Halsbury Travel Group
To leave a review you need to be logged in
Reviews 220
Rob Ramage
Oct 04,2023Halsbury enabled our students to have an amazing time in Florida as a series of STEM, educational experiences. Halsbury planning was excellent, and communication throughout was immediate and helpful - highly recommended.
Nick Buoy
Oct 04,2023Personnel attention when booking and in build up to the tour. Tour was tailored to our needs and not just a generic tour schedule!
Happy Mum
Sep 19,2023My daughter and her classmates had a wonderful trip to France. The organisation was excellent and the fun factor was high. Brilliant 😊
DB
Sep 19,2023We have travelled with Halsbury for five music tours and have always been impressed with their service at every level. Occasionally we have had issues when on tour and the music team has always been quick to assist us. Their use of local agents on some of our visits has been invaluable and we will certainly use Halsbury again.
Adam
Sep 12,2023Our experience of this company has been mixed. If I was writing this review before May 2023 it would be very bad indeed. I had been attempting to communicate with Halsbury regarding a school music trip to Paris in July for around 6 months with very little response and no-one assigned to handle our school's trip. If it hadn't been for Sarah N who started at the company in April then we would probably have cancelled our tour as by that stage I had run out of patience with them. Sarah managed to turn that around and worked extremely hard to put a tour in place that satisfied all our requirements. We had a good hotel and three concert performances at top venues in Paris: Luxembourg Gardens, St. Sulpice and the American Church. There was even an audience at each one. We did have an issue with the coach company on one day, which was not really Halsbury's fault. In conclusion, a terrible start which was rescued just in the nick of time by Sarah who was very responsive and always available on the phone (even at 7 am on the Sunday when we departed) I get the impression this company has been through a difficult patch and I hope that they are now starting to pull things back again.
Accommodation partner
Sep 08,2023We have had a partnership with Halsbury for years, they are always friendly, reliable, and dedicated. We look forward to working with you for years to come.
Clara Dufournaud
Sep 04,2023Amazing trip with a great professional team. Highly recommend!
Angélique LEROY
Sep 04,2023Plusieurs années déjà que nous accueillons les séjours organisés par "Halsbury travel". La communication est fluide ( interlocuteurs francophones) , les équipes réactives et sympathiques. le suivi régulier depuis la prise d'option jusqu'après le départ des groupes en fait un partenaire de confiance.
SG
Jul 20,2023I posted a few weeks ago about their lack of communication and how we were still waiting for an itinerary. Well not surprising this company is a joke! We had an itinerary 2 days prior to departure. The itinerary was wrong. I told them more than a month in advance that we could'nt do the Louvre Museum on a Tuesday as it is closed every Tuesday. They promised to look into it and change our itinerary but obvioulsy this was too difficult for them. Why do I have to work out that the Louvre would be closed on a Tuesday. We pay them to do the job but no. Arriving to Paris, we discover that the rooming shared with us was completely wrong which meant redoing something at the last minute with 95 students. Safeguarding is not important for them as they gave us rooms where there was only 1 double bed, expecting us to put 2 students in. 3rd day we went to the address provided for our dinner. When we arrived at the address there was no restaurant to be found. I had to find the correct address and we were 40 minutes late to our booking. The restaurant manager had a go at me and when I explained the situation he was furious with the company. The amount of stress due to the lack of organisation skills from this company is not acceptable. Please avoid them at all cost. So many other things happened because of Halsbury... I am still waiting for a phone call from them.
Ieva Brown
Jul 18,2023Dear schools & parents, please DO NOT USE this company, they have a habit of cancelling school trips at the last minute leaving children heartbroken. Not a 1 off if you do your research and look through their history & feedback. Disgraceful! Today 50 children were meant to go to Valencia and this company cancelled it 3 days before the trip. And they have the audacity to put fake post on Twitter congratulating the 50 children from HGSC on their trip even though they cancelled it 72 hours before.
