Europe At Leisure Tour 5180 6/09/2007
Written: Dec 27 '07
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Pros: Great for budgets and this is the only way you'll be able to see Europe
Cons: Terrible included dinners & extra tour dinners, Expensive extra excursions
The Bottom Line: Good Value for the money spent you get to see a lot
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| pegs3's Full Review: Cosmos |
Cosmos is the budget tour in the Globus Tour Family. Budget is the key word here! We started in London a few days before the tour started so we saw London on our own. We met our tour director at Calais, France after we ferried from Dover. The tour depends on having a great tour guide, and we had the best, she has been with Cosmos for 10 years on & off. Nynke was excellent and we would tour with her again. This 21 day tour gives you an overview of quite a few cities and countries in Europe, some of which we would like to go back and see more in depth and others we wouldn't. The main thing is to do your homework of the areas you are going to see. We brought a Rick Steves' Best of Europe book with us and did some things on our own instead of spending oodles on those extra tours the company offers. We decided to tour Amsterdam by ourselves and walked to the Van Gogh Museum and to the Anne Frank House that was really moving. Some of the group went with us, so we had a great day. The included dinners were poor and the extra dinner outings were
terrible and very expensive. The only one we liked was in the Monte Carlo area with a tour afterwards at nite along the cliffs overlooking the harbor and by the prince's quarters, followed by a drink outside the famous Casino Royale of 007 fame. Because this is a budget tour, the hotels are out of the way, and hard to get to town on your own, although it can be done. Most hotels were ok and safe, except for Paris. That one was in a low life area not at all safe. I think it was better to buy the extra tour for the Vatican and St. Peter's in Rome. You get in before the rest of the crowds. The one tour that I was disappointed in was Versailles, it was wall to wall people. I saw more original furniture of that era at my own Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The best extra tour we went on was in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Mount Titlis and its revolving air tram. Bring extra warm clothing and gloves. It still had snow in June. We had to buy sweatshirts in town before we went. All in all we had a terrific time with lots of memories. What I thought was amazing was that everyone on the bus tour got along with everyone else. We were all English speaking. We had 7-year old twin girls that were so well behaved, to 75 year olds. We still keep in touch with a lot of the folks. This tour does require lots of walking up and down steps and hilly areas and can bother your knees if you aren't careful. Would suggest you book ahead(at least 2 days) to see the Accademia instead of the Uffizi and also walk up 2 floors in The Louvre to pay 8 euros instead of $45 US (tour thru Cosmos) since the bus takes everyone there for 2 hours anyway. Or see if you can make reservations online for the Orsay across the street(line is too long to do in person).
All in all a good tour..ask for Nynke specifically, you won't be sorry, she has a really dry sense of humor !
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Tour type: Group
Tour format: Bus
Tour length: Over a Week
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Epinions.com ID:
pegs3
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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