ABD Scotland vs Thomson Scotland

Travelling135

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Hi, we’ve been finding this forum so helpful this week. We are ABD Insiders, but missed out on booking Egypt this week. We are on a wait list, but aren’t expecting it to work out. We have been trying to come up with a back up plan and are very interested in Scotland. We read that a lot of people feel that the new Scotland itinerary isn’t as strong as the old one...so we’ve also been looking at Thomson. Does anyone have any recommendations or experience with the Thomson Family Scotland trip vs the Scotland ABD? Any other suggestions are welcome too. Thanks so much!
 
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I have done neither, so please take this with a grain of salt! Thompson appears to be more active and has smaller groups-I know there are some folks on the board who have traveled with them and have nothing but good reports. From what I can ascertain, their hotels might be slightly less "fancy" than ABDs but that might be a pro for you and your family. The current ABD is more Edinburgh/Borders v. Thompson which starts off in the Highlands and spends less time (but with a Harry Potter focus) in Edinburgh. St Andrews/Edinburgh are my favorite places in Europe but the time in the Highlands and activities sound fun. If I had younger children I'd lean toward Thompson. Just my $0.02, though.
 
I have done neither, so please take this with a grain of salt! Thompson appears to be more active and has smaller groups-I know there are some folks on the board who have traveled with them and have nothing but good reports. From what I can ascertain, their hotels might be slightly less "fancy" than ABDs but that might be a pro for you and your family. The current ABD is more Edinburgh/Borders v. Thompson which starts off in the Highlands and spends less time (but with a Harry Potter focus) in Edinburgh. St Andrews/Edinburgh are my favorite places in Europe but the time in the Highlands and activities sound fun. If I had younger children I'd lean toward Thompson. Just my $0.02, though.
Thank you!
 
We did the original Scotland ABD in 2013, the first year it was released, and it was amazing. But the current trip is completely different. I tend to agree that the Highlands are not to be missed unless you plan to return to Scotland (I have been multiple times and plan to keep going back, so that might be your plan too.). We did go to China with Thomson and will be going to Japan with them in 2020 (that trip has been booked since 2017, lol, because Thomson guaranteed us 2017 pricing for our 2020 trip, which is going to end up saving us thousands of dollars). We loved our trip to China with Thomson. One of our hotels was the same as ABD. I would agree that the others were maybe a * less than the hotels ABD uses, but they were all at least 4* with the exception of our hotel in Yangshuo a 3*) but it was amazing to stay there instead of in the bigger city. We had 10 on our China trip with 2 full-time guides and a local guide who was with us in each city fort the duration of our stay. The guides were very personable and went out of their way to be helpful, including helping us navigate our way to Shanghai Disneyland after the Thomson tour ended. Thomson also ran our family trip to Peru last summer with Nat Geo and it was also top-notch. Thomson guarantees their departures from the first party booked. All of those features plus the smaller group sizes (capped at around 20) are pluses for Thomson in my opinion.
 


We did the original Scotland ABD in 2013, the first year it was released, and it was amazing. But the current trip is completely different. I tend to agree that the Highlands are not to be missed unless you plan to return to Scotland (I have been multiple times and plan to keep going back, so that might be your plan too.). We did go to China with Thomson and will be going to Japan with them in 2020 (that trip has been booked since 2017, lol, because Thomson guaranteed us 2017 pricing for our 2020 trip, which is going to end up saving us thousands of dollars). We loved our trip to China with Thomson. One of our hotels was the same as ABD. I would agree that the others were maybe a * less than the hotels ABD uses, but they were all at least 4* with the exception of our hotel in Yangshuo a 3*) but it was amazing to stay there instead of in the bigger city. We had 10 on our China trip with 2 full-time guides and a local guide who was with us in each city fort the duration of our stay. The guides were very personable and went out of their way to be helpful, including helping us navigate our way to Shanghai Disneyland after the Thomson tour ended. Thomson also ran our family trip to Peru last summer with Nat Geo and it was also top-notch. Thomson guarantees their departures from the first party booked. All of those features plus the smaller group sizes (capped at around 20) are pluses for Thomson in my opinion.

Thanks so much for your help. It’s very helpful to hear that you had a great experience with Thomson. I think we will go with Thomson for China and South Africa too. Possibly Peru too after hearing about your experience. They sound great and the small group size is very tempting. I think we will stick with ABD for Scotland. We’ve been comparing the itineraries today and my family seems to prefer the ABD one. It’s too bad they revised it so much.
 
Just a note about not having to worry about Thomson cancelling a tour due to a small group size. We are leaving 4 weeks from today for Thomson's Vietnam and Cambodia group tour. Turns out we (3 of us) are the only family on the tour, so it is basically a private tour. We liked the small group tour we did with them last year to Japan. It will be interesting to experience the dynamic of not having others in the tour group.
 
Just a note about not having to worry about Thomson cancelling a tour due to a small group size. We are leaving 4 weeks from today for Thomson's Vietnam and Cambodia group tour. Turns out we (3 of us) are the only family on the tour, so it is basically a private tour. We liked the small group tour we did with them last year to Japan. It will be interesting to experience the dynamic of not having others in the tour group.

Definitely let us know what that is like. For quite a while, it looked like our 2016 China trip with Thomson would be a private tour. Part of me was kind of hoping it would stay that way. In the end, another family booked, and it turned out to be great. They were a really good fit with my family, and we enjoyed traveling with them. (I think Thomson makes a real effort to steer parties who they think would be a good fit to the same dates.) It's too early to know what the group will be like for our 2020 Japan trip with Thomson and whether that might end up as a private tour. But I love love love that Thomson guarantees all of their trips from the first party booked!!
 


Thanks for the info! I love that Thomson has a guaranteed departure and the small group size. I'm looking forward to travelling with them in the near future. I remember years ago when they kept running their Egypt trips without any profit just to keep their local Egyptian partners employed. They've always impressed me. We officially booked Scotland with ABD. It was a really hard decision because both looked great. The Thomson Scotland trip had a lot of biking and the kids thought it might become too much and they liked the sound of some of the activities on the ABD. There aren't any reviews yet of the Thomson trip and the itinerary isn't as detailed online so that made it hard too. We have 14 days though if we change our minds...lol. I would love to hear about your upcoming Vietnam and Japan trips with Thomson. Please share if you have time! Thanks again :).
 
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