I realize it is hard to make a comparison of only 1 Tauck Bridges tour vs 5 ABD, but after the one I have been afraid to try Tauck again. I will try and explain why.
I think having only one guide can be tricky. Ours was rather snarky, maybe a bad week for her, but it set the mood for the entire trip. She was actually pretty good with the kids, but not the adults. We had several grandparents on our trip and, as we all know, we don't hear or process information as quickly as we age. Well, she made it very clear she was annoyed when people asked her to repeat information. She often said "no worries", even though her demeanor implied there WERE worries. To this day I cringe when people say"no worries".
Ok she was one person and that can change, but there were other issues. This was the SanFrancisco/Yosemite/Monterey Bay trip. No walk on guide for our tour of SanFrancisco, just miss crabby to point out things from the bus. I really wanted my daughter to get a good history of the city and that didn't happen. They took us to the San Francisco Academy of Science. We have great Museums like this in Cleveland, that is NOT what I came to SF to see. I've been to San Francisco many times, and they left out some great locations. How great it would have been to get some insight into the Asian culture there, with a local guide who was of Asian descent. We drove through China town on the tour bus, you can't get a feel for it that way.
We did the ferry around Alcatraz with all the other tourists, all our guide did was purchase the tickets for us. Had I known this I would have opted to do something on my own. I really felt like I could have done a better tour on my own, except my daughter wouldn't have had the other kids to hang with.
Yosemite: we had the same Park Ranger guided tours anyone else could do. Of course the ranger talks were great, but again, I could have done that on my own.
The only location I felt like we had any personalized experience was at The Monterey Bay Aquarium. We had a behind the scenes tour there and our goodbye dinner was there. We were the only people in the place for the dinner, so that was very nice.
I have never had a Disney Guide treat guests the way this woman did. I'm sure if they did, they would no longer be an ABD guide. So the guides are my # 1 reason for sticking with ABD. It is hard to put into words the "specialness" of the ABD Trips, but that is why I am willing to spend the money for them and why I am afraid to spend that kind of money on Tauck again.
The End