When some folks write a positive review, keep in mind that this is only when everything works out for your scheduled trip. I.e. weather permits, you're in good health and able to go, tour guide(s) is(are) in good health and available, venue is available, etc. We were such customers who had had a positive experience with AS but we realize now that with our first 2 trips all checkpoints had worked out in favor of our trips so we never had to see the ""other side"" of AS.
IF however any one of these checkpoints are a no go you are very likely to have an uphill battle to ensure Adventure Society makes good on your purchase and you get to go on the trip you originally wanted to attend. I know it's a pain but I strongly recommend that one reads the disclaimers from AS before booking. You should check your emails and voice mails regularly and call them both on the day before and day of the trip.
One trip that they had cancelled due to weather, they had called and left a voice mail accordingly. We got the voice mail completely understood, moved on and rescheduled a trip accordingly...no problem. Unfortunately a future planned trip did not go as well with AS and we began to see the unfriendly, apathetic side of AS.
On our experience they had cancelled a trip they had scheduled due to the tour guide not being available (not sure if he/she was sick or something else). Naturally, we ended up at the meeting place as we had never received a call letting us know otherwise. When we called AS obviously frustrated for taking the time to get to the meeting point very early in the morning and leading to no trip, they simply said they had called and left a message! I told them that they had not and had my cell phone with me on which we were calling. No voice mail on the phone and I reiterated that they had called to cancel a trip previously for which I had received voice mail. Couldn't it be possible that they may have mis-dialed and left the message with someone that was not us? They refused to acknowledge this as a possibility and just told us that we would be credited the amount to apply for another trip, good for a year. We were frustrated but acquiesced as AS does not offer refunds. The only trip we wanted to go on was the zipline/rappelling adventure. This was a popular trip and it was not easy to book online. We repeatedly went to AS to ask them to book us as a priority as we were the cancelled party. They basically said there wasn't much they could do about it but we can go on one of the other trips like biking or wine trips. We didn't really want those as it was the ziplining we were excited to do. AS however seemed not to care about keeping good customer relations.
Shortly thereafter they seemed to stop taking reservations for trips and posted a notice that they are revamping, and all outstanding credits will remain with customers when they've relaunched. They've stated relaunch dates that have been postponed time and time again and now it seems to be about a year+ since I've seen or heard any update.
As of this posting their website has not been updated and their contact us page is no longer available. When you call the number that seems to be offline as well. I've sent countless emails inquiring as to the status of when trips may be available again but honestly we just want to have our hard earned money refunded so we can apply it to places that run this type of business better. It seems to me that AS has all but gone off the radar.
Has anyone heard from them at all? Is adventure society going bankrupt? From the lack of response, we fear that they are or have closed up shop somehow.
If they do happen to come back online we really advise that buyer's should beware and you should check the status of this and other businesses on the better business bureau website (or similar reviews) to get a good understanding of how the business treats its customers. Currently adventure society has an F rating....we second this grade.
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