Tourist Class Hotels???
 

Trafalgar's Italian Dream Tour to Rome, Venice and Florence lists "Tourist Class" Hotels. I'm not sure what this means can anyone give me a hint? The hotels are: In Rome, Ergife Palace; In Venice, Holiday Inn Express; In Florence, Galileo. Thanks for your help!

the best term i can think of to describe them is "sad". And it borders on the hysterical to think that they are the hotels of a "dream tour".

Don't know the others, but Ergife Palace calls itself a 4-star hotel (and may be) but is out of the center of Rome. Don't know if public transport exists there or not, certainly not conveniently. One would guess you'll be at Trafalgar's mercy (with optional extras?) for transport to the city and you may find you eat at the hotel a lot. Which will help the hotel make up for the probable low-ball price they gave Trafalgar. <BR> <BR>Tourist Class, like anything else in a tour operator's sales literature, means whatever they want it to mean. :-) <BR> <BR>Ed

I always find that a funny term, myself, as if tourists are automatically supposed to stay in dumps compared to the better classes. I have found that generally it is tour brochure lingo for a two-star hotel (in France); I don't know the Italian hotel star system to know what that compares to (I think they have more stars, though, so it may be like a 3-star Italian hotel, not sure on that), but suffice it to say, it is what I would call a step below average accommodations--"budget" is another generic term for this quality. They are gen. adequate, but nothing special and nothing that really feels very "nice"; often cheaply decorated and with cheap, modern furniture and decor; bathrooms can be small and cheap, and sometimes prefab. Sometimes tours throw in a slightly higher quality hotel on such tours (ie, a 3-star in France), but they will be on the cheaper end of that class and in cheaper neighborhoods, which usu. means not central. Now, I took a budget TWA tour once thru England, Scotland and Ireland, and one of the hotels was absolutely charming (in Edinburgh), a small, renovated townhouse; and one was a very nice inn in the Lake District, but the others were cheaper rooms in large 3-starish hotels, the one in Dublin was out of center and sort of like a Holiday Inn in style, but that didn't bother me too much as there was a bus line right outside the door and I was saving a lot of money on that option vs the "first-class" option (which is usually what they call the other category). None of the hotels on that budget TWA tour were terrible or could be described as sad; they were all probably better than most French 2-star hotels. The Galileo is a 3-star.

With all due respect to Christina, I only stay in 2 star hotels when in France and the rest of Europe and, with the caveat that I do A LOT of research. I have found them to be beyond charming, well appointed, sometimes downright fantastic (2 star hotel in Monaco, sweeping ocean vista, marble staircase, French doors, leading to balcony, impeccable furnishings, decent sized room large bathroom, for $80.00 USD) <BR>I certainly wouldn't want to stay in some impersonal hotel picked out by a tour company but would prefer to pick my own for location and atmosphere. But Deb, thanks for asking the question as I have always wondered what that term, "tourist class" meant as well.