I’ve personally travelled and have worked for other travel companies so I have seen first hand the stress that is involved; keeping your clients happy while dealing with all the background details of last minute changes, etc. Dean has this remarkable way of making everyone feel at ease, from morning to midnight. Every detail is handled in a professional manner, while appearing he’s having fun himself, with a warm smile on his face. He’s an absolute joy to be around, ensuring his clients they will have the best time possible, whether embracing a new culture or creating a new and different adventure in their own country. This is a talent of it’s own and one he embraces wholeheartedly.

I think from this moment onwards, most of us will have a completely deepened appreciation for travel. Whether it is for business, seeing family, going on an adventure or simply giving yourself a well-deserved treat.

Saying that, if when planning our sojourn you need assistance, advice and the sense of downright being taken care of – we will call Dean! Firstly, Dean listens with an acute ear and genuine caring to what is important to you then implements his skill, knowledge and experience along with his sincere desire to really help you. Secondly – the magic begins!!! Thank you Dean!

Dean Nelson is an awesome travel expert. My spouse and I have been on many vacations he has been associated with managing and several he has arranged for us. Any travel enterprise Dean is involved with will be imaginatively planned, flawlessly executed and conscientiously backstopped. I highly recommend him without hesitation for all your travel needs.

I highly recommend Dean Nelson as Travel Consultant as he is very professional and knowledgeable with world travel no matter what suits your travel needs.  I have been using his services for many years and never had any bad experiences.  He is very attentive to my travel requirements and needs and has always provided me with high quality travel and accommodations no matter where I went.  He is very prompt in responding to my questions or concerns and has always been on top of things if my flights or accommodations ever changed.  He is easy to reach and answers my e-mails very quickly.  I have enjoyed wonderful places in the world that he arranged for me and would encourage travellers that don’t want the hassle of making arrangements themselves to seek his very affordable services!  Thanks Dean for all you have done for me and my travelling companions.  

 We have dealt with Mr. Dean Nelson at 'Departures x Dean ' for many years.

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He has booked us vacations, tours, cruises and many adventures.

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All have been handled with his utmost care and knowledge.  In many instances he has provided us with invaluable information from his vast and varied travel experience in order to make our trips one of the most memorable. 

We highly recommend him.

Working with Dean Nelson to arrange the details of our travel plans was a very enjoyable experience.

For one, his knowledge and his experience were quite useful. More importantly, we greatly enjoyed the fact that he treated us more as like friends rather than just like clients.

As a result, he was sincerely more interested in our enjoyment of our trip as a friend would rather than as an agent who was just solving some problems that some client gave him. His efforts to truly personalize our travel plans in accordance to what he might actually enjoy was a wonderful way to start making our holiday arrangements.

We highly recommend using his services. He knows what he is doing.

Thanks so much for looking after this for me! 

I did the city walking and food tour last night, with the Hungry Whale group.  I ended up being the only one on the tour, which was fine.  My guide, Diego, was super informative.  I learned a lot about the history of the islands, as well as a lot of information about wine and food.  I was super stuffed by the end!  But I would highly recommend them if you happen to be booking tours for anyone else here!  

Thanks again for all your help, it makes me feel good, especially because I'm here on my own, to know that there is someone out there looking out for me!  

I worked with Dean to plan a ten-day, bespoke trip to Patagonia - Chile and Argentina - ending with a wedding weekend in Mendoza, Argentina. Dean planned a great itinerary, packed (at my request) with three must-see sites in Patagonia. We were offered choices of great accommodations and great excursions in each place. At every airport we were greeted by a guide and driver who took great care of us. Dean listened to what we wanted and delivered exactly that. He was very responsive during the planning process and even more so during the trip with any issue (like making a schedule change at our request). Thank you, Dean, for a great trip, made easy.

I just wanted to drop you a personal note to say thanks for all of your work on our recent trip to Greece with my wife Josee and son David.  It was exactly what we wanted and we enjoyed it thoroughly.  Our main guide, Theo, was excellent and he even made it into a bit of a foodie tour also.  Seeing Josee’s face in first class was priceless. Please don’t retire, we will have more work for you.

