Anyone have experience with European tours?

the website http://www.affordabletours.com ?

Specifically tours of Italy? Company called Cosmos Tours? Tour called Best of Italy?

thanks

I'll be in Italy for about 2.5 weeks and just doing some math and realizing how much I want to see, a tour seems much cheaper and "safer" then exploring on my own. Yes I know it takes some fun out of it, but I might never go back to Italy and I'll still have about 4 days of exploring after the tour in Rome.

Average Tour price I've looked at is $1500 for ~14 days. including breakfast everyday, hotels, travel and about 5 or 6 cities including Capri.

12/27/2006 1:21:15 PM

we should have a TWW world tour

12/27/2006 1:43:59 PM

its really not that hard to do on your own. we spent about a week total in italy and saw everything we wanted on our own

however if you arent very organized or just dont feel like messing with it, pay for the tours

otherwise go get a travel book from the library or bookstore and it will tell you how to get to the places you want to see, what to expect and how much stuff costs

12/27/2006 1:52:59 PM

^That's what I was going to do at first. But I started looking at prices of travel, accomodation and food and it goes well over the tour price. I even bought a travel book. I will be going with the g/f too if that means anything.

12/27/2006 2:04:05 PM

this has nothing to do with Italy, but packaged tours in general.
We went to costa rica for 8 days for our honeymoon a couple years ago and got a packaged tour, and it was outstanding. It wasn't a big group thing - we had a rental car and a personalized itinerary with resort reservations, activities, some meals, plus plenty of free time for exploration. We drove ourselves everywhere, joined groups for some activities (like horseback riding) but were on our own the rest of the time. The tour company arranged everything for us though, so when we arrived in Costa Rica they handed us 8 days worth of vouchers, maps, and keys to a car. There's no way we could have planned all that ourselves.
So, if you can find something like that for Italy, go for it. They will make sure you high all the main tourist destinations, but can also find you lots of lesser known places to go and see, and will have inside info on where to stay, how to travel, etc.

12/27/2006 2:14:37 PM

Ok, here's what you do:

Fly into Dublin. From there, check tickets on Ryan Air for the cheapest current flights to the locations you want to go to. For instance, Dublin to Paris might be around 40 bucks, round trip. That's how you'll find the cheapest way into the continent. From there, just keep up with Ryan Air's cheapest tickets whenever you get a chance, they go everywhere. Time slots very, and less popular destinations only run once a week at times (to, say, Wroclaw, Poland or even Bratislava, Slovakia).

Take Aer Lingus to Dublin, then Ryan Air to Rome or whereever, that'll be your cheapest flight. Rome to anywhere should be just as cheap.

In short, Ryan Air is your friend. I mean, look at the prices up right now:
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/
looks like you'll need to go Liverpool to Venice for the cheapest flight. Stanistead does not have any US flights, its all continental.

So is HostelWorld. Just google them both.


[Edited on December 27, 2006 at 2:55 PM. Reason : .]

12/27/2006 2:50:09 PM

^^Thanks that makes me feel a bit better

^ Yeah I've heard of Ryan Air

I already have my plane tickets I'll be in Prague studying for 3 months before I go to Italy for 18 days.

My biggest question is just the reliability of tours in general and success stories.

12/27/2006 3:25:10 PM

are you in the college of design?

12/27/2006 4:26:42 PM

well anyway, i just got back from prague for architecture. the best thing to do is get a few guide books (eurpope in general is good, but once you decide specific cities buy THOSE guidebooks), lonely planet is really good. also prague will get old weekend after weekend so try to plan some trips on the weekends while your in a more central location, flights are cheap (i think i traveled about every weekend). you also might want to think about other options if you are planning on travelling 18 days at the end of the trip. thats a LONG time so you could do more than one country. i bought a eurail france-italy pass (you can specify # of days you need it). as far as prices go, im sure just exploring on your own is definitely cheaper. get a map of the cities before you go to save yourself some stress and just mark places you want to go on them. i know i walked 10 miles or so several days, and that was the most fun part cause you dont just see "the usual" things. plus you wont feel pressured to see stuff youre not interested in or move on from the stuff you are interested in just to stay with the group. also the metros are really easy to use and figure out it pretty much every city so dont worry about getting around even if you dont want to walk.

[Edited on December 27, 2006 at 4:37 PM. Reason : btw. http://www.smartwings.net - thats the czech republic budget airline]

12/27/2006 4:35:45 PM

guided tours are for old people and incompetent folks
guide yourself

12/27/2006 4:50:29 PM

i would have to agree, ive done tons of guided tours with my family on different trips, and you get WAY more out of doing it yourself.

[Edited on December 27, 2006 at 5:06 PM. Reason : e]

12/27/2006 4:59:48 PM

^^ that's a bad attitude. There's no reason not solicit advice from people who know more than you about a country/city.

