Country Roads of Wales, Devon & Cornwall

Scenery and villages were lovely. Well balanced between driving and sightseeing. Hotels ranged from very good and good but the The Royal & Fortescue in Barnstaple (where we had two nights) left a LOT to be desired and was definitely not the standard we had paid for on this premium tour. Insight let us down, despite their “BOOK WITH CONFIDENCE Premium Vacations With Everything You Need, Always Included” assertion, as our first night in London was NOT included. It was impossible to know where to book accommodation so that we would make a timely, easy and not-too-expensive trip across London to whatever hotel Insight decided the tour would depart from. The most we knew (until less then a week before the tour start date) was that the "departure on Day 1 can be between 6am -9am" and thatwe needed to be at THE HOTEL a minimum of 30 mins early. I stress that THE HOTEL was not advised until almost last-minute! AND we were, a few weeks before, advised that it would most likely be Thistle by Marble Arch only to be told days before that is was the Cleremont Hotel. This was an extremely poor way to start a tour and we felt very poorly treated considering all our previous Insight tours included the first night in the package. We found out during the tour that people from other countries knew the departure hotel was Cleremont months before us Australians were advised. Also, this 6-9 am departure meant that there weres no introductions of the Tour Guide nor our co-travellers before we bundled onto the coach, spent day one touring and then had our meet-each-other dinner that night. This, of course, we state is solely the (ir)responsibility of Insight and in no way a criticism of our fantastic Tour Director.