Warning about Peregrine tours to Mexico

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:17:03 +0000

A friend and I participated in a tour offered by Peregrine Adventures called "Mexico in Depth" from 19 November - 2 December 2007. It was our understanding that the Peregrine tour was more sophisticated than the less expensive "Gecko's" tour, also offered by Peregrine Adventures (the parent company). Indeed, each member of the tour group paid more than $1000 more than they would have paid had they selected the equivalent Gecko's tour. We assumed that this meant that we would be staying in pleasant and comfortable accommodation throughout Mexico.

We were disappointed by the vast majority of hotels selected for us by Peregrine. In particular, we were extremely dissatisfied with the hotels selected for us in Campeche and Playa del Carmen.

In Campeche, we stayed at place called "Hotel Debliz". It was appalling - run down and dirty to the point where my friend found stains on her bedsheets! Also, it was miles away from the centre of town which was particularly inconvenient when we were only in Campeche for one night.

Playa del Carmen was the last stop on our tour. We expected to stay in the nicest hotel of all at this stage given that it was the last stop and that it and Cancun are areas containing some of the most pleasant hotels in all of Mexico. On the assumption that Peregrine would have selected a nice hotel for us, some members of our tour group had booked extra nights at Hotel Fiesta Banana (accommodation chosen for us by Peregrine) beyond the end of the tour. We arrived at this hotel at about 4:45pm on a Friday evening. As we walked into the reception area we saw the swimming pool which was no bigger than a children's wading pond. No adult could have swum in such a 'pool'. Then when we were shown to our rooms, we saw that none of them contained a television. They were smelly and contained curtains that were torn. In one room there was exposed wiring and repairs and in another, the toilet did not flush!

We all left our rooms at the same time after having the same reaction. When we told our local tour leader that we would not stay in such a disgusting hotel, he called Peregrine in Mexico City. When he got off the phone, he explained that they had told him that our dissatisfaction was his problem and that they would not help us to find alternative accommodation. Not wanting to spend the last two nights of our expensive holiday in Mexico in such a terrible place, we had to make alternative arrangements ourselves. This meant that one member of our tour group who had a mobile telephone spent two hours calling other hotels in Playa del Carmen to see if we could find something else.

At that time on a Friday night, most hotels in both Playa del Carmen and Cancun were booked out. Eventually, we were able to find rooms at a 5-star hotel. We all paid for this alternative accommodation ourselves ON TOP of what we had already paid for the accommodation that Peregrine had selected. We also paid for the local tour leader to stay with us at the 5-star hotel. None of us had expected to be staying in a 5-star hotel and so ended up spending more money than we had intended - all because Peregrine had not done its research before booking Hotel Fiesta Banana.

Since we have been back in Australia, we have spoken with various people at Peregrine in Melbourne. We have asked Peregrine to refund the cost of the nights we paid for at Hotel Debliz and Hotel Fiesta Banana as well as at least the difference between the cost of staying at the 5-star hotel and the cost of staying at the other sub-standard hotels. Peregrine has offered to refund us only the cost of the sub-standard hotels they chose for us at a cost of $40 per night. Our tour group wonders why only $40 per night was spent on our accommodation at Playa del Carmen when we paid more than $1000 more per person to be on the Peregrine tour than we would have paid had we chosen the Gecko's tour. Does this mean that Peregrine would have spent even less than $40 per night on our hotel if we had been on the Gecko's tour? We shudder to think of the level of accommodation people on the Gecko's tour would be subjected to. We think that the reason why Peregrine charged us more than it would have had we chosen the Gecko's tour was not so that it could ensure that we had a more comfortable holiday but so that it could make a greater profit out of us.

We are EXTREMELY disappointed in Peregrine. None of us will ever go on a Peregrine (or Gecko's) tour again and we would not recommend these tours to any of our friends or family. We are planning to make a formal complaint about Gecko's to Consumer Affairs Victoria and then start legal action.

I post this message to warn all fellow travellers to Mexico about travelling with Peregrine Adventures. I wouldn't waste my money on such a tour. If you want to be part of an organised tour, chose one provided by another tour company that does a better job of researching hotels than Peregrine and that has a better manner of dealing with customers.

I hope your trip to Mexico is better than ours was!