My family of four (2 adults and 2 kids) were on a “Classic Europe” tour by Taj Tours (June 12, 2006). While the tour started out well, we and other people on the tour started getting somewhat frustrated with the tour. I would personally not recommend this tour to anybody else - you be the judge.
Very big group: We had 74 PEOPLE in the tour. Their representatives lied to several people about the maximum size of the group they would have. Personally, I was told that the group size would NOT exceed 50 people. To some others the numbers varied from a maximum of 30 – 45 group size. Large group size created management issues including long queues for meals, restrooms, inability to hear the directions/site information. It took us 10-15 minutes just to load/unload the bus!!
Rude Driver: The tour started on a great note with a very rude British driver. While he was very good at driving the bus, he somehow assumed that culturally, Indians should be cussed/yelled at. No politeness. I guess Taj Tours knew about this problem and hence collected the driver tips on the second day itself; else I am sure no one would have given him a penny for his obnoxious behavior. Even when the temperatures in the bus were extremely high, the bus driver expected everybody on board before he would get the AC running on the bus. Trip to the wise – try to be the last one to board the bus!
Poor hotel choices: Both quality and location were generally poor. There was nothing interesting around the hotels. You basically reached the hotel, ate dinner and there was nothing interesting that you could walk to or take public transportation to. Far away hotel location created another problem which is described later. The Etrusco hotel in Arezzo is way past its prime and needs renovation. The Sporthotel Penz in Innsbruck was nothing to brag about. Most hotels did not have A/C or even if they did they did, it did not work. It was 88-91 degrees in June this summer. In addition to being hot, it was muggy and there was no fan – except in one motel. Plus some of the motel windows could be opened only a couple of inches which added insult to injury. Even if the windows could be opened it did not help in any way as there was no breeze and the stifling heat made it impossible to sleep
Two star hotel: In Switzerland, they put us up in Hotel Ibis for 2 nights. This is a 2 star hotel. The Taj tour brochure clearly mentions only 3 or 4 star hotels. The hotel room was very small & claustrophobic. When you pay money for certain class of services, you expect that class of service. Not honoring the promised level of service is cheating.
Poor Breakfast: In the later part of the tour, the breakfast quality was really bad. This was particularly true when Taj Tour organized the breakfast instead of the breakfast being included by the hotel. In Switzerland they made us drive for 45 min to eat breakfast. The grand breakfast after 45 minutes drive was Cornflakes, white bread, orange colored water and Poha. Once people complained, the next day breakfast was at the Ibis itself which was lot better with pastries, hot chocolate & fruits etc. Additionally, we didn’t waste our precious time traveling to & from the breakfast place. On the 3rd night of another Swiss hotel, they instructed the hotel to limit the breakfast to 12 Francs per person. This resulted in Cornflakes, hard bread rolls and orange juice. In France, Taj Tour managed the breakfast for 2 days. You can guess what we got – cornflakes, white bread, orange drink & Poha or Upma..
Dinner/Lunches: Generally the dinner and lunches were Indian meals and were prepared fresh and generally were good. However, their cook in France was terrible – the food was tasteless uncooked blobs. You should be prepared to somewhat greasy food on the whole trip. But again – the food is tasty – watch out for the growth of a rubber tire around your waist! The boxed lunches on a couple of days were chick peas, rice, puri, apples, chips. They were fine. One day boxed lunch was cheapest quality white bread with few cucumber slices/cheese. They could definitely do better given the price that we shelled for the tour.
Sightseeing: As I mentioned earlier, they put us up in far away hotels. This creates a huge problem for sightseeing since the driver is limited to 12 hours per day of working time (which makes lot of sense). Since we were spending so much away from the city, a good chunk of the day was spent in just going from the hotel to the city and at the end of the day from the city to the hotel. It almost worked like this on a couple of days – you go from the hotel to the city. Take a bio rest break after 2 hours of driving. Drive for another hour. If luck wasn’t with you, add another hour being stuck in the traffic in Italy. At this point, it is lunch time. So take lunch and then you after the cool & nice part of the day is shot, you start the sightseeing. Also, note that a lot of the churches etc. close at around 5PM. Since they are in a rush to get back to the hotel, you are given very limited time to see some of the things. We drove to Nymphemhburg Palace and were given just one hour to see only the grounds which were uninteresting. Fortunately, we realized early on and bought the palace ticket and hurried through the palace. Next on the list was Munich Olympic stadium where the ideas of tourism was flying by the stadium as it was pointed to us where it was. We reached Inssbruck after the Hofburg Palace & the adjoining chapel were both closed. In Pisa, there was no way for you to go up the leaning tower of Pisa in the appointed time. In Florence, we timed it very well. We reached 5 minutes after the church was closed for the day. The worst of the lot was Rome. They did not make provision for anybody to go inside the Colosseum – they spent 45 minutes outside the Colosseum talking about its history – but no provision for going inside. What is the point of going to Rome, looking at the Colosseum from outside and not going to see it from inside? I have even a better tour for you – you can just check out the pictures on the web. A lot of this could have been avoided if the day had started well instead of eating up most of the early part of the day in driving and in lunch.
Positives: I like the idea of the tour – don’t have to do a lot of planning and the tour company knows exactly which ferry takes you into Venice etc. So some of the things like cruise on the Rhine, trip to Venice, trip to the “Top of Europe” in Switzerland were organized well. That is how a tour should be done. Also, on the plus side for Taj tours, they added a side tour to Geneva which was not on the original itinerary. They also threw in one night in London Hotel before and one night after at the Novotel near Heathrow. [The breakfast was at this Novotel was probably the best of the lot]. Mercure Hotel (Frankfurt), AC Padova (Italy) & Novotel Orly (Paris – no AC) were good (4 nights of good hotel in 13 nights). I just wish they could keep this quality of hotels throughout.
Personally, nobody should be paying this kind of money for the tour to spend more time in the bus than on the attractions, stay in sub-standard hotels, be served crappy breakfast and have to listen to a rude driver.