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Destinations
- Albania
- Armenia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Malta
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Themes
- Event types
- About us
We offer an unequalled range of tours and events focusing on art, architecture, music, archaeology, history, gardens or gastronomy.
View All ThemesTours for small groups are our ‘bread and butter’, but we also offer Martin Randall Festivals, cruises, short Music & History events, London Days and online talks.
View All Event typesMartin Randall Travel is committed to providing the best planned, the best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours available.
View All About us- Home
- FAQ's
Frequently asked questions
You can telephone us or make a booking on our website.
Inside the UK: 020 8742 3355
From outside the UK: +44 20 8742 3355
From the USA and Canada: 1-800-988-6168
From Australia: 1300 55 95 95
From New Zealand: 0061–7–3377 0141
If you choose to book with us via telephone, you will need to send a completed booking form and deposit (10% of your total booking price). Please note that the full balance is due if booking within ten weeks of departure.
Alternatively, you may download and print a copy here and send it to the postal address on the second page of the form. We can post a booking form to you if you do not have a printer at home.
We hold provisional bookings for 72 hours.
I need longer than 72 hours to make up my mind, is that a problem?
We cannot promise to hold anything for longer than 72 hours, but if there are plenty of spaces it may be possible. If there is a waiting list behind you, or if the date of departure is less than two months away, it may not be.
In the traveller’s perfect world, everyone would be charged the same amount for their room, whether they were alone or sharing with a partner. In the hotelier’s perfect world, all rooms would cost the same, whether they had one, two, three or ten people sleeping there. The world we live in is closer to the hotelier’s vision, where rooms cost the same regardless of occupancy. Two people can split the cost of a £100 room, paying £50 each, or one person can pay the full £100. When expressed as a per person cost, this looks like a £50 supplement.
We negotiate hard with hotels, to keep single-occupancy prices as low as possible, but as long as hoteliers charge per room and not per person, this iniquitous situation will endure. The only obvious alternative – having couples subsidise solo travellers – strikes us as even more unfair.
Martin Randall Travel makes no profit from the single supplement.
You can request a single room which, if available, will reduce the single supplement payable. We prefer to offer doubles for sole use as much as possible though, as single rooms even in high-end hotels tend to be poky and in our experience, tend to result in lower levels of client satisfaction.
Yes. If you don’t want to pay by bank transfer, you can pay over the phone using a debit or credit card. We need a completed booking form before we can take any money.
No. All payments must be received in pounds.
We prefer payment by bank transfer or debit card; we also accept credit cards (AMEX, MasterCard, Visa). All money paid to us is fully protected regardless of payment method.
A confirmation e-mail is sent as soon as possible (it will take longer if you book over the weekend and/or have selected to receive documentation by post).
Your final balance is due eight weeks before the tour departs. A reminder is sent a few weeks in advance of this, along with an itinerary for the first day of the tour.
Final Documents are sent two to three weeks before the tour departs – the full itinerary, a participant list and any background notes. These will be posted to you (unless you have informed us otherwise); if you live outside the UK, they will be given to you on the first day of the tour.
Deposits cannot be refunded or transferred because there are set costs that we incur on each tour: flight and hotel deposits, for example, have to be paid up to a year in advance of every departure.
Up to 57 days before the tour, only the deposit is forfeit. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due:
– between 56 and 29 days: 40%
– between 28 and 15 days: 60%
– between 14 days and 4 days: 80%
– within 72 hours: 100%
We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive your written or emailed confirmation.
For legal reasons, we need to receive your cancellation either in writing or by e-mail to bookings@martinrandall.co.uk.
If MRT cancels, you will be fully refunded.
Tours that fall short of the minimum number of participants may be cancelled any time up to 8 weeks before departure, but in practice it is rare for anything to be cancelled less than 3 months beforehand. We may decide to cancel a tour at any point up to the moment of departure, if going ahead would constitute an unjustifiable risk to safety.
We monitor the travel alerts from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (UK) and the State Department (USA), but we base our travel advice on the recommendations of the former. If the FCDO advises against travel to a particular place within a territory, we will adjust the itinerary to avoid that place. If this would not be possible – say, if the FCDO advised against travel to Rome on a tour based entirely in that city – we would have no choice but to cancel the tour. Safety, always, is the concern that overrides all others.
Generally not. As we make a group booking, for most airlines it is not possible to access it on their website to check-in online or select your seats. If you would prefer to do so, you can choose the ‘no flights’ option and book your own flights.
