Santa Barbara Travel

I used SBT many years ago for a European trip and had a great experience, so I tried them again for another European trip. Unfortunately, this time was not good. I will not use names in this review as it is not my intention to hurt them but to report what my experience was so readers can make an informed decision. If you have mobility issues, please use a travel agency that understands and caters to these specific issues. SBT does not and it was obvious based on many issues including the location of some of the hotels, and certain arrangements that they did not complete.

After the initial contact, I waited one month without contact and had to call and email them to get a response. The bottom line is that another agent took over. I was relieved until I found out that the original agent was doing most of the work. The new agent was on a three-week vacation during the planning and contact was not easy. Due to the original agent's lack of understanding or experience, the plans were incomplete, not what we wanted or more importantly not what I needed.

As far as the train arrangements for wheelchair service, I was told they were made but they were not. When I emailed them from overseas regarding this issue, I was emailed the information and told to contact the service on my own. It was so bad that we skipped using the train two times and hired a taxi instead at four times the cost of the train.

Three of the five hotels were on severely sloped streets and were so sloped it was impossible to use a wheelchair. Also, I had asked for all hotels to have an in-house restaurant and 3 of 5 did not. The final hotel was at the airport, and I was told it was in the terminal. It was not in the terminal and to make it worse there were no shuttles to the airport from this hotel.

I do want to give you the positives, the second agent recommended a Masseria to stay in, and it was great, and we truly enjoyed the experience. He also recommended a restaurant in a cave and that was seriously awesome too!!

Honestly, the entire experience with SBT was so frustrating. The day before the trip started, I was still desperately emailing them to finalize plans for the trip. There is a lot more that went bad but there is not enough time to cover all the issues. I wish I could recommend SBT, but I cannot. Sadly, I will be looking elsewhere for a new travel agency.

Corinne helped us figure out a trip to Disneyland for 6 of us for 5 days. It is very complicated and confusing and we could not have managed without her help.
Brava Corinne and thank you!

We have used Santa Barbara Travel for years. The service has gone down dramatically. David de L'Arbre (COO) was helping me plan a trip to Europe. We have used him in the past and often recommended him. His service was awful and erratic, and others are dealing with similar issues regarding him . He was often non responsive, arrogant and chauvinistic. He would e mail and call my husband, who was not part of the planning or trip at all. My last interaction was January 6, 2023 for a trip that was planned for the end of March. Fortunately, I was able to find the name of Lisa Sevier on an e mail thread and reached out to her to help. She was great! Responsive and detailed and I would not have been able to finish my plans without her. We had a great trip, but I had to take it upon myself to make that happen. Consider who you use if you plan a trip with this company.

Great travel agency. So knowledgeable. Love all of their suggestions. Makes travel planning so easy and if you have changes along the way while traveling they take care of everything seamlessly. Love Kathy Reimer. She is top notch!

At first, I thought they were very good and hard-working, but then it became so frustrating because they frequently don't respond to you.

I finally was able to book my travel with them, but they double charged me on their agency fee (Three $50 fees instead of 2). I was told they would reverse the charge, but they did not and again they stopped responding to my inquiries. So, I had to dispute the charge with my credit card company. Then, they told me they issued the refund, but my credit card company says they did not. The extra $50 charge is still in dispute.

I was told they would reserve the seats for me and my travel companion. They did not. So, I had to spend an hour on the phone with the airline and got the last two seats together, but I learned they added erroneous flights to my record and that I would not be able to check-in unless my travel agent removed them. Again, I cannot get a response to rectify the situation.

Also, they booked a non-refundable flight to a European city that had a level 4 State Department warning advising Americans not to travel there and they never alerted me to this, or recommend refundable tickets. Now, I need to make a change to my itinerary because of this, and again no response. To add to the confusion, these flights are on a separate itinerary from the roundtrip to Europe.

What concerns me the most, is if I need help making changes during my trip due to the war, having an unresponsive travel agent could be dangerous.

I feel so helpless because they control my reservation. I will NEVER use this travel agent again. My advice is to book your own trips and save yourself $100 and a lot of headaches.

I do not recommend using Santa Barbara Travel.

Update!
Need another reason to use a Expert Travel Agent?
Wife and I on our way to London today for our annual Conference we host.
Delta sends us an email saying " your flight is delayed 50 minutes."
Unfortunately we booked a flight with one stop - 40% less.
The delay, if you believed it was only 50 minutes would put us on the edge of missing our connecting flight.
I called CHARLIE told him we'd appreciate his intervention and experience to see if he could get us the Virgin flight non stop from SFO. ( understand the Upper Class tix are selling for $8500 each. Crazy right?) we had one free using miles on Delta and a greatly reduced ticket using Delta Vacations.
He was able to get us the Virgin flight, Biz Class, no extra $.
Do you really think you can do this yourself online using Expedia?? Not.
The $40 I spent per ticket ( his fee) was inconsequential.
Enough said.

Tina was my agent. I don't recommend her or SBT. It was an exhausting & frustrating experience ending with an ignored refund request & an unnecessarily rude call from David. I ultimately cancelled the final booking, and terminated our relationship.

I knew Tina would not get a commission but she did book a satisfactory cruise, so I decided to voluntarily compensate her. However, because of my bad experience I only gave her $200. I will not be using them in the future

The short version
Booking our cruise involved weeks of a frustration going back and forth with Tina who kept booking us cruises that did not meet our stated needs. It was exhausting.

I did make a change but dealing with Tina continued to be frustrating. Ultimately I went to the cruise line website to book a reservation, and was able to do so in 20 minutes. I let Tina know, she booked the cruise & I cancelled my reservation.

Sadly I had to postpone the cruise asking "How should we handle rebooking for 2023". I then received a notice from the cruise line advising a cruise had been booked. We had not requested this. Tina advised it was a non-refundable deposit. This was unacceptable. I told Tina that she should cancel the booking and return our original deposit.

I didn't hear from her so after 3 weeks I contacted her office for help. What I got was a rude return call from David who made it clear stating: "I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this", which he didn't.

I reviewed Santa Barbara Travel a few years ago and wanted to rereview them as I am still a loyal client.
I have found them to be hard working, helpful, inventive and caring with all my travel needs.
Do not hesitate to ask for Tina or Ron, both professional and kind.

I know from past years of working with SB Travel, that they are efficient, professional, and super helpful. Unfortunately, working with Tina Slimp was and has been a complete challenge. Many changes had to be made due to the pandemic, and it seemed as though it was a bother to her, yet I continued to be professional and respectful. Finally after months of dealing with her, I finally had enough and lost out on all our money. The frustration, stress, and feeling as though we were a bother made me realize that this is a waste of time and we needed to remove ourselves. SB Travel is great just make sure you get an agent that is supportive and available.

I've been using SB Travel for the past 6-7 years. I love working with Kathy Reimer. She is the best and most hopeful. I never have to worry about anything regarding my trip because Kathy covers everything. She is easy to talk to and super easy to get in contact with if I have any questions! She has booked all of my Cancun & Cabo trips for me and I don't think I'll ever go back to booking my own trips again. If you want a stress free vacation contact Kathy from SB travel!!