Collette Vacations

Pros: Some decent hotels (ok locations)
Cons: Poor communication 
Bad guides
Cheap meals
Make money off us buying optionals, shopping

Be warned about Collette Vacations.  This company is going downhill and seems to not be interested anymore in offering four start tours but rather tours that give them the best profit margin.  Tour guides are hit and miss but many of them seem ...

Pros: Visited a few nice places (Blarney Castle, Killarney, Waterford), cons far outweighed the pros.
Cons: Poor communication, confusion on trip inclusions, bad replacement for Castle stay, threatening tour guide

We selected Collette over similar tours by Globus and CIE because they promised a castle stay. We also purchased the trip insurance with the famous cancel until the day of departure clause. Communication had been a problem all along in planning our ...

Pros: Very Good Hotels in the heart of the cities, good food and entertainment
Cons: Tour Director had poor local knowledge.

My group of ten friends choose Collette tours because of the location and quality of the hotels listed on the descriptions. We were pleased with them and as promised the hotels were located in the city centers so that we could go out at night and explore ...

Pros: Hotels centrally located; Great bus driver!!; Reasonable pricing for tour; The alps!!
Cons: No Neuschanstein Castle!; Too much shopping, not enough attractions; Boring meals; Non-local tour guide

We took the "Exploring the Alpine Countries" tour in August 2006. The itinerary was Vienna - 2nt, Salzburg - 2nt, Oberramergau - 2nt, Black Forest - 1nt, Zermatt - 2nt, Lucerne - 2nt. Along the way were day trips to Munich, Innsbruck and Chateau de ...

Pros: Great city guides, excellent hotels, very clean and well situated. Beautiful country.
Cons: Worst food we ever on any tour. Optional tour with dinner a total rip-off.

Just returned from beautiful Sicily and Almafi Coast. Co-travelers were friendly and upbeat. Hotels were well situated and mostly, excellent. We were amazed at the sophistication of Palermo and thrilled with our tour of the gorgeous opera house. For ...

Pros: Portugal overall as an experience, yummy food, beach, good hotels, first-class vacation
Cons: staying in Lisbon for one night (noisy), don't see the northern regions like Oporto.

I traveled with Collette Vacations in May of 2004 for their 10-day Sunny Portugal tour. I'm single and traveled alone and of course had to pay a single supplement---about $400 extra. Most people on the tour were in the 50-65 age range. All very nice, ...

Pros: Low cost
Cons: Poor food Poor cultural experience Hotels not good for walking

What follows is my letter to Collette following a Southern Italy/ Sicily tour in Nov 2007: These comments refer to our recent Southern Italy tour. This is our second Collette tour and probably our last. Several aspects of the tour were aggravating. ...

Pros: EXCELLENT SERVICE FROM BUS DRIVER AND GUIDE LOADING LUGGAGE..BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS ON THE VISIT...
Cons: GUIDE POOR COMMUNICATOR,HOTELS POORLY LOCATED,ONE OF TWO ADD ON TOURS WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY

We were most anxious as we entered, on time, from customs into the Athens airport,to see our Collette guide waiting for us. Thirty minutes later a guide from Collette appeared but not for us,alas another group. He did inform us that our guide would be ...

Pros: There are NONE.
Cons: Not customer focused.  A big rip off.

At the beginning of 2008, we booked this tour with Collette scheduled to leave on 10 4 08. nbsp; We are retired and on a fixed income and have saved for this vacation for over a year and were looking forward to it. nbsp; We also opted to take the "No ...

Pros: Great hotels in good locations, friendly and fun tour guides and bus drivers.
Cons: Food at hotels sometimes boring.

I feel bad for some of the other reviewers. I encourage them to try Collette again, really!! I have gone on the Spain & Portugal trip (the one that starts in Barcelona). The tour guide was extremely knowledgeable, and the bus driver was FANTASTIC!! Both ...

Pros: Great countries to visit, but Collette cannot take credit for that.
Cons: Long boring bus rides. Horrible guide. Travel at you own risk with this company.

We should have followed the advice of Pillow56! The review is on this site and we agree with all that was said since we had an almost identical experience, Apparently Collette keeps getting customers and sees no reason to change anything. Our tour meals ...

Pros: Good value. Gourmet meals. Hotels were good.
Cons: overcharging optional tours and pushing you to go for home stay.

We took this tour because of the attractive pricing. It was a good thousand dollars below similar tours. Collette runs the Smithsonian tours and hence our confidence in the company. It was a pretty good value. For some reason, the itinery leaves out ...

Pros: NONE
Cons: I would avoid this company, much better ones to choice from.

This tour company has only one thing in mind;  making money.  This was the first time we used Colette and we will never, ever use them again.This was my husbands first trip to Italy and we wanted it to be a memorable and enjoyable ...

Pros: See a lot of Italy. 3 out of the 5 hotels were nice.
Cons: Too much time on bus, bad food, boring guide.

I would not recommend this tour. Guide was terrible, smelled of alcohol. They try to get you to pay for additional side trips which are not worth cost.
Food experience was awful. Italy has such wonderful food but on the tour there are a lot of included meals at the hotels which were just yuck! Very disappointing. They took us to this house to see what a typical italian villa was like but it turned out there was a jewelry store in the house that they were hoping you'd buy from so they get a kick back. Same thing in Sorrento they take you to a furniture store. I don't know if this is a typical practice on organized tours.

Pros: None
Cons: None

We signed up for a Collette tour for the fall of 2008, but had to cancel because of health issues due to prostate cancer radiation treatment. I contacted Collette through our agent and was told that since we did not have travel insurance that our $500 deposit would not be returned even though the tour date had not been actually agreed to by Collette. We had a similar experience with another tour company back a few years ago because of my wifes heart problem. We requested a deposit refund and was able to obtain it with absolutely no problem. Collette is different. I will never again book anything with Collette.