Western Europe Tour Companies

I can't say enough wonderful things about our Contiki trip manager, Rianna, who truly deserves the title of Tour Guide of the Year! Her empathy, kindness, and dedication to our group were evident every single day. She has this unique ability to connect with each person and make everyone feel comfortable, no matter the situation. Her patience is unmatched, and her enthusiasm is contagious – I’ve genuinely never seen someone so happy to push through every challenge just to make our experience unforgettable. What truly sets her apart is how she approaches each day with a smile, even if she may be facing her challenges or adversities. She brings a warm aura and an uplifting presence to the group, making everyone feel at home, no matter how far from home we actually are. Regardless of the personality or demands of any traveler – even the most challenging among us – she greets and helps everyone with grace, kindness, and an unparalleled level of support. She constantly goes above and beyond, always anticipating our needs and creating special moments that made this trip feel both personal and one-of-a-kind. Her unwavering commitment, compassion, and resilience transformed every day into something extraordinary. She is truly an inspiration as both a guide and as a person in general. I am so grateful to have met her and experienced her talent as a guide. When i mentioned my next travel plan she went above and beyond to recommend two great places & showed me photos and videos of them. Thank you for an unforgettable experience Ri. You made my first big solo adventure one I’m not sure I can ever beat!

Dem was absolutely amazing. Her knowledge of every place we went really helped to solidify the experience and I learnt a lot through her fun stories and ways of explaining things. She became more than our trip manager she became our friend and our person if we needed anything she was always willing to help

We loved the river cruise experience

Route good. Excursions OK. MS Douce France very well maintained for its age. Unfortunately, many windows in the lounge and cabins are frosted and prevent a good view. Great cuisine, varied and very tasty and beautifully presented! 1++!!! Table drinks also excellent. Staff super friendly and competent!

We saw a lot in this 13 country trip over 26 days, however, the trip would have been more enjoyable and less stressful if Expat would have chosen better quality hotels, modified the itinerary so that the group would have arrived at the hotel by 6 or 7 pm instead of 9 - 9:30 pm followed by a 6:30 am breakfast and 7:15 am back on the bus schedule. Expat should identify that participants have to be quite fit, able to walk at a speed of 5 km/3 miles per hour for 1-3 hours on the city orientation tours and have to carry/drag their heavy suitcase up 2 or more flights of stairs because some of the hotels have no elevator or inadequate elevators. The tour leader should also slow down his/her walking speed to avoid falls and loosing tour members during the walk!

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There are many things that we loved about this tour, many things people complained about on our tour that weren’t necessarily problems and many things that were sorely lacking in the program that we'd love to see improved for future tours: Things we loved: 1. They had some of the most incredible gems to stop at in between the larger cities. Caceres and Zaragoza are amazing and every stop provided a new experience with so many beautiful sights 2. Balance between "group" and "individual" - I loved that we were supported by the guides or group members for part of the day and then parts of the day were left to us individually so it still felt like our own trip and I wasn't dragged around to restaurants I didn't want to eat in or sights I wasn't interested in 3. Ignacio- I had to add this as a specific love because the guide in the Barcelona- Zurich leg was amazing. He was so confidant and calm in his leadership, was always warm and went the extra mile to help travelers. Things we heard travelers complain about but weren't a "problem" per se 1. Changing guides/tour divided into legs - if you are looking for the standard actor guide who entertains you with a dramatic flair, a tour group that sticks together all day for everything and a "family" that you grow close to over the two weeks, this isn't for you. The guides are not actors and they vary in quality. They are all native Spanish speakers, and their English fluency varies (tour group from Spain- you should expect this). Some were only okay in English and because I know Spanish, I could tell they were giving information in Spanish that they weren’t giving in English. 2.The pacing- is described in the itinerary including how long you spend in the cities (never more, can be less) and how many kms you travel each day. It isn't a leisurely pace and if you go into it expecting that, you are only deceiving yourself. 3. Free time - you are paying for the bus, guides and hotels. That's mostly it and the price reflects this. The itinerary clearly indicates what you pay for and when your free time is. You don't get a ton of tickets to things or personal tours of certain tourist areas. You get a very general, two hour bus tour of the bigger cities. Excursions and entrance into tourist attractions are extra in the optional excursions or for you to arrange on your own. I'll explain how this gets complicated in my next list. 4. Hotels- if you’re a budget traveler, these are the hotels you know well and you should expect this. They’re the Super 8 or sometimes even the Holiday Inn level. Most of them are fine - clean, have everything you need. Not fancy. Things we didn’t like about the tour 1. The crowds/group tours- Europamundo puts 100s of travelers on most legs of this trip. They get away with this because the tour you’re specifically travelling on says they only have a max of 75, but there are several different tours going on at the same time, in the same city from Europamundo. You get mixed with them on buses, in the hotels and at the tourist areas. We “fought for our resources” the whole way through this trip- fighting crowds for breakfast, spots on the elevator for luggage, seats on buses, spots in queues to get to the bathrooms or food. 100s of people let off in the same rest areas, same central squares, staying in the same hotels or going on the same tour was what made this tour much less enjoyable for us. It is this reason alone that we would probably never do a bus tour again. This has nothing to do with the high tourist season either. This wasn’t the busy season and guides said that. The problem is that too many tour groups stuff way too many people into the same small spaces at the exact same time and expect them to just deal with it. 2. Chaotic daily schedule – I said earlier that they did a good job of demonstrating the overall pacing in the itinerary and that is true. It was the minor details that they tended not include and wouldn’t even reveal until the last possible moment that can cause stress. If I don’t know when or where we’re being dropped off or picked up, I can’t book tickets or plan anything for myself for the 8 hours I have free in Lisbon, for example. If I do book my own excursion somewhere, I risk my booking being far out of the way, missing the transfer to my hotel or missing my booked activity because we didn’t get dropped off in time. We wanted to book restaurants but we couldn’t in the last two legs because they were much more chaotic than the first. We had a hard time trying to work around them and spent more time just sticking near a meeting spot to kill time because it was to busy and crowded to try to get in anywhere last minute. If we could’ve booked things ahead or known more information, we could’ve planned better

