April 7, 2020 update:
To our Beautiful Sweden Tour Group: We have sent everyone an email with details surrounding our date change. Please take some time to look this over and reach out to us if you have any questions. We will give all passengers a call over the next few weeks to confirm the date change and answer any questions if we have not already gotten a confirmation back via email. Thanks!
To our Spectacular Scandinavia Tour Group: As noted in our last update from April 2, we have been instructed by the airline to continue to monitor the situation. But on our end we are already working on a plan B which involves moving the trip to next year, should the situation not dramatically improve in the coming weeks. We will be in touch with everyone personally once we are allowed to make any changes, should that become necessary. We thank you again for your continued patience. Stay safe!
Sincerely,
Martin, Anna, and Anders
Scandi Experience
Contact email: martin@scandiexperience.com (best form of contact for quickest response)
Contact phone: 651-202-5024
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March 17, 2020 update:
In this time of so much uncertainty, we would like to thank everyone who are currently booked on our 2020 tours for your continued patience while we work with our travel partners to gather further information. At this time, both of our tours are still set to take place at their original tour dates. With that said, we are currently in the process of exploring options for alternate tour dates, should that become neccessary. The guidelines and information from CDC, WHO, and government agencies are changing daily. Although nonessential travel is not advised at this point in time, the situation may very well look different a couple of weeks from now.
Please rest assured that with any decision we make, we do it with the mindset that the safety of our travelers comes first.
As with all of you, we are hoping the situation will improve in the coming weeks and that the world will start to go back to normal. We will be in touch and communicate updates as we move forward. Please reach out to us with any questions or concerns. Thank you again for your continued patience.
/Martin, Anna, and Anders
Scandi Experience
For current updates from the WHO: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019?fbclid=IwAR03GOXzeoB4lneCtSUEjZVc1HkdQ4brqIB-9f48B2nfzGIpd-isHuTb2rI
For current updates from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/faqs.html?fbclid=IwAR2acMj8txWVMQrVdzhDHFz4J1748qXLAuYi0g-Fcih3zLP00qfLdo9IUXs
Contact email: martin@scandiexperience.com (best form of contact for quickest response)
Contact phone: 651-202-5024
April 2, 2020 update:
During the last several weeks we have worked very hard to gather information from our travel partners in Scandinavia, while at the same time the COVID-19 health crisis has continued to spread. It has now become clear that the effects of this crisis may go on for months. The safety of our travelers will always be our number one priority. With so many current unknown factors, we simply do not feel that it is safe to travel in the coming months. Having that said, we are now in the process of moving our Beautiful Sweden Tour (originally scheduled to start May 26) to a new date. The airline, along with all our other travel partners (hotels, restaurants, cruise lines, train companies, museums and other places that we visit throughout our tours) have separate contracts, and cancellation/change policies. Because of this and the complexity of the situation we are currently facing, we are asking everyone who is booked on our 2020 Beautiful Sweden Tour to continue to be patient while we work out the details of the new travel dates. We anticipate we will have the modified travel dates finalized sometime next week and will reach out to everyone booked at that time. For now, please disregard the cancellation policy deadline. The airline has postponed the cancellation schedule while we are working with them to re-schedule this trip. These terms will then be updated based on the new travel dates.
Please note that in the coming weeks we will be issuing a $250 per seat discount/refund to all travelers who are affected by the tour-date change. We realize this is an inconvenience for everyone and a big disappointment being asked to re-schedule the travel dates. This money is coming from negotiations we have had with the airline and our travel partners, who see the value in keeping our reservation rather than cancelling it. We pre-pay for many of our group reservations, and by letting our travel partners move our dates (rather than cancelling them) they get to keep our business and reservation. We hope this $250 credit gives you an incentive to keep your booking with us while we work out the details for the new dates. If you purchased travel insurance for this trip, the travel dates on the policy will just change to reflect the new tour dates. We will be giving more information regarding this once we announce the new dates as well.
As many of you know we are a very small family owned company, operated by myself and my sister Anna who lives in Sweden. Along with Wikman Bus Company in Sweden and other local tour guides around Scandinavia we make up our company Scandi Experience. When we started this company, we wanted it to always stay small so that we could ensure that we provide a personable and genuine experience every time. By staying small we are also able to operate without employees or big budgets. To keep our costs down we rely on word of mouth recommendations from our past travelers, minimal advertisements, and handing out printed brochures in our gift shop. As a result, we can offer our tours at a very reasonable price and give our travelers a great value. We realize this is the reason many of you chose to book with us and we greatly appreciate that. Although we want nothing else than to show you our home country and the beauty of Scandinavia right now, we must be responsible and put health and safety first. These are challenging times for everyone across the globe, but hopefully the situation takes a positive turn soon so that we can all go back to living our normal lives. In the meantime, we hope that everyone is doing their part by staying home and staying healthy. We sincerely thank you for your continued patience and for staying a part of our upcoming tours. We will be back with the new tour dates next week!
A special note to our travelers who are booked on our Spectacular Scandinavia Tour, August 1-14, 2020: Although travel this summer is starting to look more unlikely for every week that passes, we will continue to monitor the situation. The airlines and other travel partners are currently working on moving tours taking place April-June. If the situation does not improve within the next few weeks, we anticipate they will allow July and August tours to modify their dates as well. We are already in discussions with them and are looking at a few options. Please rest assured that we will be issuing the same $250 per seat discount/refund to you, should your tour dates change.
Please reach out to us with any questions or concerns. Thank you again for your continued patience.
Sincerely,
Martin, Anna, and Anders
Scandi Experience
Contact email: martin@scandiexperience.com (best form of contact for quickest response)
Contact phone: 651-202-5024
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