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This was an excellent tour, with many interesting side trips. The group itself was a nice blend - from teens to seventy-somethings (we brought our 2 teenagers and they were very happy to be among...
This was an excellent tour, with many interesting side trips. The group itself was a nice blend - from teens to seventy-somethings (we brought our 2 teenagers and they were very happy to be among the dozen teens in our group - a rarity, according to our tour guide). The sight-seeing was intense, we were up at 6 or 6:30 every morning and out of the hotel by 8am.
As noted in "Cons", be aware that the optional excursions are pricey, the food not very good, and the tour guide, I'm sure gets a commission. For instance: in Venice the optional dinner would have cost our family of 4 more than 200 euros (for a meal, which, in the words of a fellow traveler, "was so bad, it was comical"). We decided to dine on our own at the top-notch Ristorante da Raffaele, paid less money and had an excellent meal canal-side with gondolier entertainment. Another example was the Gondola Serenade. For the 4 of us, the cost was 152 euros. Had we hired a gondola independently, the cost would have been 80 euros (granted, that does not include the serenade, but our group had 5 gondolas and only one had the musicians). I was definitely put out by the tour guides' hard sell tactics of the optional excursions - she told us that outside of the group we risked poor quality, frozen foods, we might get sick from the foods we were served and we would probably be cheated - PUH-LEAZE!! I am also pretty sure that Globus gets a little something from their "recommended" shops (leather, jewelry and glass).
Ok, that said...there were many pros to this trip. The Roman Highlights optional tour was definitely a "must". Again, the dinner was not great, but our local guide was awesome, adding interest and humor to our history lesson. The tour of the Verrazzano Castle was both interesting and a blast (wine tasting really "lubed up" the group. Sadly, due to unexpectedly heavy traffic, we only had 1 hour in Pisa (not even enough time for an official tour). The long bus rides were broken up by visits to charming medieval-style villages (San Gimingnano and Orvieto were my favorites). Assisi was a one night stay that I wished was longer - the terrace on the San Francesco hotel was a beautiful place to share a "digestivo" and watch the sunset.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the most amazing bus driver, Rocco...props, Rocco! This man maneuvered a huge tour bus through the city and mountains like it was a "smart car".
This was an amazing tour, and I would choose Safar Travel again (keeping in mind that optional excursions are truly "optional". We met many wonderful families as we shared the exploration of the Italian history and culture.
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Great hotel accommodations and luggage handling. Efficient and organized. Worry free traveling to destinations.
Know what your getting into with a tour we did. If a tour is what you want, you...
Great hotel accommodations and luggage handling. Efficient and organized. Worry free traveling to destinations.
Know what your getting into with a tour we did. If a tour is what you want, you won't have a problem with Globus.
As two 24 year-old girls with little traveling experience we decided to explore Europe with a tour. We’re not into the backpacking and hostel staying way of travel. We did extensive research and even contemplated doing a Contiki Tour. After reading less than favorable reviews on epinions, we opted for Vacation Outlet' “The Popular” Europe tour based on its itinerary and superior tourist class hotels even though the age range skewed to the slightly older. As pointed out in many reviews below, if you want to truly blend into a culture of each country then don’t do a tour. A tour is a fast paced glimpse of each country's touristy "must sees" – this means most of the places you will go will have English menus, straight-out-of-college backpackers and an assortment of souvenir tchotchkes. You might have only 25 minutes to explore the Sistine Chapel or 90 minutes to take a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in your hand.
However, we still had a great time. Vacation Outlet does allow you free time after group sight-seeing tours in the morning and afternoon. Take advantage of this free time.
The tour guide will try to scare you into joining the overpriced optional excursions by making it seem dangerous and difficult to use the subways, buses, or trains. This isn’t true. Most of the hotels are either centrally located, very close to metro stations, or a cab ride away. Don’t let your guide deter you from seeing the cities at night. For example, our day in Venice ended around 6pm. Our tour guide said it would be dead at night and advised everyone to go back to the hotel for dinner. We stayed and had an amazing time. Venice is totally different at night. The tourists and pigeons are gone and St. Mark’s Square is simply breathtaking. By contrast, our tour mates had a lousy “Italian” dinner at the hotel with rubbery chicken and dry pasta.