Too many people in the group , and the time spent in the attraction is too rush. However, the guides are very professional and helpful and pleasant!

Worked well for us. Clear instructions Hotels were good especially Hotel Brazzero in Syros.

Great experience. Team was always available to answer my questions or concerns. Enjoyed my stay in Crete and last minute I asked them to extend my day at the Hotel and change air tickets. All was done within 2 hours and they paid to secure booking before collecting payment from me. Will be back next year but Dot Travel will be top of my list. Thank you Team,your wonderful support made my tour memorable. Lots of Love Mark

Great experiences, quality hotels and outstanding tour guide and driver

Spectacular experience with brilliant tour director

Good morning, Thanks for asking to our experience during the tour. In general it was good. The things were good: The driver was helpful, gentleman and offer his help all the time The order of travel between the cities was organized and comfortable. The hotels were good and clean Things to be improved: The time of gathering on the first day at the VPT office was not precise (time given to us was 07:45, but the office opened& the staff came at 08:30) and the driver came at 09:30 The bus was old, noisy and uncomfortable during the trip No wifi (internet) available in the bus during the tour, The driver offer us his wifi from his mobile phone. The variety of foods in lunch and dinners were limited and no options, some tourists are vegetarian and others are Muslims and have their meals. The local guides were helpful and tried to give us the valuable information but their English language was not good and some information was missing. The tour in some cities was short and not precious and short like Granada, Cordoba. We missed a lot of important things like the old city of Cordoba (Alzahrra), Lions Fontaine in Nasser palace in Granada… etc. In general the tour was good and thank you for your services. Regards.

The itinerary was just right and our guide Venessa was excellent.

We just returned from our 10 day Italian Discovery tour-here are our thoughts: Can't say enough about the beauty of everything we saw & the nice people we encountered on this trip. HOWEVER, this is NOT a consistent tour-Meaning,I thought that we were booked on a tour with the same guide & driver for the whole 10 day trip-and also that there would be a maximum of 30 people as stated in the description. Day 1-5 we had a GREAT Guide Stefano & a GREAT driver-Luigi. We stopped to pick up other passengers at a diff't hotel on day one-those people had a partial version of our tour.That made it more than the 30 max-there were 36-38 people- So ask-if this is not what you want- We had several different people added to our tour throughout our trip-often dropping them at another hotel at night. Days 6-9 were a mishmash of diff't drivers and local guides, some with confusing information. There are a few excursion days where you have a local guide, and after the tour-need to find your way back to your hotel on your own ( they did tell you how to do that-but I would prefer to have the same bus take us back to the hotel.) Some of the hotels were 3 star at best due to quirky rooms, others were better-but the food whenever included was usually good. The included lunch in Motepulciano was fabulous! Capri/Blue Grotto day, which was our last day was definitely the most challenging-with literally 9 modes of transportation-mini bus-ferry-smaller boat-row boat & back again-also the guide on the bus messed up our hotel and took us to the wrong one-making a group of us have to take a taxi back to the hotel we thought we were staying at ( by this time 10:30 at night) Overall, there could be more time for shopping & more organization of where the tour guides meet you at the end of the tours. You start every day very earl and pack a lot in-Get ready for a LOT of walking-bring good walking shoes! Make sure you have coins for the public bathrooms! I think with a few tweaks-this could be a great tour-but will definitely check that it is one group of people for the entire time on our next trip!

