Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
friendly staff |
| Disadvantages: |
forgetful staff |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
PRE HOLIDAY ACTION!
My local Going Places had a advertising drive last year on discounted American holidays. Naturally, being a US 'virgin' I was intrigued by the sign which plastered "Going Place, for 30% less" and so my girlfriend and I booked 10 days in Florida, staying on the beach for a week (Clearwater) and then travelling up to the Theme Parks in Orlando. The staff at our local branch were very helpful, if a little over enthusiastic, and had all appeared to have visited, travelled or stayed in the actual beds we were to be sleeping in at some time in their lives, cue "you must do this, you must do that, you'll love it, I loved it, my nan had a great time, you can't leave this out, you can't leave that out etc etc etc". Their somewhat prescriptive attidue to holiday making is a little off putting, but overall you do feel as though you are being treated as a customer, and not an annoyance.
The payment scheme was fantastic, a deposit is needed on booking, and you can opt for a low deposit scheme, which enables you to pay less to start off with and more later on. This is particularly helpful if you are a bit unsure but want to make that great bargain of 30% discount. Then payment is pretty run of the mill, everything had to be paid up ten weeks before the holiday, though how much to pay and when is left to you. I thought this great, and really helped as some months we paid nothing, and others we paid a lot.
AIRPLANE
Going Places offer a variety of plane packages, we opted for paying a little extra of legroom, which I was surprised did make a difference and ensured that the journey was comfortable. You can pay extortionate amounts for their "gold" packlage, but to be honest it really is not worth it, a couple of drinks and a free magazine does not justify adding £100+ to your holiday budget. The flight was good, in flight entertainment easily accessible on the newer planes, and a good choice of films. Airplane food is terrible at the best of times, and this was no execption.
ARRIVALS?
Getting to Florida was the easy part, getting to the hotel was hard, getting a room impossible!!!!! Going Places had 'forgotton' to book our five hour (!!!) transfer from Sanford Internation to Clearwater. They had also forgotton to tell us that we could have opted for an airport arrival nearer to Clearwater for no price increase, and so our initial impression of the Sunshine State was standing in a Cab queue for an hour to find that £100 would have to be forked out for the journey (Going Places did refund this, eventually ...). When we arrived, five hours later, at our hotel, having been travelling now for over 18 hours, we found that the ultra friendly staff at our local branch had also forgotton to reserve our rooms, and has we arrived on Labour Day, we had no chance of getting a room anywhere! My girlfriend, in tears at this point, wanted to get back in a cab and go home. Having finally connected with Going Places Orlando, five hours away, we were told that there was nothing they could do until after Labour Day and we were to fend for ourselves.Suffice to say we argued for a good few hours, until they agreed to put us up in a hotel much greater in quality to our original one, and paid the extra to stay there for the entirety of our beach holiday.
All in all a great holiday, marred slightly by the fact that Going Places staff back home should spend less time talking about what they have 'done' and what you should 'do' and more time on ensuring we are given the means to 'do' it.
Overall my estimations of Going Places improved greatly as the holiday went on. They were more than helpful in finding us a hotel, 2 stars above what we had booked when they finally conceded that it was their fault, and did refund our cab journey to Clearwater.
| More Reviews |
 I'm Going Places This Year, Are You
Review of Going Places by
carolinesite
Advantages: Good value for money, excellent deals, very helpful staff.
Disadvantages: Have to buy own food. Might have go tit cheaper if booked at last minute.
...this morning. I wasn’t going to post it first and let you lot beat me to the Travel Agents! Ha! There aint no flies on carolinesite ;-)
Firstly, after writing my opinion about a cruise I had in 1995, I felt I wanted another holiday like that. I picked up a few brochures from the Going Places shop, and sat down with a cup of coffee. I was horrified at how much the prices had gone up in 6 years. They were asking about £1,000 per person for a ...
...I rang our local Going Places agency to check for availability, and spoke to Jenny, a nice friendly, and very helpful young lady. She pointed out that because there were 5 of us, we could not have the villa for 4. We had to take the villa for 6. This meant we had to pay an under occupancy fee. We were going for 14 nights, so it worked out to about £600! I nearly died, and thought the holiday had died as well until she pointed out that because we ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
| Value for Money |
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very helpful
07.04.2001
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 Going No Place
Review of Going Places by
DEE
Advantages: None
Disadvantages: Inaccurate brochure descriptions and apalling customer service
...letters and phone calls with Going Places regarding suitable offers of compensation. For a holiday that cost £450 each we were offered £50 in total. The process of complaining became so tiresome that we did not end up even accepting that. Overall I was shocked and disappointed with the appalling customer service of such a well known and established company. I have refused to book through them since. ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
| Value for Money |
 |
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very helpful
31.08.2001
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Going Places..oh yes we are
Review of Going Places by
wENDIEWOO
Advantages: Really friendly staff
Disadvantages: none at all
...was very lucky to find Going Places to book my holiday but I learnt the hard way, I had spent two hours trundling from one to the next and found the other agencies to be useless. I wasnt an easy customer, I wanted to go to an exact park in France, I had two weeks to play with but the departure had to be a Sunday crossing. I knew of three companies who used the park but not the name of the other two. I had drawn a blank and had in fact resigned to ...
...and my woes about not going away when the aassistant found all the available sites I asked for, was able to offer a really good deal and even got it cheaper than all the others, plus a free upgrade to a posher chalet all for taking out their insurance which again on a special offer will last me all year!!! The lass wrote everything down for me so I was able to answer all of hubbies questions, she even printed out site map reference online sites and ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
| Value for Money |
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very helpful
17.07.2002
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Never Again
Review of Going Places by
gravin
Advantages: NONE
Disadvantages: MANY
We booked a holiday with Going Places earlier this year for departure in April. We used them because of their high profile name thinking they would be competant and experienced...what a mistake. I am disabled with great trouble walking. They first booked our holiday and did not include the transfers from Stanford Airport, about fifty miles away to the hotel even though we weretold clearly that the tranfers were included. When we returned home from ...
...staff making such blunderous errors we gave up. It became our opinion that Going Places is quick to take your money then quick to forget you and treat you badly. Our holiday cost nearly £2,500 and had us dreading what we were to expect when we arrived at our destination. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
| Value for Money |
 |
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very helpful
30.07.2000
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 Response by staff
Review of Going Places by
mikegold
Advantages: someone has noticed
Disadvantages: direct replies to my email address
...up to my opinion about Going Places I could not believe that my comments should require a personal
response but perhaps the reply by email proves I hit a nerve, the person who emailed me completely missed my point
I can assure everyone that by staying for three hours to book a holiday should prove my patience it was not only the
trainee who had problems, even the then branch manageress spent long enough with us. We were not even asking
anything ...
...knew Havens system.
I conclude with the fact that service does not seem to be top of the list in tubridgewells not perhaps in every branch,
by the way on the day we went to pay I used cash and one member of staff just sat in the cash desk watching people
wait the lady who left went at ten to twelve an odd time for lunch Where is the service here ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
| Value for Money |
|
|
very helpful
19.08.2000
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This product has not yet been reviewed. 
05.09.2007
05.06.2008
