Fellowship Tours

If all the reviews are true maybe that is the reason the business has closed. I enjoyed the tours that I did with the Lipps. Dorothy Denzau

I went on a tour to New York City during Thanksgiving 2014 and it was terrible. Doug has health issues that causes me to question if he should be driving a bus. He talked on a cell phone for 35 minutes while driving through a snow storm. I had to unload my own luggage at the motel. Margaret was very rude. I feared for my safety that I flew home rather than ride the bus back home. Please think twice if you are considering this tour line.

I have too agree with everyone of the bad reviews for Fellowship Tours. The Lipps are not members of the BBB but Lipps knows that all he has to do to keep an A+ rating with them is to respond to a complaint. He doesn't have to answer your complaint, he just has to respond. That is why he tells you to complain to them. He does not belong to half of the Bus Associations that he claims in his advertisements. I have reported the Lipps to every state and local agency that I can find. PEOPLE , PLEASE STAND UP and stop letting them get away with bullying,threatening, intimidating and taking your money for these so call tours. This has been going on for years ! Do not think you are the 1st to carry your luggage ( you pay them for that service and they pocket the money) been going on for years. A restroom that smells like an outhouse., rain pouring in. It does not stop here,there is so much more. My 1st and last trip was Oct. 19_23, and I have been trying to get something done about these people. I do not give this so called business a star.

The owners, Margaret and Doug Lipps, were not gracious hosts, and they are most unprofessional. They acted like they could not wait to get the tour over with, and they constantly talked about how much it costs them to run tours, which made us all feel very uncomfortable. In addition, Mr. Lipps routinely bashed gay people, saying, "There's nothing gay about it. Where I come from we just call 'em queers!" While he is quite entitled to his opinion, repeatedly blaring his opinion on alternative lifestyles, over the bus loudspeaker, is NOT the proper forum. Also, they are NOT accomodating to handicapped persons, and most all of us were apalled by this; especially on one occasion where they booked a hotel that was at least 7 blocks away from an excursion. Although they explained that the hotel told them it was only a block away (and that wasn't their fault), we all ended up walking 7 blocks to get there, which was fine. We certainly understood. However, one handicapped person obviously could not walk that far. We all expected them to get a cab for the handicapped person, but they did not. As a result, the party with the handicapped person did not go, obviously not wanting to leave the handicapped person alone, and feeling bad for the ordeal. The Lipps did not even refund them the cost of the excursion, even though they are the ones who booked the hotel. Mrs. Lipps was fairly friendly to us all, although she obviously kept her distance, and her kindness seemed forced and half-hearted, but Mr. Lipps did not associate with us, at all, except via microphone and loudspeaker. He obviously likes the sound of his own voice, because if you spoke directly to him, he rarely responded back to you. We found that to be rude. All in all, we felt like we were a burden to them, since they kept talking about how they had done us a favor by not cancelling the tour (only 17 went), and kept talking about how they had to leave as soon as we got back to head out to New York (not our fault). We had previously toured with another tour company, and found the hosts to be engaging and upbeat, which made it fun and more enjoyable. In the future we will be using them instead of Fellowship Tours. The slightly higher cost is worth it to have hosts who actually acted like they were glad to have us aboard. However, to be fair, we did get to see a lot of places, and Mr. Lipps is an excellent bus driver, and he did know a lot about the places we covered. Alhough I did not enjoy his social and political commentaries, I DID enjoy his commentary and trivia on historical sites, and anecdotes about various interesting people he had met along the way. For that reason I am giving them 2 stars. I doubt I use them, again, unless their tour schedule is the only one that will accomodate mine. AS AND ADDED NOTE: ALL 17 of the people on the tour were AWESOME, and made the experience so much better! I give the company 2 stars, but I give the people FIVE+!