Sicily/S. Italy/Rome - September, 2005

If this is a duplicate - sorry.

My dream trip was unsatisfactory due to uncomfortable hotel rooms (no hot water/no air-conditioning/flat,lumpy mattresses and pillows/noisy locations) and repetitive, mediocre meals -- all chosen by Perillo Tours. To that, add an overcrowded bus and no tour guides provided at some major Greek/Roman sites.

The hotel at Taormina (three nights) had a train rumbling past every 25 minutes from approximately 6AM until after midnight --- just between the property and the sea.

I had to change rooms on the tour 6 times and what added insult to injury was that I paid Perillo a single-supplement fee of over $600, in addition to the high cost of the tour.

I wrote a letter to Steve Perillo expressing my legitimate complaints and received, in my opinion, a response from Customer Service that was dismissive and offered no remedy for my inconvenience and disappointment.

If you wish to have details, please write and I will be happy to provide them to you.

It is a shame they didn't give you a list of hotels before you book the tour, then you could have opted out.

Thanks for your post, lynnre, and the descriptive (and not over-emotional) story of what went wrong.

Although I suspect that many people on this board tend to be more independent travelers and not as likely to use tour companies, it does seem to me that companies such as Perillo ought to provide their customers with reliably comfortable accommodations.

Perhaps this experience (and lynnre's sharing it) will encourage some people who might otherwise have thought about tour companies to consider more independent travel.

When I was in high school my parents took me on a Globus tour. While the experience was not as awful as the o.p.'s I didn't like it. I found that most of the time we were on a bus as we had to cover quite a few cities in two weeks. The hotels were like 2*'s and not in the city center so we couldn't enjoy our free days well. And the food was nothing memorable. It's because of this experience I travel independently now.

SeaUrchin, I always travel with some tour company, and let me assure you: every traveler has a list of hotels with at least phone numbers to leave for relatives in case of emergency. Usually with addresses.

Most tour companies, at least the larger ones, maybe Perillo too, post the list on the internet.

Lynnre, I don't understand what do you mean by "overcrowded bus". Do you mean they had more people on the bus then seats available? Now, that would be illegal! Everybody must have a seat, and take the seat before the bus starts moving.

If you mean all seats were taken, and your single supplement only gave you a room to yourself, not a 2-seater on the bus, and you had to have a companion - this is normal for tours. Love thy neighbour!

You had to change your room 6 times - what a pain it was! (to the tour director!) Were you the only one to change rooms, or everybody on that "overcrowded bus" asked for another room, and you were the only lucky one to get 6 new rooms?

Sorry you didn't like the food. I guess even in Italy the food can be mediocre! Thanks for the warning.

Faina, I have never taken a tour like that so I didn't realize you can check out your hotels before you book the tour. So the moral of the tale is not to book if you don't like the location of the hotels.

I know I have seen the poor people on tours in the back rooms of restaurants when I pass through on the way to the ladies room. I always felt sorry for them as they were eating different food than we were and looked miserable.

one thing that i don't understand about tours....

I don't think that i have ever eaten in a restaurant anywhere in europe that was large enough or configured in such a way that it could accomodate a tour group. so my question is...where the heck do these large groups eat? obviously there are hotels or restaurants that have dining rooms large enough to accomodate but my point is that the best places (and i don't mean the most expensive) don't have such accomodation for groups.

unless someone can convince me otherwise, i think this is a major disadvantage to going with a tour group.

Thanks to all for their coments (sympathy) and a brief reply to FainaAgain.

Your response was dripping with sarcasm and I resent it. My experiences were quite disruptive and disturbing. The bus was, indeed, so overcrowded, that the tour director had to use the jump seat throughout (and mightily complained about it).

As for the rooms -- I was not the only one to change. Nor did the tour director suffer because of it. She, in fact, abandoned me at the front desk on the first night (when my room did not have hot water) and I had to fend for myself each time, without her assistance.

I think we ate at tour group restaurants when we did eat at restaurants. A couple of times I recall we ate in the hotels we stayed at and that wasn't great. The 1* or 2* German hotel we stayed at served a terrible curry dish that included apples which to me don't go together.

What a mess, lynnre. It is a terrible thing to have a dream trip ruined.

Are you going to travel w/o tours from now on?

Tell us about Sicily, did you enjoy it?

Lynnre, this is strange, the tour director didn't give all participant his/her room number or a cell phone number. If I was abandoned, I'd call the 800 tour company number.

Walkinaround: not all the meals are included. Breakfasts are buffets in hotels. On my tour of Switzerland banquet rooms were reserved for dinners and food/wine were great.

We also had a farm lunch (with tiramisu and black forest, oh, my mouth is water now!!) and a fondue dinner outside Zermatt in the mountains.

I don't remember being miserable or overcrowded at any meal on any tour in USA or Europe.

