Ffestiniog Travel Traveller Reviews

Reached our full expectations and a holiday to remember

Personal service above all was excellent

We stayed at Gent and Rotterdam and used these as bases to explore the tramway systems of the main cities in Belgium and the Netherlands, with time to explore their cultural heritage.

Ffestiniog Travel are experienced in designing and operating tours that appeal to railway enthusiasts and others, and bring together like-minded people for an inspiring holiday.

This was a rail oriented holiday staying in several centres. We were in Transylvania, and visited several of the former Saxon towns, with a good mix of history, culture and narrow gauge steam railways, and with most travel between centres by main-line rail. The small group size enabled a sixteen seat minibus to be used throughout for transfers, and to carry luggage between centres, leaving passengers luggage-free on the longer train journeys.

A very well researched holiday, with a Ffestiniog Tour Manager working in conjunction with a local guide, who has been working with Ffestiniog Travel for some years. The holiday exceeded my expections. Hotels were good quality, and I was delighted at the very good value experienced in restaurants.

A very enjoyable trip to Bulgaria, including excellent hotels, very good local guide and support from Ffestiniog Travel. All in all the holiday fully met with my expectations.

Ffestiniog Travel runs very well organised and supported railway based holidays and never lets one down.

Georgia was so different from any other country we had ever visited, even though we have visited eastern Europe many times as we have Family in Poland.The countryside was wild and beautiful. We found the food excellent and fresh. The Georgian people were helpful. The holiday was wonderful, what more could be said!

Excellent in every way. Top marks.

Extremely well organised, having a first class tour leader and a good local guide who gave lots of information. Hotels were mostly very good. Georgia is a very beautiful country and the people were very welcoming. So much to see, too little time.

Very well organised with excellent information supplied.

The holiday took the form of travel by train around The Balkans with mostly two night stops in hotels between joutneys. The itinerary within the control of Ffestiniog Travel went to plan, we had a very good guide throughout, the hotels were all comfortable and we had time to relax between sometimes long journeys.

My wife and I had not travelled with FT before but definitely would do so again should the firm offer a similar holiday we would like to go on.

From a rail enthusiasts point of view this was a good holiday but the included meals were disappointing. One menu offered only one main course,(out of three), I could eat and non of the three sweets. Also very cramped. Considering we were in Ireland, I think a leaning towards Irish cuisine would be preferable to "fusion" whatever that is! All hotels were within easy walking distance of local bars, restaurants etc. but some were noisy. My room had no air conditioning and therefore I had to (try and) sleep with the window open. The music and noise from the street finished around 03:00 hrs. and the street sweeper started at 06:30 hrs. Another hotel had so many stairs apart from the main staircase and lift that it was difficult for elderly people and would have been a lot worse for disabled persons.

Courier was good, knowledgeable and friendly. Coach driver was amenable, helpful and his local knowledge proved useful. Perhaps a little more research on the hotels used would be useful although out of the six hotels used only two were not satisfactory as noted above. Other rooms may not have suffered from these problems although I know some others did. One "arranged" visit was not expected upon arrival, possibly not the holiday company's fault. A short notice change of venue was arranged and proved to be a great success. Another thought would be to allow the party to split on occasions allowing the non railway fanatics time to visit alternative venues. On this point, the non railway venues were interesting even to railway enthusiasts.

We spent a week travelling around Switzerland by train, following an itinerary supplied by Ffestiniog Travel. The arrangements worked well, the hotels were very conveniently located and were of a very good standard throughout.

Ffestiniog Travel answered all our questions promptly and satisfactorily which gave us the confidence to book with them. They supplied all the necessary tickets and passes and all the arrangements worked very well.

My wife and I took an 18 night train-based tour from Barcelona in Spain to the Cinque Terre in Italy. It was arranged bespoke for us.

Everything was arranged to meet our requirements. For several parts of the tour several options, including heritage train routes, were painstakingly explored and options offered. Personal service from Sheryl was A1 throughout, including contact during the holiday when the French railways went on strike. This puts Ffestiniog far ahead of other telephone-based operators. Tour itinerary documentation was thorough and useful. The tour price was excellent value-for-money, given all that was included.