Dongbu Tour & Travel 150-24 Northern Boulevard, Queens, NY 11354

"My family purchased a travel agency for our trip to Washington D.C. and Niagara Falls. However, the experience was incredibly frustrating and disappointing despite the significant cost. The service provided by the agency did not meet our expectations. One major issue was the behavior of our assigned travel guide. On multiple occasions, the guide pressured us to buy expensive optional items, even after we firmly declined. This insistence made us uncomfortable and created a negative atmosphere throughout the trip. To make matters worse, the guide resorted to threatening our family, including the possibility of abandoning us or initiating deportation procedures. These confrontations occurred in front of our young children and my mother, causing significant distress and anxiety. The guide's treatment of our family was completely inappropriate and disrespectful. Additionally, it became apparent that the entire trip was designed around those who had purchased the expensive optional items. This left those of us who didn't participate feeling excluded and neglected. The unequal treatment further compounded our dissatisfaction and made the trip extremely unpleasant. In summary, our decision to use this travel agency resulted in a difficult and miserable journey. The guide's insistence on costly optional purchases and the distressing threats marred our vacation. Furthermore, the trip was primarily catered to those who had spent extra money, leaving others to endure compromised experiences. Overall, our expectations for an enjoyable trip were shattered, and we were deeply disappointed with the service provided by the travel agency."

"WARNING: HORRIFIC Tour guide experience Dongbu Tour did NOT delivered as advertised to me. These are my personal experiences, I suffered through. Tour advertised & explained to me as: Western europe tour Date: 09/22/2022 - 10/04/2022: 13 day tour Cost paid: $8198.00 on 08/26/2022 for a guided tour to 7 europe countries, England, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. This trip was for 2 adults. A FEW HOURS BEFORE (FEW HOURS!!) getting on the plane to start my vacation I received a phone call from dongbu tour telling me my wife and I will stay in a paris hotel for 3 days doing nothing, while the rest of the group would continue touring & visiting Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. THEY SIMPLY TOOK OUT 4 OF THE 7 COUNTRIES I PAID TO VISIT. This was utterly shocking and completely unacceptable. Because of the late notice, I scrambled to reserve a hotel, transportation and necessities, as I refused to stay stuck in Paris. Transportation provided were horrendous. While the rest of the tour group took Eurostar around 7:00AM, to go to Paris. my wife and I were left behind for 6+ hours, staying in a hotel until 1:31 pm. My wife and I lost the entire day trip in Paris on this day. Even the Eurostar (train) tickets dongbu provided was horrific. My wife seat is in coach 4 and my seat in coach 15, 11 train cars (yes not rows but TRAIN CARS) away. This was a trip for me and wife. Do I need to explain that the seats should be next to each other, if not in the vicinity and not 11 train cars away? As for meals? Dongbu did not lunch us. At this point, the horrific planning on the train tickets, made skippinjg out on our meals seem like a minor error. As I refused to stay in Paris, I was able to manage to reserve a HOSTEL (not a hotel) in Amsterdam and managed to purchase train tickets from Paris to Amsterdam. Absolutely NO HELP was given by dongbu, nor any accomodations made to satisfy us after they were not able to provide the service they advertised to us. We stayed in Amsterdam for 3 days. I managed to purchase flights from Amsterdam to Milan in Italy where we re-joined the rest of the tour group. On this day, I lost another day. This was a tour package to visit 7 countries, but dongbu forced us to miss 4 countries, more than half of the original 7. The real kicker is this. After I returned to NewYork, I got a phone call from dongbu tour, telling me they would refund $1200 cash and $1221 in credits. I dont know how everyone feels about vacations but my vacation was utterly ruined. I listened to them as they tried to justify the calculation of my refund of $2421 out of the $8198. Not only was it 2421 but half in credits ($1200 in cash & $1221 credit LOL) I missed 4/7 countries. I missed any enjoyment or relaxation I would have received from my vacation trip. I spent my own time and additional money in an effort to try and make the best of the situation with no help from them as they ruined what the trip was to mean to me and my wife. I will NOT go back to them again. I do NOT want to accept any credit that they keep on insisting I need to take. In the case of emergencies or unexpected situations, this tour company has shown me they had no preparations at all. They simply let us fend for ourselves at the expense of our vacation experience. Any credibility with me was completely lost as they try to minimize the short term money they lost at the expense of its customer's and at the cost of ANY relaxation and enjoyment customers. For me it was a joke call this a vacation and I missed out on more than half of my experiences that I was looking foward to. Please be careful and take my experience as a warning. If things go unexpectedly, hopefully your experiences will not be like mine. They have shown me No sincerity at all, after the fact, about the customer's experience and have tried to return as little as possible in refund as well insisting I take credit that I DO NOT WANT. Overall conclusion: Worst tour company experience."

"I was very disappointed with the 5-day tour to Canada. It may be convenient for people who speak limited to no English and haven't lived in the U.S. Otherwise, I recommend you plan your own trip with a schedule that fits you. Almost every stop on this tour was rushed. I understand it's because most of the time is spent travelling on the bus to get to the next location. But it was stressful and not laid back at all. The most disappointing was the dining experience at the Skylon Tower (Niagara Falls). How can you charge everyone the same price when only some can get a table by the window and others cannot? It's not worth paying so much if you're seated away from the window and the view, esp. when the food was so awful."

"Yes, riding an air conditioned coach bus is convenient... but convenience is all you’re paying for. I went on this bus tour to Washington DC and Niagara Falls begrudgingly, and it’s confirmed my every worst opinion of Asian bus tours. Hours of driving cut by 15-20 minute stops at major attractions and museums (a scant 40 minutes at the Smithsonian), followed by cheap dinner (it’s tasty, but anything is delicious when you’ve baking in the sun and running back and forth all day). You might think this is what you’d expect from a cheap tour, but the latter 2 days of this tour is for the more fun touristy activities, which the guide books for you and you pay; if you want to make this miserable trip worth your while it’ll easily be the cost of the tour itself (also gotta pay an obligatory tip to the guide of $10 per person per day + $1 per meal per person). Tour guide is entertaining and looks after his guests, but not as informative as I hoped. He’s an old hand at this and actually is decent, hopefully the others aren’t too terrible. Also be warned of the customer service: their booking website sucks and registered my wonky mouse click as 2 mouse clicks, charging me twice. They did refund me... outside the 24 hour window of cancelling chargers despite my having booked in the middle of the week... and took out the credit refund fee on me, a cool $35. When we called them they had nothing to say. This tour company is making nice money off of Korean tourists who don’t know better and don’t know enough English to make more of their trips to the States. If you’ve read this review to the end, then you definitely have the ability to do better than this. Edit: I totally forgot to mention that I didn’t receive the itinerary until during the tour. No info on what I should bring (my passport, which I’d have taken more care to bring if I’d known we’d be going to Canada), where we’d be going, what we’ll be seeing, doing, etc. You’re totally at the mercy of the tour schedule, which is merciless. I’m trying to stay positive about this trip which is still ongoing, but even objectively speaking the services are just bare minimum."