Don't expect to eat well in Europe – this is something you need to take initiative about. Your breakfast consists of bread, cold cuts and cheese. Your lunch is eaten "on the run" – either at a roadside stop or at a pit-stop town where you don't have enough time to sit down for a proper meal. Dinner is your only chance to find an authentic meal. Don't be too afraid or too cheap to find REAL local cuisine because you already paid for the "included" hotel dinner. Hotel dinners are overrated as they (1) eat up time as you make small talk with your tourmates (if you are into socializing, this can be accomplished at a more opportune time, such as the hours you spend on the bus together), (2) force you back into the high school facing the "where do I sit dilemma", and (3) usually consist of some cultureless variation of meat and potatoes. Ask a local for recommendations or come prepared with a list of restaurants from a guidebook.
Don’t fall for the optional excursions. These are by far not worth the money and extremely overpriced. The excursion to the Lourve cost about $48. We thought it would be crowded and we would get extra things. Instead we ran around the Lourve with a local guide that spoke really fast. Plus, you have to listen to tour mates complain about the all the steps they have to climb. By contrast, the actual ticket cost about 8 euros (with a little extra for headphones) and you can wander and look at what you want. The only excursions that are economically worthwhile are to places out of the way, such as the Palace of Versailles or the fishing town of Volendam. Remember that every excursion means time away from independent exploration – which might be what you're looking for.
Our strongest piece of advice, Bring some guidebooks and maps. We brought Frommer's “Guide to Europe” and Rick Steves “Italy.” Use these as tools for things that might not be covered on your tour. They list addresses and points of interests. We also used the internet to see the location of our hotel and any places we wanted to see that were not listed in our books. Internet can be expensive over there. Our proudest find was the library in Amsterdam that offered free internet. Other tips: Often times you are concentrating so hard on making sure you capture the moment on film for later that you forget to capture the moment for yourself. Remember to stop and take a minute to drop your jaw and be amazed by Europe's beauty. Make use of the time you have in each place to actually enjoy the place. Rather than squander this time frantically searching for presents to bring home, shop at the convenient Autogrills and roadside stops. They provide a variety of cookies, chocolates, postcards and other touristy things and you're usually stuck there for an hour anyway. The slightly higher price is worth the convenience.
Beware that the quality of your tour will depend on your tour guide – and this is really hit or miss. Our tour guide was really great. She seemed scatterbrained at first, but was actually very organized. Though everyone moaned and groaned about 5:45am wake-up calls, they allowed us to avoid the swarming masses at each stop. Our tour guide knew that we liked to do our own exploring and never forced the excursions on us. Instead, she would give us directions and instructions on how to get around. These weren’t always correct or detailed (we couldn’t find our tram in Amsterdam, but a kind local pointed us in the right direction), but she had the best of intentions. Our tour guide had extensive knowledge about each country and you can tell she does her research. She was able to give first-hand impressions and experiences with the countries – even if some of it was a little bit outdated. We never saw her sleep on the bus and were amazed at the amount of energy she had. Members of the other concurrent Globus “Popular” tour complained nonstop about their horrible tour guide who told horror stories about getting robbed in Rome and introduced each stop with "This is where we're going to have lunch. Be back at 1pm." Many of their excursions were cancelled due to lack of interest.
Overall the tour is organized and efficient. We would never have been able to see as much as we did on our own. While tours have a tendency to promote dependence and hand-holding, Vacation Outlet also allows you to grab on or let go according to your comfort level (while never instilling the fear that you will be left behind – see other tour company reviews). Remember that these are foreign countries and things will be different from the U.S. Don’t gripe and complain (as many of our tour mates seemed to do). Don’t forget to explore on your own. If you ask nicely, locals are more than willing to help. Enjoy it.
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We just returned from a tour of the Highlights of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Our trip was nothing short of fabulous. We made reservations with Touraine, a first rate company with tons...
We just returned from a tour of the Highlights of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Our trip was nothing short of fabulous. We made reservations with Touraine, a first rate company with tons of experience. They are based in Colorado and Switzerland and have a vast array of tours in most major cities around the world for the traveler to choose from. My mother is a travel agent and she recommended them to us, so how could we say no? Having never done a tour such as this, ever, we thought it would be wise for us to go there the first time to have places introduced to us, rather than trying to navigate our way around Great Britain ourselves. It was a wise decision. I cannot imagine having to rent a car, drive on the right side of the car and on the right side of the road! I think we would have spent half of our time being lost.
