frosch travel reviews

Frosch Travel

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825 Santa Cruz Ave

Menlo Park, CA 94025

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Ethan Allen is the one stop shop for any and all travel arrangements. I can't tell you how many times they have saved me time and money when it comes to traveling. They are an American Express agency (direct access to Travelers Cheques) and from being in the business for years, they have access to a slew of markets, whether you are looking for an upscale vacation, a perfect honeymoon trip, an air/hotel/tour package, a group cruise or to use their corporate travel services for your company. Regardless, they are friendly, knowledgeable, efficient and have great deals. Their Menlo Park office is the closest to me, but they also have offices in San Mateo and San Francisco. If you're even thinking of going through a travel agency for your travel, I can't recommend Ethan Allen Travel enough!

We have used The Cruise Loft at AHT for trips to Hawaii and Cruises. We've always appreciated the expertise and extensive knowledge of each resort/hotel and cruise ship (yes, each ship within a cruise line). We highly recommend the Cruise Loft and All Horizons Travel.

The perfect travel agency to handle all of your travel needs. All Horizon's Travel provides destination specialists to help with every area of the world. Their staff is extremely knowledgable and have traveled the world over. Their relationships with all major vendors also helps in ensuring the perfect trip. We have used AHT for business and personal travel for many years and highly recommend them.

We had a spectacular trip to Barcelona, Provence, and London this summer with our twin 11 year old kids. Lori Heathorn at All Horizons was great to work with and instrumental in making this such a wonderful trip for our family - she helped identify sites and activities that would fit with the unique and shared interests within our family. Her guidance and planning help on lodging , travel logistics, and special places to see were so much better than we could have ever achieved on our own. We would absolutely use her services again and highly recommend her!

All Horizons Travel is an full service travel agency that can handle something as simple as booking an airline flight or a full month long vacation to any exotic location you could imagine. I happily recommend them to all of my friends and family. So what are you waiting for? Book you next vacation with AHT today!

I contacted Frosch Travel for help with travel insurance for a trip to Bora Bora and Moorea last year and spoke to Katherine. When I first called to ask about travel insurance, I also asked her how much she would charge to look at flights & hotels for us. She immediately got very defensive and said she does not give away her services, you have to pay her if you want help with these things. Right, that's why I was asking how much she would *charge*. I wasn't born yesterday; I don't expect her to plan my trip for me for free. Anyway, she said that if we came in to her office and bought the insurance through her she would give us a few brief tips on what to do in Bora Bora. I thought that was really nice, and maybe she just didn't communicate well over the phone, so we set up an appointment. We arrived on time for our appointment but when we got there she was on the phone with someone else. My husband and I sat there waiting for her to finish her call for at least 10 minutes. When she got off the phone, she did not apologize for making us wait. We both thought this was rude. I think my husband was even more upset about it than I was - he is a very mild-mannered person in general but he thought it really indicated a lack of respect for us and our time. We went over the insurance and she proceeded to do exactly what you can do online, which is go to a travel insurance website, enter the ages of the travelers, dates of the trip and the cost of the trip and get a quote. She didn't seem to have any information about the insurance beyond was what easily available online. We looked at two different insurance companies with her and when we asked her questions about the differences in the two policies she just looked at the website and read off information to us. As for her "tips" about what to do in Bora Bora? The only tip she gave us was to go there on a cruise ship called the Paul Gauguin which was apparently having a sale at the time. I know the Paul Gauguin is really lovely (my parents actually sailed on it a few years ago) but we explained that we didn't want to take a cruise for several reasons (among them, that we wanted to stay in those awesome overwater bungalows) and she still kept pushing it. In addition, we were locked into very specific dates on both ends and I asked her if the Paul Gauguin would fit in our dates. She assured me it would. When I later looked at the brochure for the cruise that she gave us, the embarkation date lined up with our arrival date, but the disembarkation date was one day after we had to return to the US. We had told her our dates from the beginning and I had emphasized over and over again how inflexible the dates were on both ends. Yet she still kept recommending this thing that would obviously not work with our schedule. At our meeting she said she would email us that night a policy with our information filled in, so that we could just fill in the total trip cost and send it back to her. She never sent us any email. I got busy and put trip-planning on hold. A few months later I contacted her again with a couple of specific questions about the insurance, specifically about the insurance in the event of cancellation due to work reasons, because I wanted to make sure it would give us the coverage we needed before I bought the nonrefundable plane tickets. She responded with general information about the policy but she did not answer my questions. She also said that the regulations had changed and she was no longer able to buy insurance for us. She also wrote me: "Normally, if you let your boss know the cost of cancelling your vacation, they won't do so. I always get my vacation time pre-approved, and I've never had a boss who reneged on that agreement (in 35+ years of working)." I work in an industry where cancelling planned and paid-for vacations at the last minute is definitely not unheard of and I had repeatedly emphasized this to her on our phone calls and at our meeting (this was the whole reason we wanted insurance for this trip). Her experience with her bosses in a completely different industry is absolutely irrelevant to how likely I am to have to cancel my vacation and this statement was completely unhelpful (and, in my opinion, quite condescending). We ended up purchasing online (by ourselves) one of the two insurance plans we had discussed. I'm still not 100% convinced we were covered for the things we needed, but in any event we did not have to cancel the trip and we had an absolutely amazing week celebrating our anniversary in Bora Bora and Moorea. So it turned out ok for us, but I don't think we got anything out of consulting with her and I was really unimpressed by how little she seemed able to listen to us and help us plan a trip that met our needs versus pushing her pre-planned cookie cutter itineraries on us.

