Small-Group Day Trip to Oxford,the Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon from London

I am troubled by the many inaccuracies in your review. As per the attachment we sent to you, you can see that the driver arrived at 17 Great Cumberland Place, which is next door (a 1 minute walk) to the Hard Rock Hotel at 06.59. The attachment is from the vehicles tachograph which must be recorded by law, and as such must adhere to certain guidelines - meaning that the timings are unarguably accurate. The driver was there and waiting for you from perhaps 07.02, by the time he had parked and walked to the meeting point. The reason we will 'not admit', as you put, that our driver was late, is because he was not - as you have now seen from the tachograph that was sent to you on the 24 December. Our driver proceeded to wait outside the hotel for you for the next 30 minutes. When he could not find you, he made contact with our office shortly after 07.30. Our office then made contact with you, which our records indicate was 07.35. As a reminder, as per your e-ticket, your meeting point was 07.30, and at 07.35 you were not at the meeting point. When we got through to you at 07.35, you stated you were almost back at your hotel, the Park Plaza Riverbank. This is, on a good day with no traffic, is at least 10 minutes from the Hard Rock Hotel in a taxi. We also have from you, in writing, that you left the meeting point at 07.26 - as a reminder, as per your e-ticket, your departure time was 07.30. You also admitted to leaving the meeting point early whilst on the phone to our staff, in between your abhorrent and abusive rant, and I am bemused as to why you would make the decision to leave without making contact with us first, instead choosing to check this with hotel staff. I am confused as to why you would expect a hotel concierge to know the exact location of your driver for a tour they have no affiliation with and would take their advice and leave the meeting point before checking with the tour operator? Our staff suggested that you take a taxi from your hotel to our final pick up, where the driver and other customers on board (that had already waited 10 minutes for you), could wait another 10 minutes, to give you a chance to catch up. You could have accepted the help and solution that our staff were trying to offer you which would have resulted in you catching up with the tour - you did not do this. Instead, you chose to swear, shout and try to intimidate our staff into sending the vehicle directly to your hotel. After being continually shouted at, our staff stated that if you continued to shout, the call would be terminated - as a company we do not tolerate behaviour of this kind, before or during our tours and we will not accept our staff being spoken to this way. You continued to swear and shout, and as such the call was indeed terminated. I am not sure why you would be so arrogant as to think that not only could you hold the tour up by 20 minutes due to your own mistake, scream and verbally abuse our staff, and still deserve to inconvenience our group further and be collected at your hotel after doing so. When you were informed that there will be no refund, a stream of unpleasant messages followed, and we stand by the fact that there will be no refund. Your thoroughly unpleasant manner and verbal abuse aside, the fundamental issue here is that you left the meeting point before your departure time. I fail to see why you could think that this would be anybody else's fault but your own. If you were concerned about our driver not being at the meeting point, you could have called our emergency number who would have helped you in connecting with your driver. You chose not to do this. We then offered you a way to catch up with the tour, attempting to help you, which was met with a shocking outburst and stream of swearing and abuse. You chose NOT to catch up with the tour. I reiterate, the factors that resulted in missing your tour, were all down to choices you made. At all times, our staff were attempting to help you and all instructions were given in a calm and polite manner - the only party that has been 'disgusting' as you have so delicately put it, is yours.