Intrepid Travel

My friends & I booked a trip to Egypt with this company in August 2010.
I have a few complaints.
My tour guide at first seemed very awesome. He was helpful and friendly. However, on our third day in Egypt, I got heat exhaustion. Everyone went to explore the town and I stayed behind to rest. He offered to hang out with me, and I was grateful as I could barely move or comprehend anything and appreciated the company and support.
He then tried to get me to go to his room. I repeat, «go to his room.» He did this fully aware that I was barely able to stand, let alone comprehend anything.
I was horrified and felt intruded upon. Someone I had trusted to help me deal with my heat exhaustion!!!
The rest of the trip turned out worse. He was rude to everyone, tried to «play favourites» with me because he liked me (which made everyone think we were sleeping together), tried to get me to marry him, and he even was hitting on another member of our group. He constantly ignored us and spent a lot of time by himself.
Needless to say, the intense heat combined with the unpleasantness of this guide made our trip unenjoyable.
We tried to contact this office many times with no avail. My two friends wrote their review first of the guide on Intrepid’s website.
HE MESSAGED ME ON FACEBOOK. And gave me a word for word (ie copy and pasted) of what my friends wrote about him. (It wasn’t very good.) Why is this tour company giving our reviews directly to the tour guides and NOT addressing them themselves?
Needless to say, my friend emailed the company about this issue (the Toronto location) and got a watered down reply where the company completely denied giving the guide our confidential reviews. We replied with a picture of his messages on Facebook, proving he had received them.
Faced with this evidence, the company proceeded to ignore us and never replied.
Oh, and I tried emailing them three separate times about my experience with the tour guide trying to get me to come to his room while I was out of it from heat exhaustion. I never got a reply back. Not even an acknowledgement that my experience was horrible. I would have liked a refund for the waste of money I spent on this trip. I chose this company over one I knew to be reputable.
The kicker: he worked for them still a year later
Do NOT trust this company with your well-​being. If I could give them 0 stars, I would.

The Intrepid store on Bloor is now called My Adventure store, specializing in adventure destinations. Same thing, different brand.
VIBE
Colourful! Lots of gorgeous photos of the exotic destinations Intrepid promotes surround the walls. I think there may be a tuk tuk kicking around.
I personally know some of the staff here and they are passionate about travel and welcome all types of travelers new or old to the game. They also offer urban adventure tours which take you around to different neighbourhoods to tour its history for about $ 20 to $ 30. If you want to learn more about Toronto, this may be a good way to do it.
These guys also have seminars and at their kick off they had capoeira sessions; a talk about Morocco by a former tour guide who toured Morocco for a year (complete with mint tea) and a travel video session.
I’ve been to ones with travel writers when I was trying to get into the game. And they’re *Free!*
THE GOODS
Adventure travel. You name it, they got it. Quark Expeditions is their Antarctica supplier.
Even if you want to chat about your destination if you’re considering it they’re happy to do so.
OBLIGATORY CATCHY REMARK
Intrepid explored new options and became My Adventure Store but they still inspire those who are curious about the world.