Great Value Vacations Reviews

My first all inclusive vacations. All as promised. One small issue, I don’t recall being told about a need to complete e- ticket to enter DR causing mild aggravation at the airport , luckily I had enough time to complete it. Everything else as promised

Date of experience: September 07, 2024

Flight times were ridiculous. We left at 3 am to make our 6 am flight. Upon landing at Punta Cana our transfer ride to resort was not there so we had to pay for a private car. Check-in was held up as one of our party did not make the trip so resort refused to give her roommate a room until they heard from GVV that she has cancelled. We had to call her and ask her to contact GVV, this took a lot of time and was quite inconvenient. We had to find your agent at the hotel by trial and error as were never given a contract or company name to arrange our return transport. The flight home arrived in Detroit at 12:30 am so we did not get home until 3 am.

Date of experience: September 14, 2024

Had a great trip. Only hassle is when airlines are booked via one carrier but then fly a different carrier. I will be looking forward to use this company again. Visited Scotland and had a wonderful time

Date of experience: September 08, 2024

The hotels were located close to city center and they were very nice. The innkeeper in Balestrand went above and beyond in our care for us, as my sister has limited mobility and he acted as our personal Uber driver. The "Norway in a Nutshell" trip was so easy do. The train rides and ferry rides were beautiful. The 6 night trip was very compact, but we were able to do many things to get a feel for the cities. However, one more day each in Oslo and Bergen would have been nice.

Date of experience: September 13, 2024

The train tickets from Milan to Nice were booked for 9am. There was no time to drive from Como to Milan, return the rental car and catch that train. When we called GVV, we were told that tickets were not refundable, so we had to buy our own tickets for 11am and spent more $$$.
We asked for a refund, but did not receive it. So we paid for the GVV mistake!

Date of experience: September 12, 2024

This trip was a trip of a lifetime! Mykonos and Santorini are breathtaking and beautiful. Every hotel we stayed at was fantastic and the private transportation between all stops made getting around a breeze. Our Acropolis tour guide made it a special experience and our favorite activity was a catamaran cruise in Mykonos (that we booked separately). Highly recommend for couples or groups!

Date of experience: September 10, 2024

Great Value Vacations is always great to work with and I have booked several trips which have all been great. However, this trip was not as good due to the hotel workers being on strike at the Hilton. We had no room service and nearly all restaurants were closed. I understand this was out of GVV's control, but it did negatively affect our vacation stay.

Date of experience: September 05, 2024

Every reservation, tour, booking was all well laid out with no hiccups or problems. Never had to be concerned with lodging or where we were going; it was all taken care off.
Nightly lodging was always clean and beautifully chosen.

Date of experience: September 04, 2024

We had a wonderful trip to Ireland and Scotland with no problems encountered. The roads in Ireland are very narrow so don't upgrade to an SUV

Date of experience: September 15, 2024

Heading into a foreign country for the first time and knowing that all lodgings are taken care of in advance and that the rental car is taken care of in advance and then all the flight plans are taken care of in advance really leaves you the ability to focus on just having a good time.
All of our accommodations were beautiful and the hostesses were wonderful. We felt rather pampered. And the location, Ireland, could not be faulted at all. We had a wonderful trip.

Date of experience: September 10, 2024

It was amazing to give the responsibility of planning flights and hotels to someone else! It was a little cumbersome to get where we were staying as the hotels were not near the tourist spots and some of the hotels did not feel like they were in the best area. It was also hard that you do not have any say in when you travel except for your big tickets (departure days to and from America).

On our departure from America, we were supposed to miss our connecting flight due to delays. I tried to work with the airline and they said I needed to talk to my travel agent. Then GVV said I needed to work with the airline. This was a challenging moment.

Overall, I would use them again, but not for a multi destination.

Date of experience: August 30, 2024

Our trip to Ireland was wonderful and was priced well. Our hotels were thoughtfully picked so we would be conveniently located to the city centers. The only thing that could have been better was our hotel in Cork. The Address hotel in cork was impressive on the outside but a big disappointment inside. It was dated, paper thin walls and terrible food. That was the only complaint we had, everything else was even better than expected.