Most of the trip was amazing! We had a wonderful time. Our tour guide was fantastic. The las 24 hours of the trip fell apart. The tour guide did not give clear instructions, He was not available for questions. He told us to meet at a location 500 yards away from where we needed to be. He walked to fast and did not carry a colored flag for us to be able to find him. To top it off. He dropped us off at the wrong hotel. The night before our flight home. We had to take a Taxi to the correct hotel, we will NOT be using Tourradar again. We will not recommend Tourradar either

The hotel accommodation was good apart from the hotel in Oviedo. We felt that too much was crammed in to the 10 days for example travelling to Bilbao then being taken the next day to San Sebastián and back to Bilbao that evening. I would have preferred more time in Bilbao. The guide was not clear about travel timings regarding stops and meals, and wasn’t familiar with Northern Spain. We were told our trip from Madrid to the Rioja winery would be just over 3 hours it took nearly 6 and our lunch was a light tapas at the winery in the cellars that had been waiting for us. On another occasion lunch was cancelled at a stop and we moved on only to get to Oviedo for 5 o’clock to find all the restaurants unable to serve us as as it was a national holiday and they weren’t opening again till later. On the Sunday we travelled to see the cathedral at Mondonengo to find it closed. We travelled with you to Sicily last year and it was an excellent holiday. I found the tour operators you used ‘Mapping Journeys, less efficient and disappointing at times.

I loved this tour of Sicily. The accommodations were all very nice, and the tour guides were fantastic. This tour was a little different than I expected where there isn’t a tour guide overall. You never meet the organizers. Each day you have a different guide and driver. It was fine, just not what I expected. A couple of the days were long, but overall you have lots of free time. Perfect choices of towns. I would recommend that the drivers that are also guides, have a microphone, as it is difficult to hear in the back of the van. I recommend this tour, Sicily is amazing.

Wonderful tour experience from booking to end. Tour operator was excellent in making adjustments to our itinerary to accommodate additional days before and after the tour. Communication during the tour was great as well.

Marina Travel 3 day tour wasn't my first choice, but had to book quickly after Arctic Adventures canceled on me 2 weeks before the trip that I had booked months ago. I am very happy how responsive Marina Travel team was, the booking and the communication was great. Everything was well organized, and despite the heavy rain that followed us, we had fun! Very nice experience, I will highly recommend.

Enjoyed a beautiful vacation in Greece. Shell of a tour with not much included as stated. Ran into a few snafu's that were quickly and efficiently resolved by the tour company with care and consideration as well as cost refunds and room upgrade. Thanks Barb. This tour would benefit greatly from a couple of added excursions. Also of note, Galaxy Villa's in Crete should be avoided.

Thank you for essentially planning all of our excursions and planned activities.

Don’t know how a 2 star company can hire and keep 5 star employees. The driver, Jose & Tour Director, Rachel, were excellent. Jose is an amazing driver who skillfully navigated tiny streets and kept us safe. He maneuvered the bus with incredible finesse. Rachel is knowledgeable, friendly, and her charming upbeat nature set the tone for our tour. She spoiled us with many treats that reflected the culture of places visited. She and Jose had a great rapport and their wit and humor only made things better. The tour itself was very disappointing. The ambitious itinerary disappointed because many of the stopping points were very short (an hour or so) and did not allow any in depth experience. For example, Fatima-the reason we chose this tour was 2 hours or less) and it was not possible to visit this shrine with any sense of reverence or to even see everything there. It was a frenzy of buying candles, lighting, praying. Mass was being said but I could only spend a few minutes there. Also had to make a mad dash t find souvenir shop and purchase items to bring home; holy water bottles and then try to fill them and run back to the bus. I have been on several European tours and never had to manage my own luggage. If I had known in advance, I would not have booked the tour because at 77, handling luggage is too much. In Malaga, we had to take our luggage up and down a very steep cobblestone incline. Even though the driver got us as close to the location as he could park, it was a nightmare. I tore a ligaments in my leg doing this and it pretty much ruined any further enjoyment of the tour because of the pain and restricted mobility. I am still being treated and have impaired mobility at home. The hotels were just OK. Some not so good -for example the first one with lime green decor, frozen in the 60’s or 70’s. It was worn out and too far from Barcelona to be accessible. The other hotels were typical of those catering to large groups-adequate, but showing their wear. The hotel staff in all the hotels was top notch. I could go on-but you get the idea.

Travel vs time at locations was a bit travel heavy but it was a good trip, saw alot.

Makis was an excellent driver, the itinerary was comprehensive and the guides were well versed in their subject matter.

Great service. We really enjoyed the our time, our hotels were in the center of each destination with easy access which was mandatory for us. The hole team was friendly and professional, no issues. Excellent.

Tour was fabulous. Hotels, meals, trains, tours, everything was very organized. Tour guide Gianna was great, very knowledgeable and caring about all of us in the group. She was like a Mom to all of us. Thank you, Gianna, for making it a great experience

English language tours that were actually in three languages left a lot to be desired. Communications were very limited.