Exoticca

On November 11,2022 we booked a trip to Peru and Galapagos with them and gave a $5686.32 deposit. On November 18th 2022 our daughter passed unexpectedly with three young children at home. We could no longer go on the trip as we have to be here to take care of the children. I called Exoticca and told them what happened and they said I could cancel no problem but never said they we not going to give me my deposit. To this day I have never received a penny back and they won't even respond anymore The are DISPICABLE! STAY AWAY!

1. The group size ranged between 30 and 50 people, which can be quite overwhelming for some travelers and limit the personalized experience.

2. Arriving at the hotel at 7:30 pm and having to wake up at 5:15 am every day for a 6:45 am pick-up left little time to relax or enjoy the trip. Hotels are not superior class. All about 4 stars far from city center on average 45 mins.

3. Excessive Bus Travel: Spending more time on the bus than actually sightseeing can be frustrating and disappointing. A 10-hour bus ride from one city to another is excessive and should be better managed.

4. Unprofessional Tour Guide: The tour guide's unprofessional behavior, including yelling at several people, is unacceptable and negatively impacts the overall tour experience. Additionally, dishonesty regarding excursion availability is a serious issue.

5. Travelers should be advised that this trip may not be suitable for everyone. Only if you are planning to live out of your suitcase for 10-12 days.

In summary, the trip to Turkey with Exoticca appears to have several significant issues, including scheduling problems, unprofessional conduct by the tour guide, and excessive bus travel. Travelers should consider these factors before booking.

Unethical thieves! DO NOT BUY FROM THEM! My wife and I purchased a trip to Egypt 6 months before the travel date. When the war broke out in neighboring Israel, we did not feel comfortable for several reasons traveling to Egypt. The US State Department has it listed as a Level 3: Reconsider Travel warning. We gave them 4 months notice. We didn't even ask for our money back; instead, we simply asked to get a credit or transfer our deposit to a different trip. Not only did they refuse, they told us they were keeping 60% of our $3600 deposit! We canceled the trip and have been waiting over two weeks to receive our 40% refund. Now they are sending emails stating they aren't going to refund us at all! Good luck calling customer service. I waited for 51 minutes on hold when an automated message came on and said, "All representatives are busy, call back at another time" and hung up on me. I kept calling and eventually spoke with a representative who recommended I pay the additional 40%! Are you kidding me? I asked to speak to a supervisor and they refused stating, "We don't have supervisors. You have to submit a complaint through the website." I have submitted numerous complaints and they keep sending an AI-generated message that says we aren't getting our refund. Extremely unethical, crooked company! SPRINT, don't just walk away from this company!

Sugar Loaf day trip got cancelled without any notification

Excellent activities, organization, and wonderful lodging.

Avoid, Avoid, Avoid! 'Exoticca is not proper travel agent'. ALL external Flights were changed, multiple times and with huge delays, waiting in between, and cancellations. Exoticca were of no assistance, they just refer you to talk to the airline personally. I do not need a travel agent for this I could have just booked better flights myself. Changes made less than 12 hrs before departure from the UK.
The flights advertised on their site do not represent the reality. 16 hrs to get from Bristol to Cairo (normally a four-hr flight) with two stops (one advertised), Cairo to Bristol 20hrs (two stops) and lost luggage as a result. I would not recommend as you are stressed when you arrive and stressed when you get home. Combined with very early starts from 3am to 5am every day.
The three days onboard 'cruise' is one day cruising, two days accommodation on the boat which is docked and joined to two to four other boats, which you walk through to get on land! Food onboard is positively average. Only one of the advertised hotels were superior, the others were remote (taxi to any shops or restaurants) and distinctly average.
Too much talking and restrictions from the guide, who was extremely knowledgeable, but did not take into consideration the guests need. No attempt to get to know our names, even though we were with him for 7 days. We were treated like high school students.
Very slow and longwinded allocating rooms at destinations too.
Meet and greet and collection from Cairo airport was exceptional from Planet tours.

At the end of Sept. I booked a trip to South America.
At the end of Sept. 2023 after checking Exoticca's website, I chose a certain one in a lower price. I called, got an agent. He started with sweet talks, deceiving me and offering a much higher price, for same date.
He also said, he can not show me the itinerary, untill I paid 50% up front, which stupidly I did.
Next day I checked the lower price still showed. I called to complain about the price and also not given itinerary first.
For next 2 weeks I called a few times and exchanged a dozen emails. Every time I got another agent, who said: Prices change all the time. Never touched upon not giving itinerary. I also emailed a higher department, where they repeated same crap. Every time I explained that I picked a price from their site, only to get: Prices change and nothing about the itinerary. Also saying that there is single supplement, which of course I knew. My estimate is that they cheated me by $500.
Than I was offered to cancel my booking and rebook again for any dates or price, but they'll keep my $1900 deposit as a penalty. This is the most outrageous thing to say. This compay borders in fraud. Stay away.

Date of experience: September 28,2023

I booked a trip to Japan that is coming up in September. I wanted to upgrade to a pass on the reservation, I must've called 10 times and tried to talk to agents, but they will only talk to the person that booked the trip all of us passengers paid the same amount, but they will only talk to that one passenger. This is so annoying for me, and for my friend to book the trip, I went on that air, Nippon website to pull up our flights to try to do so myself, and found that they spelled my name incorrectly. It is not Match my passport. This is a huge problem, and I've tried to call exotica again. They won't talk to me only my friend who works and has had to spend endless time on the phone with exotica trying to fix this. Their solution is to cancel my ticket and buy a new one with the correct spelling of my name Availability may be an issue though. This is an unacceptable solution exotica being my travel agent should be in contact with Air Nippon and should be correcting this. My friend and I should not have to be making numerous phone calls and have a stress level of 10 over this when we booked our trip we all have to send our passports over with the correct name, spelling, and they sent us an email to verify that everything was spelled, correct clearly, the problem did not come from our end, since exotica is our agent they need to deal with this problem and they need to deal with it ASAP but they won't. I am honestly afraid to go on this trip. There are so many loose ends. You never speak to your same agent. And the idea of not being able to speak to somebody only the lead person is allowed to speak on the phone is absolutely ridiculous and ludicrous exotica get your act together and get my ticket fixed.

