Just back from an exciting 16 day trip with Globus. I've been reading this board for months prior to my trip and want to thank everyone for all of the information. It was sad to hear from our Tour Director about all the trips not being run because people are cancelling. Europe is beautiful right now, and the people are great.

You mentioned that you took a Globus tour to Italy. I am also considering one of their tours -- the Italian Mosaic. Could you let me know which tour you took and what you enjoyed or did not like about the tour. my direct email address is [email protected].<BR><BR>Thank you

I just returned from a Globus Best of Italy &amp; Greece tour. I prefer the hassle free traveling that tours offer and Globus did provide everything that they advertised. Unfortunately we had a TD that was burnt out, totally unhelpful and at times unpleasant. She came to life only when pushing over priced options or soliciting her tip. Shopping and lunch stops were obviously based on a commission sales kick back. The provided meals were in hotels and generally were nothing more than mass feeding among other tour groups. When leaving on an optional excursion the TD would not allow other tour members to ride along to be dropped off along the way. I had one other tour experience with Go Ahead vacations that I would rate far superior.

hi all,

My experience with Globus was very similar to crabs.

In 1995/1996? my first trip to Europe, we did a 16 day excursion of the UK. This trips route was basically starting in London and traveling all along great britian coastline, working our way south of london and west to wales and north to scotland, then back down the eastern coastline of GB.

I truly enjoyed meeting all the people and the hotels were average standard,,not superior standard as the brochure said. However, we had only one that was truly bad (and that was because it was out in the boonies of scotland at a small town that had closed up at 5pm and there was simply nothing to do for the rest of the evening. We had been traveling for 3 hours thru the highlands of scotland and many of us had wanted to stop and spend time,,,only to spend time traveling for 3 hours on the bus and ending up in this town. With the exception of the seeing the vista's thru the bus windows, which was magnificent, we barely got to experience the highlands.

However, what made me grit my teeth was the tour director and the concept that crab described of the out of the way location stops where the tour director got kickbacks for bringing the bus there. there were many times that this location was far away from the actual tourist areas and it was very inconvenient to get back to them in the time allowed. I realize that not all buses are allowed in tourist areas, but this was ridiculous.

We had so many complaints about this tour director he jumped ship about 2/3's of the way thru the trip and left us with no tour director. attempts to get any reimbursed by globus were not good.

the final straw occurred when several items that were advertised as part of the package, were canceled for some reason or another. The package advertised certain particular events included and we ended up with a total of 4 or 5 out of 15 being canceled. the most disappointing one was the ferry ride to the isle of sky. yes we ended up at the isle of sky, but it was suppose to leave from a certain point on the coast, work its way up the coast to the isle, therefore giving us a look from the sea at the scotish coastline. we ended up just taking the bus north to the isle of sky and crossing the bridge, which I suspect they did on a regular basis. (no extra cost).

In the end, I loved great britain and it whet my appetite for more traveling, so I would say that it was a success,,,but it cured me of ever doing an excorted tour in a country that I could tour on my own.

Finally, I would say that I am not tour or excusion type. I like to settle in and nest in an area and ferret out all its secrets. stopping in a town for a day or two simply does not allow for this.

Now I see the benefit of doing this these tours, when you have a short period of time to visit many multiple areas, or non english speaking countries that are very spread out and remote,,,Russia perhaps.

Reading these posts, I realize how important the tour director is. I did a Insight Tour of Italy, Italian Escapade...it was absolutely wonderful and I loved not having to worry about finding my way in a country that I didn't speak the language, or having to handle my luggage and so on...of course, the tour director was so wonderful and helpful to us all that many of us started calling her &quot;mom&quot;. She never pushed optionals, she told us about them and the ones she thought were really good, but I never once felt any pressure. She helped people with traveling arrangements after the tour ended and was an absolute marvelous help to my friend in getting in touch with the airline when my friend's luggage didn't make it to Rome for 2 days. She made sure everyone was happy with the meals and special dietary requirements taken care of. And once last thing, she has been a tour director for more than 20 years and never once did I feel as though she was bored.

The only problem that I can see is that I may have been spoiled and that no other Tour Director will ever be able to live up to her standard of service. Of course, I showed my appreciation with an appropriate tip.

That was my experience with GoAhead. The mothers all adopted him. The TD was very helpful and advised how to use public transp. at every city stay. We ate at local restaurants instead of hotels and the TD always ate with us. He conducted walking tours on his own and even arranged a private fairwell dinner for the group. You were made to feel like a individual on tour with a group. With Globus we lost our individuality. Again, Globus did provide what they promised but it could have been a more exciting experience. It's hard to spoil seeing the sites of Italy and Greece.

I had the totally opposite experience on my Paris and Provence tour with Globus. We had the most wonderful tour director, Jean Loup. He did everything, and more, for the group. He did not &quot;push&quot; any shopping excursions at all and was most attentive to all on the trip. We were in France during 911 and he negotiated hotel rates if we couldn't get home and when we could, he escorted us himself 3:00a.m. to the airport. On this trip we spent 3 nights in Paris (in a moderate deluxe hotel), three nights in Provence and 3 nights in Nice.

All in all, this was the most fabulous tour that I have been on and would gladly go again.

We, too, have had very positive experiences with Tour Directors, both overseas with Trafalgar and in Australia with APT.
There is no doubt that they can make or break a tour, and we kept hearing about other people's 'good' or 'bad' ones as we were travelling.

The TD on our Globus trip was wonderful. He did not push optionals, or make anyone feel guilty for passing them up. He went out of his way to assist us when one member of the group had a passport stolen. We had to take a train to another city in advance of the group. He personally put us on the train and arranged for a friend to meet us at the other end so we wouldn't have to navigate ourselves. We met up with the group later that same day. Some people didn't even realize we were gone!
I'd do another Globus trip in a second!

&quot;Globus did provide everything that they advertised...TD was burntout..and unpleasant...provided meals were...mass feeding...&quot; ???!!!


This is one of the caveats about tours it seems.
Travel can have its pitfalls whether you plan it yourself or go with a group, but to pay a lot of money
and have the ambience of a trip dependent on the tour director's personality, or on an agency's choice of what a good value meal is, is something I will forego until I'm at the stage of life where I have no other choices.

For those who have enjoyed themselves,
I really am happy for you, but for now I'll take my chances in another way.