We can request this through the airline but unfortunately cannot guarantee it. The only way to guarantee this is to pay our ‘no flights’ price, and book your own flights online, when there is usually an option to choose your seat.
We always pass on any dietary requirements to the hotel(s) and restaurants in advance of the tour. The tour leaders will also be aware of them; however, you may need to remind staff on the spot. Please note, despite our best efforts, some common dietary requirements are not well catered for in many destinations.
The meals provided can be repetitive and unimaginative. Our menus are typically chosen a few weeks in advance of the tour and we are therefore unable to offer choices at each meal to cater for food preferences.
As long as such rooms exist in the hotel, we can ensure requests like this are met.
We encourage those who join our tours to participate in as much of the event as possible, for both your enjoyment, and to encourage group cohesion.
Yes. At least, we can get a quote from the hotel. Bear in mind though that it is not unusual for hotels to offer a price better to individuals than to tour companies, especially close to departure, so you may be better off booking independently.
Sadly not. We can extend existing hotel bookings but we cannot make new ones, even in hotels we use for other tours.
Unfortunately not, primarily due to the insurance and financial protection bonding that we have in place for our holidays. Your travel companion would need to join the tour or make completely separate arrangements.
We cannot, but we can recommend a booking agent, www.holidayextras.co.uk, tel. 0871 360 2603. Please quote our booking code, HX174, in correspondence with them.
If the flights are offered by the same airline we are using for the group flights, we can request a quote on your behalf. We cannot however make new bookings (i.e, book connecting flights with BA if our group flights are with Lufthansa). We are unable to book connecting flights within 10 weeks of departure.
Yes, to a point. Airlines allow us to change the date and departure airport of either your inbound or outbound flight, but not both. We are unable to make changes to your flights within 10 weeks of departure.
Yes, assuming there is a higher class available on that particular route. We can usually get a quote within three working days. We are unable to organise flight upgrades within 10 weeks of departure.
There is not. Please inform us if you are intending not to use one of your flights, though, so we can forewarn the airline.
No. We regret that we do not offer tailor-made itineraries.
No. No-one need feel at a disadvantage for not having done some homework.
We do use a radio guide system on our tours. This enables the lecturer to talk in a normal conversational manner and participants to hear clearly, from several metres away if need be. The lecturer has a microphone and you are issued with receivers and earpieces.
Earpieces are placed inside or over the ear, or you can use your own. Neck loops that work with the ‘T’ setting of hearing aids can be provided – please let us know in advance if you require this.
We do not impose lower or upper age limits. Our tours are unlikely to be suitable for younger children, however.
The mean age is around 65. The age range varies, but the majority would be between 55 and 75. Few of our clients are under 40.
No, you must arrange your own insurance. Private medical insurance is one of our conditions of booking.
Experience tells us that free travel insurance offered by some credit card companies may not always be reliable in the event of an emergency. You should advise them of pre-existing conditions, which they may cover for a surcharge. Your cover may not be valid if they can establish from your medical records a link to anything pre-existing. Please take with you copies of your bank statements detailing the relevant travel you have pre-paid with that credit card, as these would be required to confirm your cover.
For more information about medical treatment abroad and staying healthy while travelling we refer you to www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk or a document entitled Live Well: travel health online at www.nhs.uk/healthcareabroad/.
There is also country specific advice on this webpage.
It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance. Full cover for medical treatment, including for your medical conditions, repatriation, loss of property and cancellation charges must be included.
It is highly unlikely that you would be. On average at least a third of the people on each tour are traveling alone.
We find that the majority of our clients prefer to have some independent dinners. However the lecturer or tour manager will be able to assist in finding a suitable restaurant and most are more than happy to get an (optional) party together to dine on independent evenings.
In the vast majority of cases, no. Some of our clients like to ‘dress up’ for dinner. We neither encourage nor discourage this. Occasionally at opera houses or a particularly grand restaurant will require a certain level of smartness, but we will advise about this well in advance.
We insist on meeting and interviewing all prospective lecturers and ask each one to give a 20-minute talk to a small panel of staff. Around half the speakers we audition in this way are accepted.
Rarely and very reluctantly. We collaborate with incoming operators only when we do not have an in-depth knowledge of a country or region and cannot commit our own resources to discover it better. All our collaborators are thoroughly vetted and comprehensively briefed to ensure our standards and styles are understood and followed.
No. We sell directly to clients.
If any aspect of our tours has failed to reach the standards we set ourselves, we would like to know about it. Please contact us.
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