Ashlee makes taking a road trip so exciting - Never a dull moment! She's always researching new…read moredestinations and I can't wait for the next trip! So many great memories :)

From the owner: Travel Trip Planning…read moreGroup Trips United States Road-trip Adventurer Adventure Vacation Tropical Fitness Fun Travel Agent

Dave and his team have helped us plan 2 cruises! One which was last minute to the Mexican Rivera…read moreand another one to Alaska which got postponed due to pandemic. Both cruises were awesome but Dave and his team HELPED us every step of the way. Starting with recommendations and providing us many options. Additionally, since the Alaskan cruise was postponed twice.... The amount of change, information received from cruise, and my million questions ... Dave helped us through it every STEP OF THE WAY!!! Amazing care for his customers and great communication through out it all!!! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!! We will be using again to plan another trip and Dave and his team will be our GO TO team for our vacation plans!! And if you want a trip of a lifetime BOOK A CRUISE TO ALASKA!!

We went on our trip at the beginning of July and I'm now ready to provide an update. We had the…read moretime of our lives and Jim along with Ride the Wave were a big part of making it happen. We had some issues with 2 tours that we booked through Ride the Wave and Jim was fast to respond and assist. One of the tours we ended up having to cancel due to scheduling issues. I reached out to Jim to let him know and he worked on getting the refund process started right away and I received a confirmation email from the tour vendor the same day. We're now just waiting for it to get credited back to our card. The peace of mind of our trip being taken care of by professionals is invaluable. I can't recommend enough going through a travel agency for big trips because you just never know what could happen. Ride the Wave is as good as they come and I'm looking forward to using their services again for our next big trip!

Five stars for Celebrated Experiences & our "no-drive" UK vacation to London, Wales, and Scotland…read more The "cookie-cutter" Loch Ness tour originally set up by Andare can't compare to our Celebrated Experiences driver's substitution, touring Dornoch Cathedral & Dunrobin Castle and seeing a live falconry show. One star for Andare's other transportation! They wanted us to pay $570 for a 12-mile ride from Bangor Rail to the hotel, almost 6X a Snowdonia taxi ride. Months in advance, we requested a minimum of 20 mins. between train transfers due to mobility issues. Andare ignored this request, purchasing non-refundable tickets with only a ten-minute window. Ten minutes is not sufficient for a safe transfer with luggage! One star for Andare's attention to detail. Andare failed to buy advance tickets for 4 sites on our planned itinerary; we had to rush and buy them. Keep in mind, Andare partners with Virtuoso. We were asked to complete the survey about our trip which we did. Virtuoso posted it. Andare responded and admitted they fell short. Then, they removed the posting and changed it to one implying this was the first they had heard of our concerns. Now, we can see no posted response. Andare was notified of our requests in the pre-planning process, during the process, and when their finalized itinerary was shared with us. We brought up our concerns multiple times during phone conversations and by email. This review should not come as any surprise to Andare. Our requests occurred months before our trip departure and were not honored. The Celticos and Segontium Searchers Wales tour we set up gets 5 stars. They performed a wonderful personalized genealogical tour, being professional and responsive to our needs/desires. What a contrast to Andare!

Rachel put together an amazing family vacation to celebrate our oldest son's high school…read moregraduation; we visited three cities in Italy. From the places we stayed to the luxury transportation to the skip-the-line tickets for tours; everything was extremely well organized and planned. Leading up to our trip, Rachel sent weekly information about the country to get us familiar with local culture and traditions. She predicted our concerns with travel delays and was available for help whenever we needed. She is the travel agent you want to help plan your trips!

When we selected Fantastica Italia to organize our tour of Northern Italy, our chief concern was…read morethat the company is based in the United States, far from where we would be should problems arise. We soon learned that MariaLaura continually monitors her clients' tours to ensure that all proceeds according to plan. A native Italian, she has comprehensive and intimate knowledge of every region of Italy, including areas quite off the beaten track where we intended to go. She has a vivacious personality and a genuine interest in getting to know her clients and understanding their travel styles and preferences. While she was charting out our itinerary, we stayed in touch by phone or email, working out all of the details. The trip she planned for us involved stays in seven cities, starting in Genoa, looping south through Cinque Terre and Florence, turning westward through Bologna and Parma, and finishing in Torino (all cities besides Florence were new to us). She booked all transfers and hotels, working with several local travel companies. The entire tour was indeed fantastic in every way, and went without a hitch. We had contact information for the local companies, and on the few occasions when we needed to be in touch with them (for example, when our boat tour of Cinque Terre had to be postponed because of bad weather), they were absolutely responsive and reliable. All of the drivers were punctual and personable, and even those who professed not to speak English spoke quite a bit and were eager to point out sites and provide interesting background information. Hotels were all first-rate and very well located (always an important criterion for us). MariaLaura booked walking tours in each of the cities we visited, and all of these tours were wonderful and essential to our experience. Otherwise, we were on our own in each of the cities to explore as we saw fit. Since we know Europe quite well and are comfortable with European languages, this worked out very well. (It's less likely that we'd try this approach in other parts of the world.) We took a fabulous day trip from Genoa exploring the western Italian Riviera and Monaco without a guide but only a driver, who took us from place to place and even to some places that he didn't know but that we had read about. On days when we were transferring from one city to another we tried to stop at points of interest along the way. For example, on our way from Bologna to Parma we stopped in Modena to tour the Casa Pavarotti, the Ferrari Museum, and the medieval city center. It's important to note that we could not have done such a tour on our own with a rental car. Parking would have been next to impossible in many of the places we visited. We were able to get out and explore while the driver waited and picked us up at a pre-appointed spot. MariaLaura also booked several excellent specialty tours, including an unforgettable private sunset boat tour of Cinque Terre and a small-group tour outside Parma (just four people) featuring locations where Parmigiano Reggiano, balsamic vinegar, and prosciutto are produced. MariaLaura was very helpful and patient with us as our plans developed. When we found out that tickets were available for a performance of Aida at the Teatro Verdi in Busseto (outside Parma) on a certain date, she reworked the schedule to make sure we would be there. This was not a trivial matter, since the timeframe was narrow and hotel reservations for the hotels we wanted were not readily available. We appreciated the way she willingly took on the challenge and got back to us quickly with a revised schedule that worked out perfectly. She is truly a gem. The cost for this trip, not inexpensive, was nevertheless a very good value. MariaLaura worked with us to tweak the program so as to keep it reasonably on budget. Our tour of Northern Italy was truly a dream vacation. Having been to Italy a number of times, there are still areas that we have not explored. If and when we plan another trip, we hope to do it through Fantastica Italia.

I contacted this company via their on-line contact…read more Months passed with no response, finally 3 months later they contacted me using computer issues as an excuse, (as to why they never responded). My request wasn't difficult, I'm first generation Italian and wouldn't have had a problem booking directly, I contacted them because my husband has some health issues and I felt they'd be able to help/advise with that. When people show you how incompetent they are, believe them.

Great experience all and all. Shelli was awesome to work with! Highly recommend this agency.read more

Return itinerary was wrong. Missed our flight home and had to stay in a hotel and book a new flight…read morefor the next day at our expense of $1500.00 41500.00