I have taken 6 Rick Steves tours and I loved all of them. I love the quality of the tour guides and local guides. I also love the unique adventures that I would never be able to arrange on my own.
What I don’t love is the inconsistency of hotels. Some are great, some not so great, and a few were so unacceptable that I was tempted to pay to move to another hotel.
Is there a tour company you’ve personally experienced that is a notch or two upgrade from Rick Steves?
Odysseys Unlimited.
I've taken tours with both RS and OU. It seems to be that OU took the RS concept and put it up a notch.
Nice hotels, bellman service, small groups, professionally trained and licensed tour directors all from the area you're visiting.
You have the choice of letting them arrange your air travel or you can do it on your own. I always did it on my own.
Agree with Odysseys Unlimited. We found the services and support top notch, and our guide was excellent. Was pleasantly surprised at how good our hotels were, and not.having to schlep our bags was a big bonus.
Similar to above except it is with OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel). Better hotels but are still centrally located, all luggage handling, interface with locals, excellent tour leaders and local guides, air fare can be included, and time to do your own exploring and finding your own lunches and dinners. One major con is that tips for the tour leader are not included in the cost. All other tips are included. Major pro's are that the tour group is limited to 16 people and no single supplements, which is big for me.
Hotels matter to me and so I'm hesitant to book a tour that won't list the hotels. I realize that the hotels can change from the listed option - but I haven't had that happen too often.
I've used Road Scholar quite a few times - their hotels are pretty good but I've had some that I didn't love. I actually moved once - on their southern Italy tour - only time I've ever done it.
I did Odysseys Unlimited once and the hotels were all nice. This was Romania and Bulgaria - so sometimes they were "best available" and that always worked out except I thought the Plovdiv hotel was merely ok.
Gate One used to have a few "Deluxe" trips and I did one of those - Israel and Jordan - and the hotels were spectacular - the Intercontinental in Tel Aviv and the Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem. I am not sure they offer that tour level anymore but it was a great value for the comfort level.
OAT is a great company, with small groups and fun itineraries. I've only traveled with them once - the Baltics last year. I had looked at each hotel to make sure they seemed ok - because sometimes the OAT hotel list is not a match for my travel style. But the Baltics tour hotels were great - each and every one!
I use Road Scholar more than any other company - I like their tour pacing and their itinerary stops - so I will forgive some of the hotels - but I do research each hotel before I book. And I have skipped itineraries when the hotels seemed off to me.
I have tried one Rick Steves tour...Scotland. The hotels were just a bit less than I like and I generally choose a slower-paced tour than Rick Steves tours - I like to stay 3 nights in most places on a tour.
I have taken two Odysseys Unlimited tours --- Turkey and Southern Italy -- and enjoyed both.
Perhaps it's because I mostly travel solo, but the quality of the participants matters more to me than the quality of the hotels. I've had unpleasant and/or entitled people on 2 different Odysseys Unlimited tours. I can't think of any RS hotels or participants that made a tour unpleasant.
You could also try Insight Vacations. I've taken one tour with them and the hotels were all good. They seem to follow the Rick Steves model in terms of tour sizes, and on the tour I took, they actually removed seats from the coach so it could only fit a specific number of passengers.
Have you looked at Adventures wth Sarah? I have not traveled with her company but met a couple of women who are big fans of her tours. They said that here hotels are nicer than RS hotels.
https://adventureswithsarah.net/
Without a doubt, Tauck Tours.
Tauck is the top of the line for tours. We are talking 5 star hotels and top service. If I had the money and felt like I wanted to go on a tour, I would choose them.
So how do the costs of the alternatives compare to RS Tours?
My sample size with RS tours is small with just 1 under my belt and I agree that most of the hotels we stayed at were OK/not bad, but nothing that would make me consider changing hotels. I'm curious to those that considered or did change, what was so bad that you felt it necessary?
Just a quick word on an odyssey tour we took in Italy last year. The hotels were lovely, except in about half of them we were assigned the absolute worst room category. Very disappointing. I know it’s supposed to even out over the trip but I was jealous of other folks’ balcony view rooms when we were in a basement under the parking garage! So be careful choosing just by the hotels they promise.
I have taken three RS tours and four Odysseys tours.
Sadly, a few of the hotels on the RS tours were subpar. Dirty rooms, mildew in the shower, pillows as thick as a sheet of paper, uncomfortable mattesses.
On the Odysseys tours, I only had one room that was horrible. All the rest were absolutely fine.
On many tours, the hotel assigns the rooms, not the tour director. If you really hate your room, say something to the tour director. They may be able to get you a better room. In one hotel, I asked, was told I could get an upgraded room, but I would have to pay a little extra to the hotel. I agreed. It was wonderful. It was only like $25 more.
As for price, if you compare the cost of an RS tour with the "Land" price of an Odysseys tour, they are very similar for similar itineraries. But you get more with an Odysseys tour.