Thurman and I loved our entire experience in Portugal, guided by the expertise of Dean Nelson. He thought through each scenario and set us up to maximize every moment of our trip. I highly recommend his services to anyone who wants a fun, convenient, classy, and unforgettable trip!

Dean was recommended to us as a travel expert when we started planning a “bucket list” trip to French Polynesia.  In the past, we had mostly done our own travel plans but because we were going to an area with which we were quite unfamiliar, we wanted some expert help in the planning.  Dean asked us a lot of questions before starting to suggest hotels and excursions so that he could find out our likes and dislikes.  We had already decided we wanted to do the 10 day cruise with the Paul Gauguin Cruise ship so Dean helped us with flights, transfers, hotel stays before and after the cruise and excursions on the cruise. 

He gave us a few choices for each that ticked all the boxes on our list.  He suggested a resort called Le Taha’a off the coast of Taha’a in an overwater bungalow instead of Bora Bora, which we thought we wanted to stay before our cruise began.  This place was magical and we would have never even known about it had Dean not suggested it. 

The excursions he suggested and booked for us were all fantastic but the over the top moment was the “Marina Dinner”.  This was a private dinner, just for us, on the back deck of the cruise ship.  This was a once in a lifetime experience and again, had Dean not known about it we would have never had the chance to do it. 

We spoke to many people on the ship, many that had been on this cruise ship several times, and no one else knew about it. 

Transfers to airports and hotels were seamless and so nice to not have to worry about finding a taxi and hauling our luggage as all of that was looked after.

We enjoyed this trip and all the ‘special’ things that Dean hooked us up with, that we started planning our next “bucket list” trip with him the moment we arrived home.

-Vicki & Bob Heiss

Dean is great! I didn’t have to lift a finger for a single thing. I told him what I wanted and he remarkably met and exceeded my plans. Everything was carefully planned for and confirmed. I even had a big hiccup in my plans to travel and he met the obstacle head on, referring me to other options that accommodated the changes required. As a veteran with disabilities I greatly appreciated the care and concern he took with me and will use his services in the future. Highly recommended!!!

Dean was referred to us through another company to help us plan a personalized tour of Europe. He was very knowledgeable and guided us through planning a great two week trip hitting all the highlights along the way. He had a lot of great suggestions for places to eat, tours, and hotels to stay at which made the trip so worthwhile and fun. Even along our trip, he stayed in contact and helped us along the way if any issues came up. Would definitely recommend him for any trip planning in the future!

Dean expertly organized the travel arrangements for our group of 16 people on a recent Mediterranean cruise. It was a seamless, worry-free experience. As part of his service, Dean provided a travel itinerary app which is a unique additional tool for day-by-day tracking of your itinerary with lots of great contextual information. It was a great trip.

The trip planned for my friends and me to Thailand by Dean Nelson was fantastic. I usually plan and book all of my travel myself. This time I decided to leave it to a professional and I was not disappointed. Dean spent so much time and effort to make sure that everything that we discussed during planning was taken care of. All of our "must dos" were planned to perfection. From the time we landed in Bangkok until the time we departed for home, the entire experience was perfectly orchestrated by Dean and his team from A&K. Our itinerary was followed to the T without so much as a hiccup. Ok, there were hiccups but the folks at A&K took everything into their hands and made it right. This was quite the adventure. I will use Dean and his expertise again.

The trip was wonderful. The application UMapped was great to keep us on track. The accommodations were wonderful. The view on the Copacabana beach was amazing and what we hoped for.

The Wish hotel and golf resort was also excellent!  We are really happy that we got to do the tour on both sides of the falls, it was very impressive. 

We thank you for all of the work you did for us and the connection that you kept with us all along our trip. 

We were really impressed by your service! -Carole

What a trip to remember for our first time on a cruise my daughter and I, I think we were spoiled! I don’t know how other cruise ship work but we really enjoyed Virgin Voyage. You planned the trip to perfection. The two days in Miami before boarding the ship was a great way to enjoy Miami before our cruise. I really enjoyed your suggestions of an adult cruise and to have room with a balcony made everything perfect! Thanks again