Tenon Tours

Worked with Janet and Nicole for our customized driving tour of Wales. Not only was the assistance and guidance of the pros at TT the best, but the trip was spot on. We had wonderful accommodations and fantastic excursions as well as our own itinerary including a great stop at the LLekwedd Slate Mines for the new tour. We had everything in place and all our vouchers were readily accepted without a fuss. Great Job Ladies and Tenon Tours

I gave Tenon another try after not getting call backs for a trip last year. What a difference!
Stephanie and Molly did a fantastic job with our trip around Ireland. We were a family of 4 adults.
Stephanie and Molly had suggestions and itineraries for me. When I wanted to try alternate destinations within Ireland, all of my requests were answered.
The hotels and B&B’s were all very good. We even got to stay in a castle and keep to our budget.
I would not hesitate to contact Tenon the next time I plan a trip abroad.

We used Tenon, for our first big International venture. I was extremely happy with the service of both Barb and Cara. They arranged our B&B/hotel stays for us, had the rental car all set up and recommended our use of the MiFi. I have already referred a family member to them and wouldn’t hesitate to use their service again!

I am not impressed with Tenon Tours, called them twice last week to only get VM, finally got someone to answer on the 3^rd try, she said she would have a Senior advisor call me back to help plan our trip. The Senior advisor, Janet Dudley, did not call — rather sent an email — i responded asked her to please call and she responded yet again with a 2^nd email, that she was too busy but could touch base next week… I would not want this agent or company planning my trip… i have traveled extensively and expect better customer service when planning a big trip to Europe…

Tenon Tours made our one-​week self-​drive tour of Ireland relatively simple and convenient. I’m glad we used them but I wouldn’t use them again. The main benefit of their package was the B&B vouchers. This meant, for 5 nights, we didn’t have to worry about picking up or carrying large amounts of cash (most B&Bs only accept cash). We could just call the morning of, tell them our approximate arrival time, and give them the voucher as payment. It meant we barely spent any money that week because it was all paid for in advance so we didn’t have to think/​worry about it. The main problem with the voucher system was that they gave us a link to the Ireland B&B website which is kind of crap. The website is fine, but the search function sucks. When we used the website to search for our next night’s stay, it would pretty much list zero results available or only 1 – 2 and not in the right areas. At first we were worried there were simply no B&Bs available, but that wasn’t the case. Because a kind host at the first B&B we stayed at gave us her old copy of the Ireland B&B book (yep, a book made of paper) and there were hundreds of B&Bs listed in that. And everytime, the first place we called was available. So not sure why the website doesn’t provide the same listings. Definitely recommend asking them to mail you an actual copy of the book for this purpose.
Service and communications with Stephanie and Karen were very helpful throughout. But we had one hiccup on the first day of our trip that is the sole reason I wouldn’t use them again, unfortunately. When we picked up our rental car at Hertz in Dublin on day one, the employee at Hertz asked us, «Do you know what kind of car you booked?» And we were, like, «Actually, no,» since Tenon had booked everything for us. And he told us we had been booked basically a smart car that was meant for city driving so it wasn’t meant to be driven on the motorway because the engine would rev at 100kph. We asked his advice on the matter and he recommended an upgrade, which we accepted. I contacted Tenon Tours a couple days later to tell them. I was disappointed that they had booked us a car that would not be sufficient for our itinerary, which they had far in advance so they had to have known we’d be driving on the motorway at times. They started a discussion with Hertz and basically neither Tenon nor Hertz are not taking responsibility for booking us an insufficient vehicle. Tenon is stating that we agreed to the smallest class of cars (which is true), but it sounds like no one actually booked the specific make and model of the car. I’m not sure how the company works with the rental car companies, but obviously if I had been renting the car on my own I could have selected the specific make and model and therefore, would have known in advance what the pros and cons of my vehicle would be. I understand where Tenon is coming from, but as the tour company, I shouldn’t HAVE to research what types of cars are available in Ireland and what kind of mileage they get and how fast it can go, etc. I expected the tour company to just look at my itinerary and be like, «You should go with this class/​make/​model of car based on your itinerary because it will be most convenient for the routes you’ll be driving, or you’ll get better mileage, or whatever.» The whole purpose of tour company is so I don’t have to research all that kind of stuff on my own — a knowledgeable company would already know these details and could just tell me. I pay a tour company that extra money to save myself 20 hours of researching this stuff online. Like, if someone was traveling to Los Angeles, I could easily tell him, «Don’t drive during these times, never get on this freeway, don’t stay in these neighborhoods, these attractions aren’t worth it, if you’re going to rent a car rent a prius because traffic here is always start and stop, etc.» Anyway, that’s where I think Tenon was lacking.
Tenon did look into the situation for me after the trip and did try to help get it resolved, but they wouldn’t take the blame, for lack of a better term. Tenon kept blaming Hertz and Hertz kept blaming Tenon or us. And it’s not a huge deal in retrospect (the upcharge was pretty minimal and we saved more on gas), but sometimes you just want an apology and a promise to do better for their future customers. Like in normal, non-​business relationships.

