I prefer a group tour and after doing a search here, there are many favorable comments about GoAhead vacations, the adult EF version. I'm leaning toward them because I like the moderately priced lodging(I don't spend much time in the hotel) Does anyone know if the high recent turnover at EF tours also affected GoAhead? Would like to hear from anyone who has recently used them. Thanks...

The turnover wasn't all that recent (2002) unless there is a new one that I haven't heard about. I receive mailings (and phone calls) from both EF and GoAhead trying to recruit me to take a group on a trip. Go Ahead Tours has recently changed their name from Go Ahead Vacations and they have a new president. I don't think the name change or new president has anything to do with the EF/Explorica defections from 4 years ago.

The GoAhead hotels are listed by name whereas the EF just states two possible hotel qualities.

My concern with them would be the flight. In order to get cheap fares they may schedule you with long layovers and you won't find out your flight information until a few weeks before departure. Sometimes your flights can be so bad that you actually get there too late for the first day of touring. I think you should consider booking your own flights.

kybourbon,(or anyone)- Is it possible to book my own flight from US and just have GoAhead handle the Europe arrangements(transfers, hotels etc.)? If so, many thanks for the idea..

I just looked in one of the books they sent me and they offer to book your flights on your favorite airline or a particular route, but you have to call them. I feel like there will probably be an extra charge for this and I would want any flight promises in writing. They also offer to book early or late flights and extra days at hotels for your first and last cities if you want to extend your stay.

Actually, the book says there is a small additional cost for prefererred routing and all of their tours include flights.

Are you guaranteed a specific hotel when you go with Go Ahead? I've been on 2 EF tours and the hotels were very far away. With paris it wasn't a big deal, b/c we were right near the RER and our trip was to Paris (only - with side trips). This was much more a problem for my Italy trip, where we moved around more - it was Venice-Florence-Rome. they changed our rome hotel at right before we left and it was soooo far away, next to no public transit. It was such an odd location that the taxi driver we hired (a bunch us defected from the tour the last day) to take us back to our hotel from Rome didn't know the town we were staying! He had to make several phone calls to find out how to get there!

Go Ahead hotels I believe are usually 3 and 4 star.

Karens - Go Ahead does list the actual hotel with pictures in their brochures, although they reserve the right to make changes to a comparable hotel. They also list where the hotel is located, so if the hotel name has a C next to it, that means it's in the Center of the city or historic center.