Yes, sitting on a tour bus and driving through cities with someone talking over a microphone, "now on the right side you'll see and old building" sucks, but there are plenty of services that can be offered that don't require you to be herded around like sheep with loud, fat guys from Ohio.

that being said - having returned recently from a year in Germany, I did a ton of long-weekend traveling - prague, amsterdam, florence, brussels, paris, vienna, etc, without using any guides or travel services for any of them (except for some prearranged activities in Paris, like a "dinner and a show" package). And each time before I went I looked at the wikipedia page for the city, wikimapia.org, lonely planet, and printed out some guides. Then when I/we arrived I got a local map and a several day city-transport ticket and sometimes a local guide book then started wandering around.
But that can get old after 3 or 4 days, or even 2 days in some cities. I went to Amsterdam for 5 days with a buddy and we didn't plan anything because we though "hey - it's fucking amsterdam. we can always find something to do." But after 3 days of wandering through the canals, the red light district, various hash bars, breweries, museums, and parks, we started to get bored. So we bit the bullet and got a couple bus trips that drove us around Northern Holland with some groups, going to windmill communities, cheese factories, touring the dykes, etc. Even though there was a lot of boarding and unboarding of busses with people we didn't know, it was a good break from the city, where we would most likely have been sitting around in a pub drinking.

If you're going somewhere for more than a week, you'll definitely want to see if you can get a good plan for going from place to place, and what's good to be seen and done in each place.

[Edited on December 27, 2006 at 5:07 PM. Reason : .]

12/27/2006 5:07:06 PM

cinque terre

12/27/2006 9:07:48 PM

I'd take the train, then. Or a bus. The scenery from Prague to Italy is amazing. I have a friend in Vienna, and they rave about the city. You should stop in there.

12/27/2006 10:59:30 PM

Quote :

"guided tours are for old people and incompetent folks guide yourself"

second

Quote :

"cinque terre"

second



[Edited on December 28, 2006 at 12:00 AM. Reason : ...]

12/28/2006 12:00:21 AM

Thanks a lot guys for all the info.

To be honest my biggest factor here is money. And ideally I would love to explore on my own. But for the amount I want to see, the tours are actually cheaper it seems.

12/28/2006 2:43:37 AM

Cosmos is part of the same company as Globus & Brendan. I used Globus when I took my mom to Europe last year for her 60th bday present. I opted to do a tour so there'd be enough things to interest both of us, and so we'd each have people our age to hang out with if we wanted to do different stuff.

I was not happy with my Globus tour.

The hotels were nice, and most were conveniently located. However, they reserve the right to change hotels at any time, for any reason. The nicest hotel on our tour was to be the one in Monte Carlo; with its own private beach, and readily accessible to all of what the city has to offer. This was the only city on our tour I hadn't seen before.

When I got my trip documents 2 weeks before departure, the MC hotel had been changed to another one in Nice, France. I was bummed, but it was waterfront and Nice is still a city of some size with enough things to do.

When we arrived in Europe, the hotel was changed again - to one in Eze, France. Up the cliffs in a TINY town, and a $50 cab ride to the beach or anywhere. We got traded down from a 5star hotel in a happening city, to a freakin' Best Western in the middle of nowhere. Our only compensation was a bland meal in a cheap restaurant in Monte Carlo...for the entire 1/2 day we spent there, instead of 2 full days. Our tour director lied about it too...said "well, you wouldn't have wanted to stay at the one in Nice, it's far away from everything too"...til we saw it from the bus on the drive down the main drag along the coast, on the way to the next town.

The tour director can make or break a trip. We almost rioted on ours.

Overall, I'd say:
Accommodations - 4 of 5, if you exclude the hotel that got changed
Included meals - 3.5 of 5, breakfast was awesome if you'll eat European style. Eggs will not be cooked enough for the American palate, so skip it in favor of cheese, bread & fruit. The included dinners were mediocre.
Included excursions - 3.5 of 5, they RUSHED us through the Vatican and offered to "include at no extra charge" a tour of a perfumerie that is free anyways.
Optional excursions - I should not have paid for any of these, since I'd been to these cities before and knew, roughly, how to get around town. Extremely overpriced, though occasionally your day-guide is worth the $.

1/1/2007 3:25:26 PM

I went to Italy this past April, and we arranged the whole thing ourselves. We happened to find a really cheap air flight, so we arranged the trip around that. We toured around Italy starting with Rome, down to Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, Florence, and Venice taking the trains in between, which generally left about every 15 minutes so you had a lot of flexibility. We booked the hotels online in advance for specific days using reviews at http://www.venere.com, and we had a couple of guidebooks and had done a lot of internet research. It was really awesome.

My inlaws went to Italy two weeks after we did, and they used a tour group, and they also had an awesome time. I would say either way you can't go wrong--just depends on how much planning you want to do yourself.

PM me if you have any specific questions!

1/1/2007 8:45:04 PM

I'm not any expert on tours, but i have heard the best time to go overseas is like after august 20th or somewhere around there...supposedly the rates go way down after that date

[Edited on January 1, 2007 at 8:48 PM. Reason : dnl for study hall mod]

1/1/2007 8:48:04 PM