Pied Piper Travel

Ok, I’ve read some of these reviews. We have been on at least a dozen Pied Piper cruises: after Thanksgiving, China, Baltic, Caribbean. …we’ve always had a great time and met some great friends. One one cruise the prices went down from the cruise line and they refunded the difference to us. If you like knowing there’s a gay group you can meet and have dinner with on a cruise then you’ll love Pied Piper. They are not RSVP or Atlantis, so if your looking for that use them, albeit they are very expensive.

We just returned from our first cruise with Pied Piper — a 10 day Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Equinox. Pied Piper placed about 70 guys (and two women) on this cruise. The Pied Piper hosts, Bruce and Dennis were wonderful. The events (a welcome reception, a mid-​cruise reception, and a farewell party) were well attended, enjoyable, and low key. The planned excursions were enjoyable. Pied Piper arranged behind the scenes tours (galley, bridge, sail-​away on the helipad) as well.
The real highlight of the trip was the opportunity to meet men from all over the country — aged 24 to 80+; I am 50 and was still on the young side. This is not a RSVP or Atlantis experience; you are a small group of gay men on a boat full of typical cruisers (older, not very mobile, and often pretty overweight). I think this leads, however, to making more friends — you see each other around the ship, stop and talk, etc.
Our table in the main dining room was wonderful, and that was probably the #1 reason we had such a good time. Pied Piper makes great deals with the cruise lines, and we would have paid several hundred dollars more booking directly with Celebrity.

PiedPiper is the worst «travel agency «we’ve ever dealt with. We used them for this years post Thanksgiving LGBT cruise on Celebrity.
They provided no added value. Made the booking process more complicated through the use of an antiquated online questionnaire system.
Derrick the owner is extremely defensive whenever any customer service issues are presented. He takes no responsibility for any quality concerns or misleading information he and his cohorts are responsible for. I think he’s mainly in this line of business to flirt with the younger guys on the cruise. And I’ve seen him completely inebriated during dinners with other guests.
Also, keep in mind the prices offered are no better than you can find elsewhere. And their «exclusive» events on board are a joke and not worth your time. We didn’t waste our time with any of them.
Stay away. I wish we did. And we are hearing many people are doing the same. Which is why their bookings are ½ what they used to be.
We did however just book another celebrity cruise to Asia next year in a $ 13,000 suite and made sure it was booked directly through Celebrity.

My partner I Have booked a number of cruses with Pied Piper and each was a great experience. They matched dinner tables very well and we were happy to meet a lot of great guys. I am not sure what the disenchanted customers experienced but when one of them states that he felt segregated with an all gay group I wonder why, it tells me a he isuncomfortable with a gay group. So why cruise with one? –My last cruise was on the West coast up to Canada and it was delightful. The parties were pleasant and the of ship activities were great and we also met a iot of folks who were not with the group. I met Derek and he was quite professional and nice. I can’t image why someone in a review would make nasty comments about someones sex life. That has nothing whatever to do with the company and is their own business. We have already next year booked with Derek for next year and when we had trouble deciding between the Bermuda or Hawaii cruise he was able to assure us we could change if we requested.
Joe San Diego