Prior to leaving for our Touraine vacation, we were each sent paperwork, including a detailed itinerary, luggage tags, name tags and a quality tote bag. Things were looking very good. We chose a Highlights Tour because we felt it would give us what we wanted to see which was the most we could for the length of time we were spending there. Touraine has brochures which are available at travel agencies.
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I went with a friend on the River of the Pharoahs tour in the fall of 2000, it was hosted by General Tours. It was a great experience and I am happy that I did this before all the terrorism stuff...
I went with a friend on the River of the Pharoahs tour in the fall of 2000, it was hosted by General Tours. It was a great experience and I am happy that I did this before all the terrorism stuff started up again in the middle east.
We did not take the included air tickets, I arranged a separate flight on British Air. They were going to use Egyptian Air and I preferred British Airways to London and then to Cairo.
Well, arriving in Cairo was like another world! We were met by a man who barely spoke English however he was holding a large General Tours sign printed with our names. He promptly took our passports and ran off with them! Well this made me a bit perturbed but it's part of the process: he ran to get us a stamp in our passports to enter Egypt. However I ran after him because I didn't want to be left in Cairo without a passport! It was alright as he went right to a counter and got us our stamps to enter.
We were escorted to a van and taken to the Hotel Ramses, which is a beautiful place. My first trip to Egypt and I didn't know about baksheesh. Everyone who comes near you wants baksheesh so unless you want them to carry your bags you have to hold on tightly. The hotel was wonderful and we joined the General Tours tour group of about 15 people the next day. We were all introduced to our guide, Mahmoud, a very well spoken and knowledgeable guide. He accompanied us everywhere through Egypt.
We saw the Egyptian Museum, the pyramids, the city of Cairo, the Blue Mosque, the bustling marketplace, wonderful. Then we flew to Luxor to meet the Nile cruiser. The flights within Egypt are via Egypt Air which uses old Russian jets. I was fascinated and a bit nervous on these old Russian jets but they seemed to work alright, One of them was a bit loud as it had an extra jet engine on top that the pilot kept turning on and off. Flying in Egypt is beautiful - no clouds, you can see forever.
The tour guide was wonderful, he was the General Tours representative as well as our nanny. One older lady became ill on the Nile cruiser and General Tours found doctors and treatment for her immediately, I was impressed. The Nile experience was fantastic and unforgettable. Mahmoud our guide got us everywhere and we even climbed all the way up inside pyramids and things and he flew the flights with us, kept us together and we all got to know each other pretty well over the 12 days or so. We all had a good time and afterward we emailed each other to see how our separate journeys turned out after Egypt. We went on to the Sinai, others went on to Turkey. But we made good friends and had a great time and I would recommend General Tours as they handled everything well.
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Pros
Simple to use booking process with instant confirmation you can print.
Cons
Some changes in flight times after booking however they were changed to our satisfaction.
The Bottom Line
A...
Pros
Simple to use booking process with instant confirmation you can print.
Cons
Some changes in flight times after booking however they were changed to our satisfaction.
The Bottom Line
A wonderful relatively worry free way to travel! Removes the guesswork creating a nice comfort zone for those who need it.
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Pros: guide, hotels, cliffs of moher, waterford crystal, hospitality, pubs, guinness,
Cons: It rained almost every day for just a bit.
With our fabulous Irish guide Michael guiding us through...
Pros: guide, hotels, cliffs of moher, waterford crystal, hospitality, pubs, guinness,
Cons: It rained almost every day for just a bit.
With our fabulous Irish guide Michael guiding us through the beautiful country side we learned so much about this ancient land's history and its modern changes. Ireland has some of the most dramatically beautiful scenery I have ever imagined. The Ring of Kerry and Cliffs of Moher were just a few of the natural beauties we saw on our lovely trip. The bus we traveled in and the hotels we stayed in were all wonderful. The hotels were always in the city center and many great restaurants were all around. On our last night we had the amazing experience of staying in Cabra Castle, which was something my husband and I will never forget.
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