Provident Travel - Group & Leisure - Cincinnati, Ohio

Lynda S.

Hi, Theresa,
Sorry for my delay. I spoke to you a couple days ago about the trip. Some of us are getting together for lunch and I left a message for Lynn, our travel director. We want to include her in our lunch. Thanks for delivering the message.
This was my third recent trip with Provident. I went to the Wilds and to NYC and now Mackinac. All were very well run. We had wonderful side trips, delicious meals, and friendly fellow travelers. The closer we got to Mackinac, the nicer and bigger the rooms. Lynn, our travel director, and John, the bus driver did great jobs. Transfers were smooth. I did think that maybe for our free time, Provident could have offered sight-seeing options at additional cost. We took a Sip 'N Sail boat ride that we each bought our own ticket. We got to sail under the Big Mac bridge ... i loved that! Some people on this trip may not have known about it. I am glad that the lunch buffet at the Grand Hotel was included in the trip. We also got to ride in a horse drawn carriage as part of the trip.
The meal at Meadow Brook was wonderful. Yum! My plate was clean. The tour at Ford was impressive, particularly the movies at the beginning.
The bus was impressive with the electric outlet to charge our phones, the video screens so we could watch the video that was made at the Grand, Somewhere in Time. There were even screens that we could pull down if the sun was in our eyes.
Thank you for inquiring about the trip. Provident did a great job!

Jene T.

The trip was organized and Marie did an amazing job. At our first drop off point at the conclusion of the trip, one fellow traveler became very ill. She quickly recognized the need to call EMS and contacted next of kin to meet him at the hospital. John, the bus driver did an outstanding job helping Marie with this situation. Great team work.
As for the trip, the actives kept us very busy. I would have preferred to skip the musical museum, to arrive home earlier. In my opinion, it was a lame event, we could have skipped.
The French Lick resort was beautiful and the guided tour was interesting. But it's sister hotel, Baden Springs should be included with a tour as part of the agenda. With the hotel trolley system, you could consider having us stay there.
The breakfast was good, but the evening buffet was very poor. Please remove from price of trip or give food voucher to use in hotel restaurants.
Too much of the same type of buffet style food.. Would rather have some meals on our own to explore local restaurants.
The dinner /show with it's technical problems made for too long of a day. Perhaps a shorter show or the arrival of the hotel trolley to skip the show could be arranged..
The price for the trip is a little on the high side for the quality of food /Buffets and activities.

Barbara R.

The Elvis riverboat dinner cruise was very nice. Unfortunately I was very concerned about the ramp to and from the boat. It was extrememly steep. I also thought the food had a lot of pepper. That is something that can easily be added by the individual. Loved the singer and the music.

Mary B. W.

I enjoyed the Elvis impersonator luncheon cruise. I was not unhappy with any part of the day. I really was impressed by the professionalism and knowledge of our tour guide. I know that she will be the tour guide on the Branson trip, and I am already signed up.

Bobbie P.

I booked two rooms for a one night stay at hotel Xcaret Mexico through Tillina Whitehead. I was very clear while booking that it should be at Xcaret Mexico, and not Xcaret Arte Two different resorts, but next to each other. I had taken two of my sisters and brother-in-law there as a surprise. When we arrived, the reservation was at the wrong resort. I called Tillina and asked her to correct the reservation. After a 3 1/2 hour wait I was told it would cost me $1100 more to stay where I had originally asked for. During which time I was told to take it easy because I couldn’t check in until 3 o’clock anyway. I was told by the resort I could check in early and then spend the day enjoying the resort, things like swimming, eating at the restaurants going out to the ocean. I was also told that it was my fault because I did not review the invoice that she sent to me confirming my reservation. I will not use this travel agency again for any reason. It’s better just to do it yourself online and not have to depend on a third-party.

stephanie S.

Worked with Molly for a special family vacation for my husband and I and our 3 teens. We didn't know where we wanted to go but gave her our budget and she came back with multiple recommendations. We decided on RIU palace Bavaro and it was perfect for us. Molly helped us through everything. She was great. The hotel could use some updates but was very clean and the staff was incredibly friendly and polite. The activities coordinators got my 15 year old son doing yoga on the beach! So much to do everyday. The food was great too, buffet fairly typical but the fruit was fresh and the specialty restaurants were very good. And we didn't need special reservations. Perfect trip!

Louise K.

I enjoy the travel groups Joe puts together with Provident Travel. My last venture in Tennessee at the Gaylord was amazing. The trips are well organized, everything is included, and we all become family as we travel, laugh, and spend time with one another. I highly recommend them and looking forward to another soon.

Samantha

Despite giving a detailed description of what activities I wanted to do and a price point I wanted to stay within, I paid a $250 service fee for an itinerary that was almost double my desired budget. Through some slow-to-respond back and forth communication regarding tours, and activities I felt could be scaled down a bit, and a very specific excursion I wanted to do, I was sent a “revised” itinerary with the same exact activities as before—just a lower price. It’s like my requests were completely ignored. And I’ll never again be talked into believing that travel agents get “deals” on flights or hotel bookings because I continually find better pricing using online booking sites. In this case, I was looking for an international business class flight and was told one couldn’t be found for less than $6500 round trip. Meanwhile I found a round trip business class flight AND hotel for 4 nights for under $4,000. Smh. Never again. I just had to chalk up the wasted service fee as a donation to an industry impacted by covid-19. That’s the only way I could feel ok about throwing away money like that.

RESPONSE TO BUSINESS REPLY: No, actually she did not give me the specific excursions I requested as you claim. Two examples: I specifically requested an excursion to Devil's Pool on several different communications-- no version of the itinerary had any mention of this. Second, after viewing the initial itinerary I specifically said I didn't want to do the cruise around Millionaire's Paradise, yet in the "revised" itinerary this was still an excursion. It has nothing to do with some phantom expectation of advisors working for free--an expectation I never had and an assumption you've made. It has everything to do, however, with expecting to be heard, to get good customer service, and to get results.