Outstanding service, accommodation suggestions, and time/​distance references for all the locations we wanted to visit. Will absolutely not travel to Ireland/​Scotland/​Wales without the help of Janet Dudley at Tenon Tours!

Tenon Tours saved us hours of researching and booking hotels in Ireland. I have traveled extensively in Europe but never to Ireland and this is the first time I relinquished control of this… not easy, but a relief, in away. We described the areas we wanted to visit in 8 days and Barbara helped us decide how far to travel each day, how many nights in each place (2 at most), and she booked good hotels and B&Bs except for one, on Inishmore, Aran Island. Our B&B host was not home… also the place was very remote… Thankfully a neighbor helped us find a place for the night. I don’t hold Tenon responsible for this. it all worked out. The other hotels and B&Bs were very nice. The hotels actually exceeded my expectations for the price of the package, which was very reasonable. They also set up rental car, sent a GPS, had a driver pick us up for return to airport etc. No money exchanged hands. That was nice. We planned our own itinerary. basically they just booked lodging and gave advice and included these little extras. A very good experience.

I just arrived home after my first trip to Ireland and am ready to plan my next trip. Using Tenon Tours was the perfect combination of guidance and help while allowing us flexibility to change our plans as we went. The advice given in the information sheets and phone conversations was invaluable and saved us so much trouble and time (when we remembered it). HIghly recommend using Tenon for first timers to Ireland.

Just returned from a 12 day visit to Ireland coordinated by Tenon Tours and Stephanie M. Suffice to say that things went smooth as silk with no problems whatsoever. We look forward to working with them on our next trip overseas. Thank you Tenon and Stephanie! Ken & Lorraine S, Rockville, MD

tenon was absolutely horrible. Leading up to our trip to Ireland we worked with Stephanie who was great at helping us unfortunately as soon as we arrived in Ireland they were basically no help at all. we were there for the Notre dame vs navy game with a huge group of people. when we arrived there was no one at the hotel to be found. We went on a day tour to the wicklow mountains which we were told we would be back around 1pm which seem fine cause we had another tour at 6pm. the wicklow mountains tour did not get back till 630 and we missed our tour. the day of the game we had to find our own way to the tailgate party at a hotel to get our tickets they did not leave directions on the board at the hotel and no one was around to ask. we finally found the hotel after asking locals which way to go. we then went on to galway which was fine but still no sight of anyone from tenon tours which our package said they would be with us. Anthony travel had reps at every hotel we went to and we heard how helpful they were from other people on there tours. we then went off to killarney and had another day excursion at 830 am a bus never arrived to pick us up so we called and the rep from tenon had no idea what was going on he then made phone calls and said we can go later in the day. we asked what time and he didn’t know so he would call again after not receiving a call back we called him and he said he had to get in the shower so someone else would handle it. We waited in the lobby for 15 minutes then got a call from someone else saying we could go at 1130 which we did. when we got to our day trip there was another family of 3 who said the same thing happened to them and that tenon was horrible for them on this trip as well. The last day of our trip we went to bunratty upon arriving our name was left off the bus transfer list so we called and were told to just get on the earliest bus and we should be fine. when the bus arrived the next morning he said we were not suppose to take this one our names were not on the list. He ended up taking us but this seemed to be par for the course for tenon. the reps on this trip seemed more concerned with there trip than ours.