Speaking of tours in general - I join them only not to be alone in an unfamiliar place. If traveling with somebody - we're on our own!

I don't understand why the tour director complained. More people on the tour - more tip envelopes at the end, everyone undertands that!

lynnre -- maybe a letter to the Conde Nast Ombudsman would help.

the tour directors do usually sit on the jumpseat...on the one tour I took, there was plenty of room and the tour director did sit on the jumpseat.

You still didn't answer, were there more people than seats available?

Fair to say, not all hotels are listed on Perillo's website. The travel documents come in about 4 weeks prior to travel, so it's too late to back out.

Still I wonder what makes a person to change rooms 6 times.

Faina - Not all tour companies are created equal. You have been lucky not to have experienced a bad one. There are many bad ones.

Many tour companies overcrowd their busses. All the busses are the same length but the reconfigure the seats (like airlines do) to accomadate larger groups. Some busses will only have 40 seats and the passengers will have plenty of leg room. Other busses, the exact same length, will have as many as 54 seats. When that happens your knees are literally touching the seats in front of you. It isn't pleasant. In the past there were quite a few posts on this board about Grand European Tours (or GET) about this.

Also many tour companies list hotels but don't actually use the hotels they list. When you read the fine print it always says they reserve the right to make changes.

lynnre - Thanks for posting about Perillo as I always considered them to be an upscale, quality company. Their tours are quite pricey compared to what it would cost to do an independent trip. Some of the problems you had are just part of Italy and could have happened even if you were traveling independtly. It's quite common in Italy to have hot water problems as well as electrical problems.

If you decide to travel on your own,check out your hotels on trip advisor.

To lyb: The only seats left were at the very rear of the bus --- all across.

To Sea Urchin - Thanks for the good vibes. I went on this trip alone (for the first time) and I decided to take a tour. Next time, I'll check every site for traveler's reviews before I would consider another escorted tour company.

As for Sicily -- I did get a taste for it on the tour, but I do wish we had a guide at Agrigento and more time at Syracusa. The reason I went was for the ruins. The food (off the tour) was terrific. If you have more questions, please send your e-mail address and I'll be happy to respond.

Same idea, tries2pak...
Send in the details to Conde Nast Traveler magazine Ombudsman and see if they can help.

Actually we had a very good experience with Perillo on the Sicily and South Italy tour in 1999. My family had been using them since the seventies.

Dollar for dollar it is amazing what we get for our money. I've gone to italy 4 times sine and there is no way you can see and do as much as with these professionals. So many things included in the price and you don't appreciate it until you start forking out the money yourself.

Best thing about the hotels are they are located in or close enough that you can do some nighttime adventuring.

Some restaurants were so-so and some were great. There was always the opportunity to eat something special when we were on our own at lunch.

My girlfriend is a vegetarian and Annela (our tour guide) made sure she received something special at every meal. Many of our fellow travelers wished they had done the same.

Bottles of local white and red wine with every dinner… Wonderful!

Taormina. We stayed at the same hotel down on the beach. I slept like a rock. We made a point of gong into town at night. Wonderful memories.

We met some people I'll never ferget. Some better to forgeten.

If I had a problem it was the whining and complaining done by my fellow travelers. But as hard as they tried they could not destroy a great vacation.

Chao

I have taken 2 trips with Perillo, one in 1992 and one this past Sept. 2005. There was a world of difference. This most recent trip had 49 people on our bus and 47 people on another bus which used the same hotels and restaurants for the most part, so nearly 100 people on this trip to Sicily and Amalfi coast to Rome. I can tell you that it was mighty uncomfortable on that bus with the seats so close together. The food in the restaurants each evening (we had no chance to eat out) was very mediocre for Italian food. Not so in 1992.

Now the tour did take us to the major sites and we did have a guide each time but with so many people it was hard to get close to the guide to hear. At Pompeii and at the Sistine chapel, we did have head sets that made the guide hearable(?)

So all I can say is that we covered the sites advertised but the rest of the trip--bus and restaurants and some hotels were a let down. I advised my sister and her husband, who are considering a trip to Northern Italy, to forget about Perillo and take Insight instead. Insight seems to have caught on to more space on the buses and taking no more than 40. We talked to some of them in one of our hotels. Also they were allowed to eat on their own a few times.

We skipped the last night at the palace that Perillo rents for their highlight dinner and went out to eat in Rome--The best meal of our trip at Myosotis as I have mentioned in another post.

Also Perillo does not send out ANY info before the trip, not even a map of Italy. I guess they think that the catalog info is all we need to have. I would not recommend Perillo at all and I have taken many tour company trips over the years as well as my well planned trips usingm the Fodor travel site.

Thanks for letting me vent, lynnre, I needed to do that too.

Thanks to both Tries2PakLite and annabelle2 for their suggestion. I'll do it!