Date of experience: September 09, 2024

I’d like to be able to give *****5, but when when a company makes mistakes, even little ones, those mistakes affect the enjoyment of travel.
Overall we had a great vacation and very good experience!
Thank you Great Value Vacations!
Here’s the 10 day holiday experience rundown by the numbers, I’ll rate ONLY the GVV guided experiences here, if you’re going to Ireland/Scotland/London I’ll be reviewing many stops and experiences in separate Google reviews.
+GVV flights ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Delta (our 100% favorite) into Dublin, out of London
+GVV hotels ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
in Dublin, Edinburgh & London
+/- GVV transfers ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Almost 2 hours late Dublin arrival.
NO TRANSFER provided either end of train from Edinburgh to London 👎
-GVV Scotland countryside Scotch Tasting ⭐️
-GVV Edinburgh Royal Mile Walk Tour
GVV used a 3rd party to book the Scotch we got up early, GVV provided no transfer, upon arrival the group did not have our name on the list! The tour group tried to remedy, and GVV was properly responsive, but the excursion was never booked! Recovery could only be the next day, so we cancelled our next-day tour to take the Scotch Tour, we walked around Edinburgh all day in the rain ☔️

Date of experience: August 28, 2024

Returned from a trip to Porto and Lisbon, booked with Great Value Vacations. This is my 3rd trip using Great Value and have no issues with any of them. The drivers (transfers) from Porto to hotel, train to Lisbon, Libson to airport were punctual and informative. Couple of issues we experienced: (went with a friend) was with the hotel in Porto, we had requested twin beds but when we went to the room, it was a queen bed. Asked to be moved to another room with twin beds but the hotel didn't have any available for the 3 nights we would be there. The hotel in Lisbon was the Hilton Doubletree. There was a Globus bus tour at the hotel which resulted in no hot water for us the first morning we were there. The remaining 2 days (no bus tours) we did have hot water. I would definitely use this company again.

Date of experience: September 11, 2024

We would have liked more information up front about flight and I don't think we had the option to upgrade or we would have. Ended up paying a lot just to chose seats. The Ring of Kerry bus trip was ok, but the only reason we did it was that it came with the package. scenery was pretty but a lot of the same, would have preferred to explore on our own. We didn't really see the option of choosing tours or tickets for sights-they just came with the package? we did get our own tickets for other sights we wanted to tour. The Clayton Hotel in Sligo was not great. The food at restaurant and bar was terrible. Not much to do around Sligo, and would have liked latitude to change it as a stop when we booked. We would definitely have stayed elsewhere as we spent a lot of time driving to Sligo and then down to Dublin. The hot tub was broken, and the pool was full of kids bouncy toys. No one was working at the "Spa" so we could not avail of their services. The hotel in Dublin was okay, but the neighborhood was sketchy and we had to park the car about 1/4 mile away, no way to park and unload in front of the hotel. Also, we had to pay for the rental car for the days in Dublin but didn't use it, mostly because of the inconvenience of getting it from the parking lot.

Date of experience: August 17, 2024

Easy to set up the trip, they do all the work. We went to Ireland and most of the hotels were really 3 star hotels but rooms were all clean. Car rental went well - you do have to buy the car insurance through them for Ireland, Flying through Iceland added time to the trip and for sure wasn't the most efficient. Overall a good trip and they were very helpful/responsive when we encountered a hotel issue (no reservation found - was an error at the hotel).

Date of experience: September 08, 2024

This vacation was very hot and cold in terms of experience. Pros: we were able to see a lot of different sites without worrying about setting up transportation as it was included. Out of the 4 hotels we stayed at 3 were excellent and 1 was very poor which I consider a pro. The activities they had included were great and the helpful information via texts were great as well. Cons: almost half of our activities were canceled with no noticed (or refund), the itinerary times changed the moment we landed which meant the plans we booked separately had to be put on hold with some last minute scrambling. Overall we booked this vacation while it was on sale and it was worth it. The cons would be an issue if we had paid full price. Overall I remain please with great value vacations and continue to use them. Wish they had a rewards program!!

Date of experience: September 10, 2024

We did the 3 days each at Budapest, Vienna & Praque
Majority of trip was easy to go by as all was available for viewing. Each hotel was great and any attractions were easily accessible by BOLT within 20 mins or so
The trip was great and we are looking forward to another multi country tour soon

Date of experience: August 28, 2024

Venice location and hotel was a perfect experience, however both Florence and Rome were less convenient or poor accommodations. It would also have been helpful to provide insight, tips, or recommendations near the hotels chosen. Neither hotel was in a popular area, so transportation was required. Venice was easy to navigate, however Florence ans Rome not nearly as easy. We ended up not staying at the hotel provided in Florence because it was that terrible, and instead booked hotel reservations elsewhere that were more comfortable.

Date of experience: September 08, 2024

The vacation went well from beginning to end. The accommodations went very smoothly and all were at least very good and the car rental was better than we expected. We liked the flexibility of choosing the BnBs and building our own itinerary.

Date of experience: September 10, 2024