We've taken two Tauck tours - one for Portugal/Spain and one for South America. They use top hotels. They have excellent guides.
They do not have a "no grumps" policy-- and we found that makes a difference. We only consider them for areas not covered by Rick Steves.
Happy travels!
Tauck, as already mentioned by other posters above, is tops.
Have a look at www.SmithsonianJourneys.org
Top quality hotels, restaurants, and guides who are university professors.
They have amazing trips to destinations not covered by Rick Steves tours.
People have mentioned OAT tours as an alternative to RS. We ran into several on our RS tour earlier this month. Talking to a group on a train in the Cinque Terra, several members said they really liked the tours mainly because of the small size. As far as OAT having upgraded hotels, one group was also staying at the same hotel as we were in Lucca which I considered the worst hotel of our tour…hard lumpy bed, absolutely flat nothing pillows, toilet seat broken, shower stall broken, slow draining sink and rude desk staff. We checked out the posted OAT itinerary and it wasn’t as active as ours and the tour members looked to be much older. We are in our early seventies and as I would like a smaller tour group, I still would like a more active tour.
And we did the Tauck Switzerland tour years ago. Yes, the hotels were wonderful, you never lifted your bags further than your hotel room door and the food was outstanding but the tour bus was completely full and when we asked the guide about hiking on a free afternoon around Grindelwald, she looked perplexed (it wasn’t a frequent request on Tauck tours, it seemed) but she did eventually come back with a hiking brochure.
Thank you to everyone for your input! And if anyone has something to say, please do!
I will look into the tour groups mentioned, except I think I’ll pass on OAT. There are many negative reviews and I’m trying to upgrade.
I love many things about the Rick Steves tours—the people are fun and adventurous (NO grumps!) and the guides are usually very knowledgeable. If only RS would offer hotel upgrades for an extra fee, I would gladly pay it!
My wife and I have been on 10 Rick Steves tours over the last 10 years. I would say the quality of hotels is improving but not to 5 star rating. Rick has never put us in a large “chain” hotel and we have never shared his hotel with another tour group. His hotels are almost always smaller, locally owned and centrally located. Frankly, we don’t spend much time at the hotel on a RS tour, just sleep and breakfast. We took an Odysseys tour of New Zealand earlier this year and stayed in nice, big chain hotels. The rooms were large and there were more amenities, but there was almost always another one or two tour groups at our hotel. We prefer the smaller and more intimate RS hotels, but others may prefer large and uniform chains.
The RS no grump “policy” is not achieved by a simple rule. The genius behind this great policy is that people who can book their own transportation to the first tour hotel, manage and carry their own luggage, negotiate subway and train stations and arrange half their dinners while on tour generally have reasonable expectations, are flexible and are not likely to be a grump. Of course there are plenty of great travelers on other tours with nicer hotels, but the chances of encountering a constantly complaining grump are higher in my experience.
I hope that RS continues to improve the quality of his tour hotels, but I never want to risk touring with a grump.
Thanks, Simpgolf, for your perspective.
I’m not looking for 5 star or chain hotels, and I don’t need anyone to carry my bags. I don’t even mind quaint small hotels with no elevator! If I had a magic wand I would keep the Rick Steves tours and tour members exactly as they are, just go up a notch in accommodations. Changing the 1-2 star hotels to 3 stars would make me very happy.
I just returned from the Berlin Prague and Vienna tour. I agree with a lot of the comments expressed. This was my 3rd RS tour. In Cesky Krumlov we were at a small hotel with 2 other tour groups. It was a hot mess in the morning sorting through all the piles of luggage. The tour guide said that had never happened before.
Someone on this post mentioned that we only sleep and eat breakfast. Two of the 5 hotels we were in were so noisy outside that uninterrupted sleep was impossible. That of course affects your energy level during the next day’s activities. And yes, I was using custom earplugs.
I love all the other things about RS tours, but I’d certainly appreciate an upgraded hotel.
Over our last 11 RS tours we have mostly stayed in the smaller family run hotels but there have been times that we’ve stayed in the bigger corporate ones, too, such as in Nice, France and Belfast, Northern Ireland and London, England and Reims, France and Lisbon, Portugal. I’m sure it’s a matter of logistics but no one can say it does not happen occasionally on his tours. And as for the hotel in Lucca, it had a 4 star rating so either the RS and OAT tour groups had been given inferior rooms or whoever does the ratings was looking at location only.
A higher rated hotel is no guarantee of better quality. We stayed at a "luxury" resort in Barcelona for one night on Thursday this week before our flight home. It was beautiful inside and out, and on the beach. However the lights in our room weren't working, they were on a permanent dim setting and the light switches wouldn't turn them on or off. It was too dark to see in a mirror or read, but too bright not to notice while sleeping. The air conditioner was making a constant rattling sound and so I had to turn it off. We checked in after 7pm and went straight back to the front desk and maintenance was not on duty but they could have someone there by 11:30pm, or after we checked out the next morning. I requested a new room and was refused.
