Ohio-Cincinnati

Gallant Coach Warning

I offer this only as an FYI to anyone who has booked with Gallant or is considering booking with them. Take it for what it is worth. Sorry it is so long...

We signed a contract with this company about a year before our wedding. They were one of the vendors we were most excited about by far. The process was easy and pretty worry free. Suddenly, five weeks before our wedding we heard through a coworker, who had also planned on using them for her wedding, that the bus was sold and they had gotten a newer bus that was gorgeous but sat fewer people. This was going be a significant problem for us because of the size of the group we had. In addition, she told me they had gotten the bus a few weeks before but had not let her know until 3 days before her wedding.

We contacted Gallant several times and finally heard back days later. At that point, they denied the previous but sat as many as they had originally proclaimed it had. Randy was completely unapologetic that they had not let us know about the sale of the bus we had contracted. We went out to see the bus a couple days later and agreed it was beautiful but not large enough for our entire party. He offered us an amazing deal on the bus and a passenger charter (to be used for our wedding guests) that we could not turn down. It seemed like it would all work out. He promised the contract the next day.

Two days later after we had not received anything from him we started calling and emailing him to see if we could get a contract. He replied several days later he was out of town and would deal with it when he got back. Not very comforting 4 weeks before the wedding. He finally did send a contract 1 week after he had promised it but it didn't reflect everything we had talked about. We wrote back asking for those two things to be included. We got no response after several emails, texts, and phone calls. We finally wrote an email saying that we felt like he didn't want to sign the contract with us and we really wished he would give us the courtesy of just saying that so that we could make other arrangements. He then respond and said he would not include those things and he would be out of town for another week. He told us we could finalize the contract when he returned 2 weeks before our wedding.

He never apologized for the inconvenience of having to repeatedly call them to get a response or for any of the issues they created by the sale of the bus. He also would tell us things and then claim he never said them. It became too much to believe his word and we could not trust that he would actually do what he was claiming. He also shared with us how much money he could make on the bus if he didn't rent to us because he was giving us a "discount." The discount was the price we had contracted a year ago which was not a discount last year. He constantly acted like we needed him more than he needed us.

I have heard that the drivers that day are great and make up for all the inconvenience of dealing with Randy. We had to walk away from them because of all the problems we had so I cannot say that from personal experience. We were beyond disappointed with our experience.

I had read reviews of them in 2010 and they were all glowing. The reviews that have started to come out more recently are all about the same: The communication is as bad as you could possibly imagine. To us, beautiful or not, no bus is worth this hassle right before our wedding....

Re: Gallant Coach Warning

  • edited December 2011
    I'm so sorry you had to experience this- but it's great that you're out here letting girls know. I actually used them for our wedding in August and also experienced TERRIBLE communication.
    Let this be a warning to brides thinking about using their services- yes, their busses are phenominal, but not worth the hassle.
    Anniversary
  • dori851dori851 member
    1000 Comments Combo Breaker
    edited December 2011
    Wow, sorry you had to deal with all this! Thanks for the warning, I was actually considering using them for my wedding, but not after these two reviews! I definitely can't stand poor communication!
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  • edited December 2011
    Thanks for the review!! I have already booked with them...so heres to praying we have a little better luck.....
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    When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally
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