{"id":5530,"date":"2012-09-08T14:07:42","date_gmt":"2012-09-08T21:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelsitecritic.com\/reviews\/?page_id=5530"},"modified":"2013-12-23T07:47:54","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T15:47:54","slug":"contiki-reviews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/travelsitecritic.com\/reviews\/1-2\/contiki-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Contiki Reviews | Contiki.com"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Contiki offers travel tours geared towards young (18-35 year old) travelers\u00a0in over 46 countries and 6 continents\u00a0across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Latin America and South East Asia.\u00a0Short excursions of 2 days, all the way up to epic 6-week journeys.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our Editor’s Review:<\/span><\/h4>\n

We think it is awesome that Contiki offers active military personnel and veterans free travel insurance <\/a>on their booking, because if anyone deserves a vacation it is them! \u00a0Also,\u00a0we think it is great that Contiki offers a “Cancel for Any Reason” waiver<\/a> (for an additional cost), but we found the small print a bit confusing. If you buy this waiver,\u00a0Contiki will provide you with 100% of the cancellation charges in the form of a future travel credit certificate, should you cancel your tour more than 48 hours prior to your scheduled departure for any reason<\/strong>. That is completely awesome<\/strong>, because most travel agencies do not offer this insurance. The confusing part is that it\u00a0“does not include airfare cancellation charges for air arrangements unless those arrangements were provided by Contiki<\/em>“. Perhaps we just found that obvious<\/strong> that they will not cover airfare cancellation fees if you book your airfare on another website. Many of the tours offered on Contiki do not include airfare and be advised that international airfare cancellation fees can be costly ($400-ish<\/em>), so if you buy the “Cancel for Any Reason Waiver”, make sure that Contiki made your flight arrangements for you<\/strong>. \u00a0We also recommend you book your airfare through Contiki, because there is a chance that they will cancel your tour (see “policies” below) and you will be stuck with airfare charges. \u00a0In either case, we highly recommend you purchase travel insurance through SquareMouth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tours on Contiki<\/a> are multi-faceted with tons of activities and include an\u00a0English-speaking tour manager who knows how to get around the countries you will be visiting, and all tour managers and tour drivers speak English. \u00a0The tours are also in small groups, often in groups of \u00a025-50 and sometimes less. \u00a0All travelers will be in the 17-37 year-old age range, and this policy is strictly enforced by Contiki…. we see this as a downside because we are old (if you consider 38 old<\/em>) and would like to go on some of these tours! Hey, Contiki, perhaps you should have an elderly tour just for us 40-somethings!<\/strong><\/p>\n

After clicking through the Contiki website for nearly an hour, we see that they have a ton of destination information and photographs, reminiscent of a Pinterest page. \u00a0There are some wonderfully affordable tours,\u00a0especially\u00a0if you don’t mind camping out or staying in a hostel-like situation. While the Contiki website is cool and trendy, we found the online booking process to be super confusing. <\/strong>The website is geared towards phone bookings, which is cumbersome and we would rather just book a tour online and be done with it! \u00a0We think Contiki would benefit by having a clear online booking button and process, and we suspect they are losing sales because they don’t. Come on Contiki…. booking over the phone is old-fashioned <\/strong>and you are dealing with young trendy people<\/a> that want to book online (our sarcasm is deliberate).<\/p>\n

Overall, to get the best deals and save time, we really like the “LAST MINUTE DEALS<\/em>” page on Contiki<\/a>. Also, make sure you “Refer a Friend” to Contiki where you can each get up to\u00a0$100 in excursion vouchers (bungee jumping, gondola cruises and wine tasting<\/em>) for each friend (up to 5 friends). \u00a0Now that is something to get excited about!<\/p>\n

Contiki Fees & Policies<\/span>*:<\/span><\/h4>\n