European Vista (21 days)

WE had some excellent moments on our tour, but overall it was a nightmare.
I guess Contiki can't be blamed for the fact that I am not a "tour person" but there were other things that made the trip less than bearable. All our excellent moments were when we went off on our own....


HOTELS and INDEPENDENCE
Because my partner and I are not tour people we planned to use the transport and info and get away to do our own thing as much as possible. Due to the location of the hotels we were forced to stick with the tour for a huge proportion of the time. Venice was particularly bad. The hotels were mixed, some were good, some were not good, but about 90% of them were outside the city they were supposed to be in. None of them were unbearable to stay in (you're only there to shower and sleep after all), but I was glad when we left St Goar.

Paris (Holiday Inn Porte de Saint Oeun) - decent hotel, but the area was a bit dodgy so we didn't want to use public transport after dark
Lyon - (Kyriad Hotel Perrache) hotel okay, weren't in Lyon long enough to do more than a walk after dinner
Nice (Hotel Albert) - hotel okay, great location, we were really independent here
Florence - (Hotel Concorde) hotel okay just, terrible location, we were forced to coach in and out of town
Rome (Roma Park Residence) - decent hotel, we'd been to Rome before so we knew how to get around, we were independent here
Venice - (Hotel Garden Noale) okay hotel, miles away from anything, forced to go with tour most of the time
Vienna (Pyramide Eventhotel) - decent hotel, I had friends in Vienna so we were mostly independent despite the fact we were 40 minutes out of the city centre
Munich (Hotel Seidlhof Landhotel) - decent hotel, way out of town, by the time we worked out the transport we might as well have gone in with the coach (we were trying to get an early morning)
Lucerne - (We were in another hotel because other groups were also at the bottom of the mountain.. can't remember the name) okay hotel, expensive public transport so we had to go with the crowd again (we didn't get up Mt Pilatus because of weather conditions)
St Goar (Hotel Montag) - horrible hotel, got there late, saw the beersteins, the winery and none of the area... just there to line Contiki's pockets with commission I guess
Amsterdam - (Hotel Lake Land)okay hotel, way out of town, actually in a town outside Amsterdam, very difficult to get any independent time

On top of all the transport issues, every free day had an included dinner. We were on a budget and wanted to have all our dinners. This meant that we always had to be back at the hotel by a "Contiki time".


THE CROWD THAT GOES EVERYWHERE WITH YOU
Other reviews have stated that most people seemed to want to make friends rather than see Europe... oh so true!!! I was sickened by the high school mentality. Some people were great but the overall tone was quite disheartening. At times it really felt like there was an "in crowd". I was really looking forward to going to Mt Pilatus in Switzerland, but when weather conditions prevented us making the ascent I was relieved that I wouldn't get stuck up there with all those people.
Our tour was full with every one of the 51 seats filled. To top it off most of our tour was from Australia (as we are) and we had hoped to meet some different nationalities. Also 80% of the people were under 23 years old and the oldest person was only 29... I thought Contiki tried to get mixed groups?

THE COACH OF COUGHS
Also, everyone got sick. Every free day I would get a lot better. Every travel day I would get a lot worse. Especially on the days where we travelled for 4 hours in a row. Viruses do get into air conditioning and fabrics and they were just constantly recycled. It is now 2 weeks after the tour and I am still coughing even though I am back in Australia.


FREQUENT STOPS
There were multiple days when we went 4 hours without a toilet stop and we were told not to use the one on the bus.... Doesn't Contiki advertise frequent stops? Some days my legs were throbbing by the time we stopped. (not much leg room either)

THE OPTIONALS
The optionals were major rip-offs... The only decent ones were The Moulin Rouge and the Mozart Concert. I enjoyed the Tuscan dinner too but only because I really got into the wine, the food was good but minute servings. The Venice and Monaco meals were pathetic. We did the optionals because we wanted to pay up front so that we could budget effectively for everything else. We would have saved more money not doing the optionals and we would have had more fun.

MOULIN ROUGE - a good night. food average, entertainment okay, interesting for the experience, worth the money...
MONACO DINNER - enjoyed the company and atmosphere but very average food, not worth the money
TUSCAN DINNER - food was good but not enough of it, had a good evening, but not worth the money
GONDOLA RIDE - we didn't want to do this with Contiki, but our tour manager told us it would cost a LOT more with only two of us in a private gondola, we now know he was stretching the truth.... we had fun on the gondola but it would have been far more romantic to do it on our own...
VENETIAN DINNER - a total rip-off, bad food and we had a man playing a piano accordion so loudly that we had to yell to have a conversation and then we had to tip him....
MOZART CONCERT - good food, wonderful entertainment, loved it, worth every cent....
SCHNAPPS MUSEUM - excellent, entertaining, worth the money
FONDUE LUNCH - a small cheese and bread fondue followed by sausage and dessert.... oh and drinks included, sure, half a glass of wine... absolute rip-off... we could have had better fondue cheaper with a whole bottle of wine....
WINE TASTING - Good if you like white wine, avoid if you like reds, although it was worth the money just to go into the 17th century wine cellar...
VOLENDAM DINNER (AMSTERDAM) - not worth the money, very average food, we only went to this one because it was the last night, we may as well not have bothered...
AMSTERDAM CRUISE - not worth it unless you are in love with your tour companions and you want to get blind rather than see Amsterdam.... day cruises are quite cheap, even dinner cruises were comparable in price....


OUR TOUR MANAGER
Our tour manager was quite moody with some people and very friendly with others. At our lunch stop in Leichtenstein some of us got practically yelled at because the bus was ready to leave and we were still eating. The cafe we were in had taken 35 minutes to serve our food and one of the others had gone back to the bus to explain it to the tour manager, but he hadn't listened and chose to just come and tell us off rather than ask for an explanation. This was the only time we had ever been less than five minutes early to get back on the coach. We had had to wait for certain other people on numerous occasions up to 15 minutes. The motivation became clear when he did the "tip speech" at the end... I don't think it was a coincidence that all the people he was very friendly with were rich. Ahhh, the "tip speech"... I didn't mind it up to the point where we were told they wanted 50 Euro each instead of 42 because they'd given us so many extra stops.

It was just so frustrating.. especially when we had no control over what time we left the hotels in the morning and oh, the meals were so very crap, I can not describe how bad the meals were.... breakfast was a roll and the dinners, tasteless soup, small serving of chicken and peas or lettuce and tiny dessert.....

No not for me, never again.. I'd rather see less stuff independently for more money....

Recommended: No

Best Suited For: Singles
Tour format: Bus
Tour length: Over a Week
Tour type: Group