Our Iceland Tour in March 2023 went real smooth from flights, guides and sightseeing. Will book again for the Price.

Please do not use Exoticca travel agency.

They hide behind their small print, and their advertising is misleading and they purposefully withhold essential information about transit flights until they have secured your booking and payment has been made.

Once you have paid you are then informed about your transit flights, of which they take zero responsibility regarding changing or cancelling flights or COVID vaccination status or visas.

We ended up in a situation where we had to purchase return flights via Mexico as we were unable to fly via USA, a high expense and inconvenience. I missed a day's work and my son missed crucial exams at school.

We were on time and ready to check in. We met another passenger, in the same situation due to lack of information being provided upfront when booking regarding transit flights. He also has to purchase another flight to return to the UK.

The United Airlines check-in desk at San Jose said this always happens with Exoticca! No other agency! They said to write a formal company to Exoticca and demand they pay for the new flights.

Exoticca take no responsibility for anything. My son was sick for three days and as a single parent, neither of us could attend these prepaid trips. They were unwilling to refund these trips and just refer to insurance.

The Exoticca agency outsource all the trips, which can be purchased at a much more competitive rate in the country, and they are unwilling to help or provide any flexibility to their terms and conditions.

Behind the flashy website, is a company that is misleading and certainly lacks customer support, most importantly, they do not take any responsibility for their incompetence.

Do not use this agency!

We paid our final payment to go to Morocco the afternoon of Friday, September 8th. The following morning we found out there had been a major earthquake in Morrocco. There have been about 2400 deaths, total devastation in most tourist attractions in Marakesh. Its not safe to travel there. Airlines are being understanding and allowing changes to Morocco. Of course the officials in Morocco are saying its safe to travel because they desperately need money to start recovery efforts.

Marakesh is on our agenda for three days and there is no way that restaurants, hotels and stores have not been impacted. I will not be put in danger by Exottica.

We requested they change our destination to Vietnam departing October 15th. The cost of Vietnam is well over $1,000 more so they would not be losing any money.

Exoticca has completely decided that the trip is on no matter what. I never thought a company with the prestige of Excoticca would put our lives in danger. So sad strongly recommend you NEVER NEVER USE THEM. They dont care about their customer's safety at all.

Im prepared to contact my attorney (and I do have legal coverage which I pay at work) to intervene on my behalf.

Exoticca's Failure to provide accommodations at level paid: Bait and switch
Unscrupulous business practice: by Exoticca travel and Misrepresenting facts were material to our 2 transactions, first payments of 5/5/2022- $3,508.80 and second payment 7/7/2022- $2,477.55. We booked a trip with Exoticca travel to Turkey/Greece with departure date September 17,2022
Failure to disclose Cancellation policy:
After the first payment, we find out about Exoticca's multiple bad reviews on Yelp and BBB.com and decided to cancel.
Exoticca Travel refusal to our multiple requests of cancellation forced us to take this trip. We made the cancellation request over 3 months before the trip date. Seller's refused to refund and cancel the trip over 76 days before the trip. Exoticca referred to their cancellation policy. Exoticca had told us on the phone they have (Free cancellation policy). No detail of cancellation policy was on the payment receipts, trip Summery, we did not sign any agreements or contracts; I did not initial any acknowledgements of such cancellation policy. No viewing of cancellation Policy was offered to us. They refused to cancel our trip. Exoticca offered to cancel our trip, but keep all of our money over $3508.00 and offered illusory vouchers towards another trip!
We are working now with the government agencies to expose Exoticca preditory style of business and put the end to this none sence for everyone who traveled with them and prevent new victums from falling in to Exoticca traps of nice pictures and colorfull websites. Wish us good luck and join us. look at exoticca 5 star Hotel picture!Your reservation is confirmed!
Congratulations Agha, you're going to Turkey & Greece!

Proof of purchase and reservation:
Your trip documents: Booking Number
US-EX*******257

Turkey & Greece
Treasures of Anatolia & Greek Odyssey
All the details of your reservation including hotels, flights and itinerary can be found in your trip summary. Keep in mind that this information can change and will be updated closer to your departure date once all elements of your trip have been confirmed. Check your Exoticca Account regularly to keep up to date!

Exoticca does a wonderful job organizing the trip and arranging transportation to and from airports, excursions, and hotels. We did have trouble obtaining boarding passes for some flights, so be aware of that & make sure someone will be available to assist you. Although we contacted our group resource person on a couple occasions, she declined to help and said that "we were on our own". This caused a great deal of stress. Ultimately we were able to locate someone from Exoticca to assist us, but our original contact was neither helpful nor reassuring.

This was our third trip with Exotica. We were impressed that vans were already waiting to pick us up from the airport. No waiting on our side. Hotels were great and centrally located. Staff at the hotels were helpful. Our tour guides in Rome, Florence and Venice were very knowledgeable and passionate in sharing the history and culture of their home towns.
Jacob was able to effectively handle a few very challenging personalities.
Although this was a very fast pace tour for seniors, all of us enjoyed it.
We shall soon be planning our next year's trip with Exotica.