I was recently on a 14 day tour to Ghana, Africa and London, England tour arranged by Mary, of…read moreConsolidated Tours. A couple days into the tour, Mary went from being helpful and a resource, to being rude, disdainful and dismissive of me, personally. For ex., I got in a wrong line at Heathrow airport and was subsequently, detained in a PUBLIC 'holding pen' - "look at the criminal, the TERRORIST, everybody!" It was utterly humiliating. When reunited with the group, however, not only did Mary express NO sympathy for my mortification, she didn't even ask what happened. To the contrary, she made it a point to let me (and all who had eyes and ears) know that my welfare was as nothing to her - I was insignificant? expendable? - as before I could even open my mouth to recount my experience, cut me off dismissively and 'ordered' me into another line. It was par for the course. After the first couple days of the tour, Mary was INVARIABLY rude, disrespectful, and when personal instructions were required, 'barked' them at me... once... before turning pre-emptively on her heel and walking away. To salvage 'value' for my $6,000+ tour, I kept my distance from her haughty hatefulness (what other words are there for her behavior?) for the remainder of the tour. Why the change of attitude? Why single out one PAYING customer... all of a sudden... who had the same attitude from departure to arrival, to vent her spleen upon? Was the woman young enough to be my daughter encouraged to act so ugly? Thus, I have only one caveat: if you do decide to take a tour with Consolidated Tours, watch out for Mary. With neither rhyme, reason, nor warning, she can turn on you on a dime.
Btw, I give my Consolidated Tours experience 2 stars. As the proverbial one who has never had a 'bad' date in her life, i.e., give this 74 year old world traveling grannie a lemon and she will ALWAYS make lemonade, I enjoyed (most of) my first, and maybe last, tour experience.