Just returned from trying to book some inter-city Europe transportation + a short small-group tour to fill a gap in the middle of my upcoming 4-week trip. This agency was not interested in my business, clearly because it was too small for them. Even mentioning a few possible short tours in France that I'd seen online didn't help. They were not interested in my business. They also advised me that no tour would want to take me because I walk with a cane -- that I could potentially sue. (I've traveled to Europe 11x in the last decade, and know enough to carry the proper extra insurance). I was absolutely stunned at the unfriendliness --- really rudeness -- of the staff at this agency. Now that I've talked to some friends and read other reviews of this travel group I am SO GLAD that I didn't spend any money there.

I agree with the above reviewer. The agent I work with, Sallie, has saved me countless hours as well as dollars with her careful planning! The company goes by Summit Travel Group/Meridian World Travel, part of American Express.

Thanks to you ADRIENNE M. for writing the story about your unpleasant experience with Frosch which sounds similar to ours. I have tried to simply forget about how bad our experience was with Tina Torrini until I read your posting. They say that silence is a form of consent and permission, therefore, I decided to post my experience even when I have sort of gotten over it already. Better late than to tolerate so that others could beware. Our experience and yours must be something that happens at Frosch Travel on a regular basis, most especially the lack of respect and for insisting to take their recommendation even when it was clear it would not work. Your review touched on our awful experience with Tina Torrini at Frosch. My husband and I booked our cruise one (1) year in advanced but she never bothered to contact us after we made the full payment for the cruise to check if we have all our necessary visas. We were on our own after booking and paying in full for our cruise. We did not hear from her at all, not even an e-mail from her during the entire year after we booked and paid in full for our cruise. She was clearly only interested that we made the full payment for the cruise so she could receive her commission. We could have easily booked directly with the cruise line if we did not expect some assistance from a travel agent regarding matters that we were not aware of related to the cruise---the very reason why we contacted a travel agent. Then when I contacted her for help because we were having problems obtaining our visa for Brazil, all she did was criticized my choice of who I hired to expedite our visa, and she was insisting that I use the company that she recommends even when I told her that the company that she was suggesting had told me already that they could not get the Brazilian visa for us in time for our departure. Tina Torrini was negligent and did not do anything to help. If not for the help of the visa expeditor that we chose, Brazil Fiesta, we would not have made it to our cruise. We were ready to contact our lawyer to pursue a claim against Tina Torrini and Frosch for their negligence and failure to advise the customer regarding the visas and about the difficulty in obtaining them, which we had no knowledge about until when it was almost too late, since it was our first time to deal with the Brazilian consulate. Tina Torrini should thank Al Montierro of Brazil Fiesta for the great job of helping expedite our visa for Brazil, hence for saving her and Frosch Travel from the possible suit if we lost the money that we paid for the trip which we almost missed. I swear I will never again make a mistake going to her. Tina Torrini behaved as though she was doing us a favor for free. The commission she received from the cruise line did not seem to be enough. Every time she or her associate lifts a finger for us, it will cost money. When her associate helped me with obtaining the reciprocal entry papers online for Argentina, Tina Torrini repeatedly told me that the service would have cost us some charges but it was being waived for us. She made me feel as though we owe her gratitude for giving her the business. Since this awful experience, we've booked and we have taken two other cruises through another travel agency and we wish we had gone to them sooner instead of Frosch. Our new travel agent was in continued contact with us while we were waiting for our cruise. They made sure we have all the necessary travel papers. Good riddance is what I declared after deleting Tina Torrini and Frosch Travel from our list of who to contact whenever we want to travel. I just wish I could cross the one (1) remaining star on this rating. As far as our unpleasant experience is concerned, what Tina Torrini deserves is a full zero star.

