Tour Refund from ?

[Tom O.]

I just booked a Baltic Cruise and I am considering Alla Tours for St. Petersburg. I was just wondering if anybody has actually had to cancel with them, and if it was difficult to get a refund. Alla claims to offer 100% refunds if given notice 72 hours (3 days) before arriving in port, but I would like to hear from someone who has actually had to cancel.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Tom O.

[dogs4fun]

11 minutes ago, Tom O. said:

I just booked a Baltic Cruise and I am considering Alla Tours for St. Petersburg. I was just wondering if anybody has actually had to cancel with them, and if it was difficult to get a refund. Alla claims to offer 100% refunds if given notice 72 hours (3 days) before arriving in port, but I would like to hear from someone who has actually had to cancel.

Yes, we had to cancel one of our tours with Alla. We simply notified them via our account we had established on their website.  Our credit card was refunded 100%. You have no concerns when booking with Alla - she is excellent, had been providing tours for many years and is rated #1 on TripAdvisor (for good reason).

Edited November 25, 2019 by dogs4fun

[Tom O.]

Thanks Dogs. I will go ahead and book with them.

I just noticed that the word Alla was deleted from the title of my post. I guess listing a well known tour company's name in the title of a post is not allowed on this forum.

[dogs4fun]

10 minutes ago, Tom O. said:

I just noticed that the word Alla was deleted from the title of my post. I guess listing a well known tour company's name in the title of a post is not allowed on this forum.

That is odd. I wasn't aware that listing the name of a tour company in the title of a post was against forum rules. BTW - Alla was not in the title of your post when I initially replied to your post.

Edited November 25, 2019 by dogs4fun

[trosebery]

3 hours ago, Tom O. said:

Thanks Dogs. I will go ahead and book with them.

I just noticed that the word Alla was deleted from the title of my post. I guess listing a well known tour company's name in the title of a post is not allowed on this forum.

 

This forum seems to be a little cautious about allowing posts referencing specific St.P. tour companies. I know positive "reviews" of a company from someone who's planning to go on a tour with them get deleted. I even had my actual St.P. tour review temporarily removed for review. (It was allowed back up, probably because I wasn't only singing the praises of a particular company -- in my case it was Red Sun Tours -- but also recommending the private tour experience and two of our favourite off-the-beaten track spots.)

 

But to answer your original question: on our last cruise just this past summer, no one on our Roll Call or FB who ended up having to cancel (either their cruise or just their St.P. plans) had any difficulty getting their money back (if they'd paid anything in advance at all) *if* they booked directly with one of the reputable private companies often listed here. (I do know one person who booked through a third party who had some difficulty.)

[CrazyJess]

I agree. Recently the entire chain with the name of a particular local operator was deleted from this forum. They are very strict about it. 

Jess

 

[dogs4fun]

On 11/25/2019 at 12:47 PM, trosebery said:

This forum seems to be a little cautious about allowing posts referencing specific St.P. tour companies. I know positive "reviews" of a company from someone who's planning to go on a tour with them get deleted.

Right - it is against forum rules to recommend a tour company with whom you have not yet toured. Makes perfect sense to me. However, you can ask about specific tour operators or reply to posts inquiring about specific operators. 

[Tom O.]

As I wrote the original post. The word Alla appeared in the title. But as soon as I posted it, the word disappeared. I tried editing it and changing the order of the words, but the word Alla disappeared when I was done.

The website obviously has been programmed to omit that word in the title of any post, as if it were a swear word. Yet, I can use the word in the body of the text.

This left me with a title that was a little nonsensical.

I understand the rules about posting about tour operators. But I was just asking a simple question. I was not recommending anyone. It is sort of heavy handed control of the forum.

But luckily, my question got answered despite the nonsense title.

[dogs4fun]

1 hour ago, Tom O. said:

As I wrote the original post. The word Alla appeared in the title. But as soon as I posted it, the word disappeared. I tried editing it and changing the order of the words, but the word Alla disappeared when I was done.

The website obviously has been programmed to omit that word in the title of any post, as if it were a swear word. Yet, I can use the word in the body of the text.

This left me with a title that was a little nonsensical.

I understand the rules about posting about tour operators. But I was just asking a simple question. I was not recommending anyone. It is sort of heavy handed control of the forum.

But luckily, my question got answered despite the nonsense title.

Hi Tom,

Happy that your question was answered. You did absolutely NOTHING wrong - the title of your post, including the name of the tour company, Alla, was completely within cruise critic guidelines. It had to be some sort of a glitch. If you scroll through the Baltic forum, there are threads that name the tour company in the title. One such example is Best Guides - you can see what I mean here:

 

[dogs4fun]

3 hours ago, dogs4fun said:

 

Here is another one: the title of the thread is "TJ Travel"  - asking about tours with the company.

Like I said, your post (with the removal of company name) had to be a glitch within the system.

 

[Tom O.]

I read in the guidelines, that if a tour company promotes itself on this forum, that it risks having its name banned.

So, I suppose it is possible that Alla crossed the line sometime in the past, and is being punished by having it's name censured. Although I would think that it would disappear from the body of text too.

[dogs4fun]

45 minutes ago, Tom O. said:

I read in the guidelines, that if a tour company promotes itself on this forum, that it risks having its name banned.

So, I suppose it is possible that Alla crossed the line sometime in the past, and is being punished by having it's name censured. Although I would think that it would disappear from the body of text too.

She is definitely not censured. If this were the case, her name would not appear in the body of the text - just as you correctly surmised.  You could contact the cruise critic moderator and ask why the name was removed in your title.

Here is a thread with Alla in the title:

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by dogs4fun

[DNJ66]

On 11/25/2019 at 7:03 PM, Tom O. said:

Thanks Dogs. I will go ahead and book with them.

I just noticed that the word Alla was deleted from the title of my post. I guess listing a well known tour company's name in the title of a post is not allowed on this forum.

I can't believe it! Was the company's name really deleted?

 

[Tom O.]

Yes, try creating a new thread with the word Alla in the title. Maybe it will work for you.

The thought occurred to me that it could have been deleted because it is similar to Allah - the Muslim God. But I did a search and found other threads with Alla in the title.