We booked with Pied Piper travel about 10 months prior to the 2014 Thanksgiving sailing of the Celebrity Silhouette. This was a first time traveling with this company, as we thought they could provide a good experience. However, we found the Pied Pier experience poor. I am retiree who has been involved in the travel/​tourism industry for more than 35 years, so these comments are coming from an industry insider. When we started with the booking, I found the method of booking only through email to be somewhat awkward. I had called the company, but I was told to deal with Derek through his email. It took several email items before all the questions were answered. The other point of poor service deals with the final payment. Since I was planning to be in Europe at the time of the final payment, I called in again and was directed back to Derek, and he directed me to the Pied Piper website to make the payment. All was fine until I received a bill from my credit card company showing a second charge for the cruise. I was then directed to someone who I believe may have been in accounting. However, I had to do this through Email. It was back and forth for several weeks, until it was resolved. We book Aqua Class, and we know this category is just under the junior suites, so we expect excellent service. Pied Piper is completely lacking in service.
As far as the cruise itself, Celebrity proved to be exceptional and this is why we cruise with them. However, Pied Piper provided no services other than a booking service for its future groups they were promoting. My experience as a Product Manager for a renowned travel company found that other than hosting a couple of «parties» certainly does not qualify these amateurs as tour operators. A robo-​phone call from one of the hosts does not meet the requirements of a tour escort. My tour directors always had daily handout materials with helpful hints about the cities or ports in which our passengers were visiting. In fact, I had written many of them when I was sent to survey a place that was new to the company. The cruise group in general was not all that friendly, and the hosts did nothing to make the group gel.
I do want to mention that their prices are not lower than the cruise line, as one reviewer wrote. Keep in mind it is the cruise line that sets all rates. If there is a lower rate, it may be due to low occupancy or a tour operator has actually bought cabins in advance at wholesale, and then it is able sell that space a lower price. Pied Piper only removes the taxes, and shows that as the cruise rate, but then add them in the billing sheet. On this note, the cost of the cruise did get reduced, but they did nothing even when asked. Yet while on board some people said Pied Piper upgraded them. However, when asked by me prior to the cruise, they told me I had to do this directly with the cruise line. Again, this is an example of no customer service.
We will be cruising in New Zealand/​Australia in January 2016, and we intentionally did not book the date they will be on the ship, nor did we book through their office. My advice would be to stay away from Pied Piper if you are looking for customer service and the ability to get immediate responses to questions especially when spending thousands of dollars.

The negative reviews here echo my experience. Derek does not provide customer service. He fights with customers who have encountered problems, blaming the customer for problems created by his lack of knowledge, communication, or follow-​through.
Pied Piper is nothing more than a booking agency; you would do better booking directly with the cruise companies. You won;t miss much by not being part of a Pied Piper group on board. The «group programs and parties» on board really aren’t all that and you will have a better time mingling with other passengers, rather than being segagrated within a «gay group.»
If you can afford to lose deposits, encountered extereme frustration when trying to solve a problem (and getting a different excuse from Derek each time, and probably an excuse that contradicts a previous excuse, ie., in one emails he refers to Pied Piper as a travel agnecy, but then when confronted with New York travel agency regulations, he claims that Pied Piper is not a travel agency but a booking company), then go with Pied Piper.

I have traveled with PP twice. We had difficulty both times with their website and when we offered constructive criticism they came back with a series of rude responses instead of a simply thank you for your suggestions. I found the parties poorly planned. Half the time Celebrity 2013 did not even know an event was about to happen. They never informed Celebrity of our music or bar needs so we were stuck with incompetent bar tenders and under staffed events. I realize that Pied Piper does offer better deals than most because you are booked on a strait cruise and get certain discounts… but to me it is no longer worth the effort.
I am disappointed on the future 2014 cruises that they have booked because they are traveling to countries that ban gay men and women. There are even laws that propose jail time. How can I in good conscience give a country my port charges if they would throw me in jail for being gay?
The staff members on ship were friendly and certainly worked hard to make the trip enjoyable, but I got the impression they were on this as a vacation just like us. The price and drink package was great and the weather was also great. The guest star was very funny although he talked about being underpaid which I was sorry to hear.
Cruising in general is something I am probably going to avoid in the future, but if I go it will be an all gay cruise and probably on a small ship.

This travel agency has the worse customer service of any company I’ve dealt with, EVER!
I’ve taken cruises with them and have found the owner pays men from other countries to sleep with him each week while on a cruise. Or at least the ones I’ve been on. His business condones his group of having sex throughout these cruise ships, where the cruise line is obligated to shut down the men’s steam room to stop it.
The employees are quite rude, but the owner (Derek) must of been the one who taught them all, since he is blindly ignorant.
You are required to do any and all leg work when making a reservation, they do not follow up and especially when you point something out that makes them look bad.
And the biggest farce of theirs is they claim to have lower prices than the cruise lines, but fail to tell you their prices don’t reflect the Port fees, which cruise lines do add in before. So you’ll actually get a better price and much better customer service booking directly through a cruise line.
Save yourself the aggravation and book with anyone else, unless you’re willing to kiss the owners nasty butt.

I have sailed with the pied piper group twice now. Each time has been a delightful experience. The staff is very efficient pre-​travel, my on board experience was top notch, and most of all the pricing I got was $ 100s of dollars cheaper than the cruise line rate.
The staff I’ve met on board and via email are very customer focused and strive to «do what is right».
Not only do I recommend pied piper, but I’ve booked several more trips with them through 2012 and into 2013.