Meet and Greet Italy Reviews 

Our tour leader, Anamaria, was fantastic and went out of her way to accommodate us. We took a ten day tour on April 18 and had 9 people in our group, which was fantastic! We did have issue with the tour itself and the lack of information we were given beforehand. We were not told that we would be walking over 5 miles each day, that the company would only handle 1 suitcase per person, and that the triple rooms were basically standard rooms with a rollaway or sofabed, and that Italy does not use air conditioning in April, even when the weather is quite warm. We were responsible for our own suitcases getting on and off trains and in the hotels, not service from door to door as described. We had older people and people who had trouble keeping up, so we ended up hiring taxis in many locations and not seeing the inside of many of the beautiful buildings we were visiting. We missed a whole day in Rome because of a train derailment, snd it took hours to get vans to take our group from Florence to Rome. If I had known the physical requirements for the tour ahead of time, I would have booked another tour. The description made it sound like this tour was easier than most because they used trains to transport us between cities and that we wouldn’t have to worry about our luggage, but this tour is best for very fit individuals! Even our fittest participants were complaining! I loved Annamaria and the food, but the tour was not what we were led to believe it was!

This tour of Italy was an interesting experience for viewing the cities and buildings of Italy. We visited eight cities and walked around and saw the sights. Unfortunately, only one museum was included, the Vatican museum, and that for only a limited time. The tour description was not clear that we woud not be going inside places, just walking around and seeing them. The tour needs to include extra days in Venice, Florence, and Rome to enable us to visit museums of choice, for example to go inside St. Mark’s basilica and Doge’s palace in Venice, one or two museums in Florence, the Colosseum and Pantheon in Rome. With an extra day in each city, skip-the-line tickets could have been purchased and these iconic sights could have been visited. Imagine going to Italy and NOT seeing these places! That’s what we did, and it was a great disappointment. Alternately, for those not interested in doing this, day tours to nearby places would have been available, like a day trip to Cinque Terre or Pisa or Assisi. In addition to the need for two or three additional days, advance details of travel arrangements (i.e. train schedules) should be sent to travelers a couple of weeks before the tour. “In the morning, take a high-speed train” does not mean 1:00 pm! With advance notice, rather than the evening before, the additional time in Venice could have been utilized (skip-the-line tickets, for example, which need to be booked in advance.) Costantino was a great tour leader through it all. He truly “spent himself” to make our tour special, doing what he could to handle the situations that came up, like getting to Florence later than expected because of inaccurate description of the train schedule, and extended time in the Vatican (with a different guide) that caused missed Colosseum appointments, and weather issues that required change of plans. He was knowledgeable, cheerful, helpful, considerate, and tireless, making our trip a great experience. It would be great to tour with him again.

Our tour guide, Constantino was the best part of this tour. As a first experience with a scheduled tour, this one convinced me not to book another. The tour felt rushed and did not provide enough time in any of the places visited. This could have been mediated by better scheduling by the tour company or at least providing a schedule ahead of time so we could get a sense of how much time we had to do our own thing. For example, the brochure said that we'd leave Venice in the morning to arrive in Florence. It's a 2hr train ride so, many of us booked a timed entry to museums for late afternoon only to discover, the day before leaving Venice that we'd be departing in the afternoon. As a result, we all had to cancel our booked museum tours. Some were able to rebook, others were not so lucky. This was extremely distressing for some on our tour - there were tears!
The hotels were less than stellar. Murano was a lovely hotel but bad weather made getting back and forth on the boat a less than plesant experience. The hotel in Florence was well equipped but too far from the attractions and was on a very noisy main highway with a tram right outside. It was so noisy that we couldn't open our windows so we our choice was bake overnight in a too hot room or be kept awake by road noise. The distance from the old part of the city was 20 mins walking. This was way too far, especially for the many older people on the tour. Additionally, walking back at night did not feel safe as it was so far out and nobody was around.
The hotel in Rome was a block from a large homeless encampment. We made a wrong turn on the first night and ran right into the encampment. We did not venture out at night alone again in Rome. The hotel, while only a block from the train station was quite far from the tourist destinations. This made for a great deal of excess walking.
Finally, the hotel in Sorrento was tired and very, very uncomfortable. I have never experienced such cheap, hard beds and lumpy pillows. Clearly no reinvestment is made by the owners as this hotel was tired and shabby. The only great things about this hotel were the terrace and the staff. Otherwise, it was terrible.
My recommendation to the tour company is to provde firm scheduling a week before departure so we know what to expect and to add an additional day onto Florence and Rome that are completely unscheduled so that people have a chance to book visits to museums, etc.