Vantage Deluxe World Travel
Founded in 1994, Vantage World Deluxe Travel is a close relative of Grand Circle Travel, Vantage’s president being the brother of Grand Circle’s chairman.
Vantage operates four river cruisers: ms River Discovery II launched in 2012; River Splendor launched in Spring 2013; River Splendor launched in Spring 2013; and ms River Navigator built in 200 and refurbished in 2013
All staterooms feature flat-screen TVs bath with shower, and a safe. Junior suites add a French balcony, DVD player, minibar, and coffee- and tea-maker. Both River Odyssey and River Explorer are wired throughout for Wi-Fi.
Cruises operate on the Rhine, Main, Danube, and Mosel rivers, where Christmas-market cruises are also offered. On the Rhône, Vantage charters the 80-passenger Rembrandt.
Vantage also charters ships in Portugal (the 48-passenger Douro Prince, operating on Portugal’s Douro river) and Russia (the 160-passenger Tolstoy, operating between Moscow and St. Petersburg).
Vantage World Travel has been a disappointment, to say the least. On an administrative note, their customer service Dept is not properly staffed or trained. You cannot reach anyone when you need to speak with them.
I bought two cruises from them. The first was in September on a maiden voyage of their new ship through the British Islands. Simply put, maiden voyage should have been called the “guinea pig” voyage. The ship and staff were simply not ready. Certainly there were COVID related issues out of their control, which is going to be the new standard if we travel, but the new ship gang planks did not work properly. Zodiac tender’s were not appropriate for certain ports, some tours and evening entertainment did not take place. Check out was a night mare. It took banker’s on board to explain that a VISA switching station outside of the US was causing fraud alters on everyone’s card and not allowing payment to go through.
But even after this disappointing trip, I gave Vantage one more chance. Leaving on 11/19/2021 for a three day pre cruise trip to Prague, (prior to Danube River cruise), we arrived in Progue to find that the Austrian boarders were closed, (yes, out of Vantage control, but why did they let us depart from SFO ?) Adding to this frustration, on 11/21/2021 we were told that the entire trip was being cancelled due to low water levels on the Danube making cruising impossible. They said they would “postpone” our cruise to another date, which makes trip interruption insurance very tricky, if not impossible (yet to be determined). Perhaps Vantage wasn’t prepared for Austria to close boarders, but they certainly knew about the low river levels and their need to cancel prior to our departure date. Totally unacceptable, (and not a client first strategy) that they would allow people to fly in from all over the US, only to tell everyone to go home 2 days later. Simply put, Vantage has provided me an all around disappointing experience.
Beware of the cruise company named, Vantage Deluxe World Travel, out of Boston, MA.
We booked a 15 day river cruise in Europe back in September 2019 for July 2020 and paid for it in full at that time. We had every intention of going but, the cruise was cancelled due to covid-19. As it were, this was the only time we would be able to go.
Back in June, my wife spoke to a representative from Vantage that assured us we would be getting a full refund. After waiting around for a month and a half, she got in contact with them to find out when we would receive the refund. Well, they informed her that the managers or whatever decided to deny the refund and force us to take a cruise voucher that must be used before December 2022.
Given the way things are going in this country, is there anyone here that knows what the state of the world will be at that time? I sure don’t and am not interested in a voucher.
We really don’t know what recourse we have. If we hire an attorney, expect some 30% of the refund will go to them. That is, even if that firm charges their fees in that manner. In any case, we wouldn’t be left with much.
All we want is a full refund of the funds we paid this cruise company.
Your description of Vantage Deluxe river boats is factually wrong. Most of the Vantage river boats are less than three years old. I understand that they do not pay you to review their offerings as do the more favored lines. But, at a minimum, you should be factually correct
Tom