First of all, thank you to all who re-confirmed my thought about Ritz Tours.

I have found another one that seems ok and fits our budget and gives us enough free time. It's from Go Ahead Tours http://www.goaheadtours.com/master/d...p?tourCode=VFR

Has anyone used them? What do you think of them?

Thanks for the help!!
Karineh

My parents recently used GoAhead Tours for the Wine, Waltzes and the Rhine tour of Christmas markets.

Overall, they were happy and said they would use them again. However, it turned out that the tour was not full. The smaller group and extra room on the bus may have contributed to the overall positive experience.

This tour looks infinitely superior to the itinerary from Ritz Tours. I have no experience with Go Ahead Tours and thus cannot vouch for them. I am familiar with tour companies such as Brendan Vacations which I can recommend. Take a look at their website for comparison purposes.

I have only used a tour company two times and one was Go Ahead. We were satisfied - they give you a good product for the money, and they used local guides in each city, and they were excellent - local teachers. I chose that company because they gave us free time in each city so we could explore on our own after a morning tour. I can't comment on the one you chose, since ours was in Spain. We don't speak Spanish and we wanted to cover a lot of ground, so it was a relief to have all the transportation and hotels chosen for us.

I was on two tours with Go Ahead. The first was to France and Spain. The second was a walking tour of Tuscany. They represent a good value and the tour guides were knowledgeable and quite helpful.

I think they are a middle of the road tour company, not budget nor luxury. The hotels, as I recall, were for the most part centrally located so that free time allowed one to walk to points of interest. The hotels were in every case that I recall, three stars.

Both tours were in the mid 1990s so there may be changes of which I'm not aware.

Thank you all!!