my wife and i are going on the 21 day best of europe tour next year.
can you tell me what extra excursions you did while on the tour (and the cost!) so i can create a good budget for what fun things we need to do while we are out there? thanks a bunch!
RS tours do not sell excursions of any kind. There are no packaged extras you have to pay for from RS.
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Go to the tour page on this website and it will give you an idea of what is or is not covered on the tour.
With your free time you can go visit places on your own but the cost will depend on admission fees, and transportation fees. Many people suggest getting to the starting location a day or two early and fly home a day or two after the tour ends but when and how you plan that time is up to you. Some people hire a guide for the free time/day to do activities not covered on the tour but this is not usual and has nothing to do with RS tour. I would look at the scrappbooks on this site to see what other people did during thieir free time. Your tour guide will also be giving you ideas of places to visit on your free time and usually plans optional activities for free time.
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You will be recieving some tour infomation months before your tour to help you plan your free time. Also RS has trip consultants to help you plan for your trip but using them is NOT required.
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Hope this helps you
As said.. RS tours don't offer any extra tours. During your free time you can do and see what you want.. the tour guide is available to ask some questions and get suggestions from.. etc.
However in Venice our tour guide did organize a gondola ride for those who wished to partake( its cheaper in a group and the gondolas hold something like 7 or 8 people as I recall. I am really not sure but I think I paid 100 euros for my daughter and I ( do not hold me to that) .. it was worth it though.. I don't want spoil it for you so wont go into details. .. but lets just say it was worth the mone
Many times what you do during your free time doesn't have to cost anything.. in Rome my dd and I visited a church my stepmother recommended,, in Switzerland we took a hike( but the gondola to trail head was not cheap)
I sense you really want to know exactly how much every thing is going to cost but its too hard for anyone to give you an answer that will be 100 percent correct as it really is based on you..
Actually, my guide set up some optional activities for my recently completed BOE. Some participated, some did not. No pressure either way. There was a gondola ride in Venice. Cost will depend on how many go as the guide will rent several gondolas and divide the total cost by the number of people. My cost was 25 €. He also arranged an option to go up the Schilthorn in Switzerland. There were 2 parts (up the mountain in the early AM and then up the other side of the valley later in the AM). You could participate in both, either or none. Total cost was 120 Swiss Franks. The guide will also tell you how much money to change. He also organized 2 extra dinners which were 20 & 25 € each.
I did all and they were great. The mountain outing was spectacular. I live near mountains and this was unmissable.
Your guide may do more or not as much. Give yourself some leeway in your budget.
i know the extra things are not required by RS tours. I am simply asking what fun things people did during their free time on their own expense.
I'm looking to get a list of fun things to do in each city we visit from past visitors so it can help me narrow down what we will want to do in each city. Instead of trying to figure it out when we get there.
It would be good for us to make a list of things to see and do before we go.
Ok that makes more sense.
You had me thinking of criuse ship excursions.
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The only way to get a budget for you would be to go through guide books and do internet searches for the place you want to see. Then totaling up the costs of the activities. If you live near Edmonds I would recommend going to the travel festival in November or go to the tour re-union in January and talk to the RS people in person.
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There is no fast and easy rule to how much you will spend on the tour. I know RS recommends $75 to $100 a day but that is an estimate only. I spend a lot less then $75 a day on my tour and there were others that spent more then $100 a day.
Your guide will also give you suggestions based on where you end up with your group activity. I realize this does not help with advance planning though!
About 2 months out from your trip (maybe a bit longer) you will get the General Europe guidebook which you can use for finding activities in each place. This may be available in your local library as well.
The things I saw that I paid for on my own were a Vivaldi concert in Venice (maybe 22 €?)and I visited the Capitoline Museum on my own in Rome(maybe 10 €). Just realized I forgot our guide loosely organized a wine tasting in Bacharach as well. I think it was 22 € per table with 4 at each table so 5.5 € or so each.
I paid to enter the Baptistry and Duomo in Florence so that was about 10 €.
People who hike in Cinque Terre have to buy a trail ticket (maybe 5 or 6 €? Didnt hike so not sure). Others took the ferry from town to town or rode the train.
In Switzerland I hiked back to the hotel from Truemmelbach Falls along the public path...free, lol!
Many got tickets ahead of time to go up in the Eiffel Tower. Others planned an excursion out to Versailles. I would not recommend missing any of the Paris activities for a day trip. If side trips are important I suggest staying a few days longer.
Pre trip in Amsterdam I did the Dutch Resistance Museum, maybe 8 €. The schedule indicated the possibility of enough free time in Amsterdam after the Rijks Museum to possibly see the Van Gogh Museum which is right nearby but there was really not time for it.
The places where you will not have to plan activities as the planned stuff will probably take all day are Amsterdam, Bacharach, Rothenberg, Reutte, & Beaune.
Hi -- I agree with the previous posters that what you will spend will depend on what you decide to do. I suggest you review all your destination sites ahead of time and prioritize what you think you'd like to do at each, gathering cost information as you go. Having said that, you'll need to be somewhat flexible, and not wedded to doing everything on your list. I suspect every tour is somewhat different, and your free time will vary somewhat from tour to tour. For example, Pam said she had no time for extras in Rothenberg, but on our tour we had almost the entire afternoon on our own there. I think the 2 extra excursions that are usually offered are the gondola in Venice (cost will vary depending on how many decide to participate -- on our tour everyone participated, so we got a great discount) and -- weather permitting -- the ride to the top of the mountain in Switzerland. This is expensive (although, again, our guide was able to get us a discount) but worth every cent!
A couple of our favorite extras were climbing to the top of the Duomo in Florence and visiting the Orsay in Paris, both of which we did in "on your own" time on scheduled tour dates. We also arrived early and visited the Van Gogh Museum and Resistance Museum in the Netherlands, and stayed on to visit Versailles after our tour was over. In hindsight, I wish we would have stayed at least one extra day in Paris, because there is so much to see there. Have fun planning -- you are going to have an amazing trip!!