We just completed a recent trip to Ireland. Lori Heathorn was great to work with. She really helped make this happen at the last minute. She gave us great advice and we had a wonderful time. Definitely recommend using this wonderful resource.

We have worked with Meridian/Summit Travel several times for overseas trips, and they are first rate. We worked with Sally Fleischer, and she helped us select the right fit for a cruise for our family and planned out all of the details seemlessly. My wife and I also just returned from an anniversary trip to Tahiti/Bora Bora (fantastic!) and again it was a flawless trip - and the package they put together was a relative bargain. They have access to many deals that are not available to the general public, especially on cruise ships and packages, so definitley worth a call.

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What the New FTC Crackdown on Fake Reviews May Mean for Travel

Sean O'Neill , Skift

August 14th, 2024 at 4:51 PM EDT

Regulators aim to curb digital chicanery. Their target: fake AI reviews, paid praise, and biased endorsements from influencers. But policing the sprawling review ecosystem may become a headache for many.

Sean O'Neill

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a rule Wednesday aiming to punish businesses for buying or selling fake reviews and endorsements – and there are plenty of implications for the travel industry.

It’s been a long-running problem in travel and an open secret for over a decade that many hoteliers post fake reviews, often by hiring third parties. The aim is either to make competitor properties look worse or improve their own online ratings. Fake reviews can be created and posted by businesses themselves or by hiring services for as little as a few dollars per review. AI tools promise to turbocharge the practice.

However, this new rule enables the FTC to seek civil penalties of up to $51,744 per violation, and the agency will start enforcing the rule within roughly two months.

The rule is targeted at a wide range of services – think restaurants – but the ruling will affect online review sites and travel agencies, hotel and short-term rental lodging providers, social media influencers, and other review generators.

Fake Reviews Create Legal Risk

The agency’s new rule prohibits the creation, purchase, or sale of fake reviews, including those generated by AI or individuals without genuine experience.

Travel agencies, travel booking platforms, travel price-comparison services, and blogs that fail to take reasonable steps to police fake reviews and endorsements could be held accountable.

“For far too long, the FTC hasn’t had the teeth it needed to crack down on individuals and groups authoring fake reviews, and the travel companies like hotels that may have been soliciting those fake reviews,” said Ben Beck, an assistant professor of marketing in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University.

While most companies may embrace the goal of protecting consumers from sleight of hand, some will face a burden in trying to police reviews on their digital sites and apps. Rogue digital marketers constantly test new ways to game the system. And drawing the line between genuine and manufactured sentiment is tricky.

“It is unclear how far-reaching this responsibility (and resulting civil penalties for violation) will be – e.g., a fake review gets posted to a platform and then linked/posted at service providers website, etc.,” said Christopher Anderson, a professor at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business via email.

However, the Travel Tech Association, which represents online travel agencies and other intermediaries, said the agency had written the law to properly target bad actors. The penalties don’t single out tech platforms that carry content and make a good faith effort to vet it, the association said.

“Travel Tech welcomes the adoption of the commission’s proposed rules that appropriately target bad actors without significantly burdening honest businesses and provide benefits to consumers and honest competitors.”

Social Media Endorsements, Too

Social media influencers, bloggers, and others who are paid for endorsements may also be at legal risk if they don’t follow ethical practices.

The FTC has banned the practice of providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on posting reviews or endorsements, including via social media videos, with a desired sentiment.

“Fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors,” said FTC chair Lina Khan in a statement.

Tough Problem to Fight

The problem is long-standing. Tripadvisor caught and removed 1.3 million reviews in 2022, mostly before the reviews were ever posted, it said. Google said it removed about 200 million pieces of fake content from its Maps app that year.

Tripadvisor said that it is “pleased to see that Tripadvisor’s approach to content integrity aligns with, and in some cases even goes beyond, the FTC’s new rule to ban fake reviews.”

Travel Tech Sector Stock Index Performance Year-to-Date

What am I looking at?  The performance of travel tech sector stocks within the  ST200 . The index includes companies publicly traded across global markets including online travel, booking, and travel tech companies.

The Skift Travel 200 (ST200)  combines the financial performance of nearly 200 travel companies worth more than a trillion dollars into a single number.  See more travel tech sector financial performance .

Read the full methodology behind the Skift Travel 200.

Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch

Tags: dwell , ftc , online travel newsletter , reviews , short-term rentals

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Nicholas Kristof

My Travel Tips for Seeing the World’s Best Places

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

’Tis the season for vacations, so let me make my pitch that the best travel is not lounging at a beach resort but rather journeying into a different world. We all need relaxation at times, but nothing beats the thrill of a trip of discovery and the education that comes with it.

Mark Twain once observed that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” In that spirit, I’ve long urged young Americans to take gap years before college or junior years abroad . (One high school reader of such an essay, Spencer Cohen , ended up taking a gap year partly in Japan, became an Asia hand and is now a colleague at The Times.)

Still, there are risks, less of violence (the U.S. has more guns than other countries) than of having your passport and credit cards stolen. So I preach both travel and prudence, and on a recent book tour , I found myself often asked about travel advice I had mentioned in my memoir. So let me share a few tips for the vacation season:

1. The most memorable travel often involves encountering something unfamiliar, so consider escaping the herds parading through Paris. Indonesia, Ghana, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Morocco and Bolivia are generally safe, far cheaper than Europe and offer indelible experiences. I’ll never forget venturing deep into the Potosí silver mines in Bolivia, exploring a grim slave castle in Ghana that dispatched prisoners to slavery in America, learning how to use a blowgun while staying with families in their longhouse in Indonesia’s Borneo rainforest. The world awaits us!

2. Some of the places that you find most culturally distant may be right here in the United States. A teenager from an affluent family in the New York or Boston areas would step into a different world by taking a ranch job in Wyoming. And this is the kind of travel that is not only affordable but actually pays for the experience.

3. Be spontaneous. As a law student in 1982, I spent five weeks backpacking through the Middle East and met a couple of Palestinian students on a West Bank bus; I jumped off at their stop and spent a memorable day with them in their refugee camp hearing about their frustrations and dreams (I wrote about reuniting with them last fall). And while on a bus in the Sahara, I accepted an Algerian man’s invitation to visit his village — which turned out to be a warren of underground burrows to protect families from the extreme heat, the most unusual residential architecture I’ve ever seen. In each case, I was with a couple of friends, which made it seem safer to put myself in the company of people I’d just met, and obviously one should be as judicious as one is spontaneous.

4. One occasionally hears that adventurous travel is just for men, but some of the most accomplished foreign correspondents and overseas photographers are women, as are a majority of Peace Corps volunteers. As a man, I don’t face the same risks that women face, but I have seen female travelers — disproportionately from Australia and New Zealand — thriving as they backpack through the most remote places. Some have suggested the purchase of a cheap wedding ring; a $20 band and a fabricated husband can help keep pests away.

5. Carry a decoy wallet. If pickpockets grab it, let them run off — only to discover that it contains just a bit of cash for street purchases, a day pass for the subway and an expired credit card. But do remember to let the pickpockets escape. Years ago, in Lima, Peru, I instinctively jumped a pickpocket who was trying to grab my friend’s decoy wallet, forgetting that he had nothing much in it; next thing I knew we had a melee and a gun was being fired.

6. Carry your passport and valid credit cards and cash in a pouch that loops on your belt and is tucked inside your pants. Travelers often carry travel pouches round their necks under their shirts, but these are visible and sometimes get stolen. While I’ve had bandits make me take off my shoes and socks while searching for cash, nobody has found my pouch in my pants (I dare mention this only because I assume robbers are not big readers of my column).

7. Carry a small cable lock (those for skis are perfect) to lock your bags together so one doesn’t run off while you’re sleeping in a train or on a bench at the train station.

8. Never check a bag for a flight because then it will get lost. That means packing light and taking quick-dry clothes suitable for washing in a hotel sink. I’m fond of travel clothing from a company called Clothing Arts , and I also rely on ultralight backpacking gear such as a tiny Black Diamond or Petzl headlamp that is invaluable when the power goes out.

9. If you’re getting into a taxi or other car in a location that seems at all dubious, use your phone to photograph the license plate before you get in. The driver may wonder if you’ve texted it to a friend. And women can look for female drivers if they exist.

10. My editor doesn’t want me to say anything that might encourage readers to try something dangerous, so I won’t suggest that there is nothing like the view while riding on the top of a train in Sudan . (That was in my dissolute youth, and today I definitely disapprove of riding on top of trains.)

11. People worry about terrorists, but the most likely serious risk is probably a vehicle accident. Motorcycle taxis common in low-income countries can be perilous, while buses and trains are safer (inside trains only!).

12. Now forget all the fears this article has conjured. Go have fun. Travel should be as enjoyable as it is eye-opening. If you take precautions it will be.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “ Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life .” @ NickKristof