I am thinking of surprising my daughter with a high school graduation trip to Rome (6 nights), along with 11 yr old son. Have begun looking at packages and wondered how many of you buy packages vs airfare and finding your own accomodations. Airfare from Dallas for early June is almost as much as some internet package deals. Specifically, go-today seems to have more add ons than expedia and is more expensive in general. Also, am somewhat apprehensive spending that much money booking over the internet.

Anyway, Hotel Bolivar appears to be well located, but there have been no recent posts about it. Anyone with recent experience? It has good reviews on tripadvisor, as does des artistes, which appears to be away from the historic city. Packages for Champagne Palace are reasonable and reviews are fine. I have read very favorable things about Senato, but it's much more expensive. Just trying to get a handle on the basic cost before I commit. Our main focus will be museums, ruins, but I will need some fun things for 11 year old boy-any ideas? I read about soccer games; anyone done that? May take a day trip to Florence.

Just starting to research things, but don't know how far in advance I need to make reservations for air and hotel. Some of the hotels I checked are already booked up.

Thanks for your help.

My wife and I have used Go-Today in the past (in fact we just returned from Rome in November) and have never had any problems. Can't comment on the hotel you are looking at, we stayed at the Nazionale which we found very nice. One thing about Go-Today is that you can extend your departure date which allows you to see a bit more of Italy. The package deal we had was much cheaper than anything we could have booked on our own. We also had no problems booking over the internet.

I've done more checking tonight, and it appears that Cesari is a good choice from several different sources. There are packages from Expedia and Vacation.net. Is anyone familiar with Vacation.net? It's about $200 cheaper for the very same package; it even appears in the same format as Expedia. Also, I could save $1500 by going spring break 3/8-3/13 rather than June. Am I taking a chance that the weather could spoil our trip by trying to save the money? I've read that it should be much less crowded then. Not quite the same as a graduation gift, but I'm sure she would be thrilled.

I was also looking at Expedia for a while, but decided to opt for Travelocity instead. What the sales rep told me was if I bought a package, I would have to pay upfront for everything as soon as I booked. This was very different from the package I bought for an airline where you put down a deposit, then 2 months before you go, you pay everything. This was a particular issue since we were buying packages in Oct. for a Jan/Feb trip and one of us had a crazy schedule.

This was the reason why I used Travelocity instead. The ticket I had to pay upfront, and the hotels required a credit card to hold. The way I look at it, if anything goes amiss, I'm only out a night's reservation or we will have to scramble for a hotel during the winter.

Lil

I also forgot to add that the "specials" that Expedia advertises sound great, but when you add up the hidden charges (often charged/night) for a hotel room, you might only save $20-$30 in toto when compared to some competitor's hotel quote.

Be very certain that you find out about ALL the fees, charges, etc. before you commit. Good luck!

Lil