Expat Explore

Our experience with Expat Explore, more specifically the Europe Escape Tour, was fantastic! Tim, our primary tour guide, was not only knowledgeable and friendly, but he helped make our 13-​day/​7 country experience as amazing as it was. His personality helped create the extended family (ages 14 – 60) we became. The whole trip was choreographed to the T, and every location was more fantastic than expected. My husband I recommend this trip to people who want a great adventure where they can see as much as they can in a short amount of time without paying a fortune.

My husband and I took this trip to the Maldives for our honeymoon, and it was disastrous. Right from the start, we were told we would have no guide– its not really a «tour» without a tour guide, but at the time this was fine with me… until all the problems later on that couldn’t be sorted out because we didn’t have a guide in country.
The accommodations in Male and Maafushi were basic but ok, and we really enjoyed Maafushi, though I know others in the group were not thrilled about no drinking and not being allowed to wear a bikini. Thank goodness we did some great scuba diving in Maafushi, because despite that expat advertises 6 scuba dives on the safari boat, that was not available.
When we boarded the boat, we found out (half a day out to sea on a dingy, poorly maintained, tiny fishing boat, when we finally got enough english out of the crew to find out that this was actually our sea safari boat!) we found out there was no scuba gear. Nor was there even any snorkel gear! What are you supposed to do on a boat for 3 days in the Maldives if you can’t scuba or even snorkel? This was NOT the boat advertised and pictured by expat– large and luxurious sailing yacht– this was a small fishing boat with barely seating room for the passengers– the crew had to stand all day. There were only 4 loungers for 10 people, so we couldn’t even lay in the sun, and the cabins were so full of exhaust fumes we couldn’t sleep in there either.
That’s right, our cabins were full of exhaust fumes. We couldn’t sleep in them, and could barely stand to be in there long enough to change clothes. So, no privacy on our honeymoon! Besides the safety issue of the cabin fumes, there were no life jackets, life rings, first aid kit, or lifeboat. None. At all. To top it all off, the crew made constant rude noises, gestures, and leered at the female passengers when we wore bathing suits.
When we realized all these problems and that we were trapped on this boat for 3 days, our group first tried to contact someone via the crew– who didn’t really understand what we were asking because they spoke very little english, and they refused to call an international number– and since we had no guide, our only hope to fix this was calling expat in the UK, and off by several time zones! Fortunately, one member of our group had a cell phone capable of making the calls, but Expat was completely unwilling to help. First we were lied to and told that we had never been promised diving or snorkeling or a «luxury yacht», even though all of those were explicitly stated in the advertising and were the reason most of our group booked the tour. Then we were told it was the «island mentality» and they couldn’t do anything, then we were hung up on, then after speaking to the Operations Manager, we were promised special treatment at the resort island, early check in there, and fair compensation.
Early check in proved to mean getting dropped at the airport to sit around for 3 hours, to be taken to the resort to sit around for 3 more hours, to finally be able to check in at the normal time. So most of another day wasted. The resort was nice except for our rooms being a 20 min walk from any of the resort amenities, BUT Paradise Island is NOT a 5 star resort! Trip Advisor and their own website call it a 3 star resort! And it is a very nice 3 star resort, but Expat is lying calling it at 5 star resort.
I’ve waited a month to post this review hoping it would have a happy ending– hoping I would be able to say that Expat was eager to take responsibility for all of the problems on our tour, for the waste of 3 and a half of our 8 days in the Maldives– but they again worked at not being responsive or helpful, and shoveling blame off onto their in-​country partner. In the end, after a lot of fighting, headache and more wasted time, we got a pittance in compensation– the price of about 1 and a half days of the trip. Their line was «we provided you a boat, a place to sleep, and something to eat, that’s all we had to do» nevermind that the boat was dangerous, in poor repair, and without safety equipment, and nevermind that the «place to sleep» turned out to be the hard plastic deck because of fumes in the cabins! So don’t book with expat explore– they don’t back up their trips with service, so if anything goes wrong– tough luck.