Anyone been on the splendors of Italy trip with Brendan vacations? It seems cost effective around $2175 but has to be some catch. Perillo has the continental tour with very similar itenary for 3200. Is Brendan a good deal or is perillo better?

You need to compare what each tour offers - number of meals, hotel location, included sights vs. optional tours, amount of time on the bus. The itineraries may be similar but other things may not be.

Have you looked at the hotels to see the quality and the vacation (Are they sticking you in Mestre for the Venice part of the tour)?

Have you looked at the number of meals that are included? Are they fixed menu in a hotel dining rooms - or are their choices in a restauarant with real local food?

Have you looked at which sights are part of the basic tour and which are "optional extras"?

Have you compared the number of nights in each place?

Have you read the brochures with a full understanding of brochure language? ("View" means you see a sight out of the bus window as you drive by; "stop" means you have a 5 minute photo op out front but don;t go inside, and only "visit" means you actually go inside the sight. And perhaps not for as long as you want.)

Do the trips have identical itineraries? If not - which is spending more time where you want to be?

<< quality and the vacation >>

I think you mean location, not vacation.

I have not taken that tour and it's been quite a few years, but my first trip to Europe was a Brendan tour and it was fine. They actually hooked up with Globus once we hit the continent. We started in London.

I was happy with it. The hotels were all over the map..not so great in London, fab in Paris, Lucerne, and Florence. So, so in Venice (Maestre as mentioned above), and Rome was not bad.

The hotels were all close to transportation if you wanted to use it but most of them were not in the city center. They use different hotels all the time so see what hotels they list for your trip and do some research to see where they are locate and what transportation is near by, depending on your length of stay in a particular city.

I can't speak for recent times, but I was quite satisfied with my tour. It was very fun and informative. I have since returned Europe on my own, no tours.