they also had us riding in a very old small economy car for over 700 miles over 2 weeks with a ac problems! Some of the hotels were down right scary weird, and some of the meals were awful!
Guides were nice but the company they worked for (Ace-Aventures) were treating them like second class citizens!

Tucán travel took their money and ran I feel!

I've found the trip Prague-Istanbul well organised, with safe,nice accommodation, efficient transportation in a small group. All the chosen destinations were so interesting that sometimes I would have liked to stay to explore the area. The guide was always helping with maps and orientation tours when arriving in new destinations, organised a fabulous cultural private tour in Romania. We traveled 7 times with Tucan Tour and we know that we'll have an amazing time at affordable cost.

Well organised and well paced tour. Saw everything I wanted to without feeling rushed. Good guides, accommodation and transport. Good value for money.