SL
Jul 18,2023I can't believe Halsbury Travel has let down yet another school (re the trip to Germany in the last week). It has prompted me to write my own post. This review relates to a school ski trip that was due to start on 1 April. Less than 24 hours before departure, Halsbury Travel cancelled the trip citing problems with the coach bookings. Please read the many, many reviews below to get an idea of the devastating effect this had on the children, parents and staff members at the multiple schools they did this to. I struggle to put into words how furious I still am that they caused my child and his friends so much disappointment. We do not go skiing as a family and this was to be his first (and possibly only) ski trip - all the more exciting to be going with his friends. And like many others he had ski kit and lessons as gifts - the kit remains unused and unreturnable. The responses from Halsbury to the many complaints (see also their Facebook posts around the beginning of April) were crass and underwhelming (along the lines of thank you 'for reaching out' - just awful) and the impersonal letter received by parents made things worse. 'Compensation' was given to schools to pass on to parents but the payments were inconsistent and based on a percentage of the cost of the trip which meant that those schools who had booked more expensive trips got more - but the losses suffered by students on cheaper trips would be the same (if not greater given that poorer families may not already have kit). I haven't accepted the sum allocated as I think there are legal arguments to be had in relation to the inconsistency in amounts and also in relation to the wording in the letter to parents - it is badly written and exposes the company to the risk of a damages claim - it does not cover disappointment, for example. Halsbury Travel was taken over last year by an investment firm and this can often lead to disquiet amongst employees if it is not handled well. This may have had an adverse effect on staff performance - they are never going to admit it, but given that they are still having issues with bookings I would imagine that this is likely to continue to happen in the future - would you take the risk of using them for future school trips? I certainly wouldn't. Our trip was cancelled at the beginning of the Easter holidays on the weekend that there were big delays at Dover. I understand that the cancellation of multiple school trips due to (at best) the incompetence of Halsbury Travel would have been one of the headline stories in the media had it not been for the Dover delays. Perhaps the school(s) affected by this latest fiasco relating to the Germany trip could use our story in support of their own legal/media campaign. Had Halsbury Travel taken the trouble to be less impersonal (maybe by speaking to organisers on the phone to explain the cancellation before putting it in writing - or even better, by visiting the school to face the students and parents to apologise in person) we would feel less angry. But they didn't do this - they ignored the feelings of the devastated children and tried to close down the situation as quickly as possible. Not the actions of a company that supposedly puts the welfare and happiness of children at the forefront of their business. Dreadful behaviour.
Toby Gel
Jul 17,2023I’m utterly disgusted my child was so excited to go to Germany, me and my child were waiting outside the school with all the other parents and kids for one hour and yet we still had hope.My child was told to go into the a school hall to wait for the bus, he ended up texting me three hours later that he had just got on the bus, I was fuming but I was also happy it had finally arrived. Then after an hour and a half of driving they made the decision to turn the bus around and go back to school. My child was devastated at the news and so were all the other 70 children and their carers.I later found out that they turned around because the bus was to heavy to board the ferry.I’m disgusted at the lack of common sense to simply be able to book a bus correctly.
Richard Hall
Jul 17,2023YET ANOTHER CANCELLATION - Wow it seems lightning can strike many times! A long awaited trip to Germany ended in the coach being 3 hours late. When it did eventually arrive and take the school to the docks it was too heavy to board the ferry. Got a phone call in the middle of the night to collect my distraught daughter and the trip was canclled. I cant believe this company is still trading after the huge list of cancllations and errors!
Dale Penfold
Jul 17,2023Disgusting company! Cancelled a trip to Germany for 70 kids after leaving the school with the kids on board! Bus not fit for purpose and arrived to pick the kids up 4 hours late 🤬🤬
Simon Kenny
Jul 17,2023Absulote joke of a company,turned up.4 hours late for the kids trip to Germany,only for them to get hour and a half away and decide they are on the wrong coach,so trip cancelled,70 kids disappointed and upset,all at night should of been leaving at 630pm left at 10pm and now on their way home,absolute shambles (16-07-2)
MR M.J
Jul 12,2023** They have replied below with utter nonsense and lies. This company operates on dishonesty and confusion. I am speechless 😮 No organisational skills, long story short they left 57 STUDENTS and staff stranded at Disneyland Paris without a coach or any means to get back to the hotel.Told us it will be fine for us to enjoy the fireworks at Disneyland Paris which finishes at 23:00 ( we had to find emergency travel at 03:00 am). Forget about the lack of communication, rudeness and not following the intenairy making up things as they please.the whole company is a mess to be frankly honest with you! Not booking tickets for places we was meant to go,not sorting food for staff and students. Remember all of this was meant to be planned a year ago. To be honest we had to book and pay for most things, we nearly did it all ourselves. What was the point of using Halsbury travels. 0 stars they deserve for the lack of transparency and safeguarding!!Avoid at all costs!!
Irena Jasikova
Jun 29,2023Returned from a 4 day school trip to Sicily. It was very well organised, the local guides, transports and hotel were professional, knowledgable, very helpful and made the trip fun as well as a valuable learning experience for our students.
sgu
Jun 27,2023Appaling customer service. so many unanswered emails. Still waiting for final itinerary. However for payments, they were emailing us and checking that payments were made. On eof their customer agent was rude and talked to me like I was an idiot. Received an email from another agent telling me that I didn't feel paperwork and needed to answer ASAP, howver I never saw these before so how am I meant to fill them in. Don't answer messages at all. Avoid this company at all cost
Customer
May 16,2023****UPDATE**** Had high hopes but...... Our trip was re-allocated and initially it seemed that things would start to go in the right direction HOWEVER here we are with one school day before we leave and we still do not have a correct room allocation plan so simply cannot even allocate students to rooms! This is TOTALLY unacceptable and highly stressful. Save yourself the stress and find another company.... DREADFUL customer service. Less than 3 weeks to go before we leave and still no confirmed itinerary. Now running into the possibility that the trip won't get authorised by the LA in time to go. The timeline they themselves produced for us stated that this should be in place 2-3 months prior to departure. I believe the company is probably in trouble and may well go under soon so recommend to avoid.
C Hirst
Oct 09,2023Halsbury plans great school journey trips taking into account the requests and needs of the group. They are always on hand resolve issues should a problem arise. The Halsbury team are friendly and professional.