Which should I choose and why? Please don't tell me that we can do it on our own - not an option. thanks!

It might help if we knew where you were going. I know people who have travled with Tauck and Perillo and had good things to say about both of them.

My aunt and uncle used to do Tauck tours all over the world and thought they were the best. Great hotels, restaurants and excursions.
-Bill

I've never done a tour but I've heard excellent things about Tauck from people who have, and an overall negative from the one couple I know who took a Perillo tour to Italy. But it was one of those 7 cities in 10 days kind of things, and I wouldn't have expected them to enjoy mostly being on a bus with the occasional quickie stop for a city, no matter who was running it.

My mom went on at least 10 Tauck tours all over the world and always reported they were deluxe in every way. Lots of stuff that is usually optional on other tours is included on Tauck.

When she was on a 4 island tour in Hawaii I was able to join her on 3 islands and the hotels were all oceanfront, highest caliber. Meals included, we dined on the resort property and signed the check to Tauck.

Did Tauck of Europe. If you are traveling to Hawaii I think Tauck would be a great choice, if you are choosing Tauck v. Perillo for Italy I would choose the tour operator that included local guides. Our Tauck tour only had an american guide which was a little disappointing. Otherwise, the itinerary, food, and accomodations were very good. There are travel consolidators that offer 5-8% discounts on the land vacations of Tauck tours, try www.pavlustravel.com and www.trafalgartours4less.com (trafalgartours discounts all tour companies) but I'm 99% sure trafalgartours4less will be the cheapest, they will beat any competitor's rate.

I thought I posted my questions under Hawaii. Sorry!

Yes, you can pick Hawaii as a topic when doing a text search but it all appears the same on the left hand part of the message board In any event, do try the pricing suggestions I've noted above, they discount all of Tauck travel and perhaps even Perillo.

We get the Tauck brochures for Hawaii and they did seem very nice as well as Perillo. I did speak to someone in Hawaii who did a Tauck Hawaii tour and were very pleased with it.

When you post under any specific state your post, as well as all others just get dumped into the big US forum along with everything else. If one specifically searches under Hawaii they will see only those posts.

For the rest of us who browse the US forum a little info in the header or initial post goes a long way.

This is a common problem with posting on Fodors, so don't take it personally.

Buy a tour through one of the internet companies, they give a 10% discount.