Best of Venice, Florence and Rome tour with college age boys??

Take a look at the My Way tours

You can decide how many sights/museums you want to include

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy/my-way-italy

Thanks Christine--I did look at those but unsure of how to book the tours of the Vatican, Colosseum etc. are there options to pick and chose--a la carte so to speak-- from the RS group or do I do these independently and on our own? It seemed as if the hotels and bus were the only options provided by RS.

You would book those sights on your own

Plenty of help with that is available right here on the forum

Most of us here plan our own trips.

Thank you for your quick reply--I truly want to just show up for this trip and not be the family tour guide ;)

I can’t speak to this particular tour, but we had 2 teenage guys on our RS Ireland tour and they seemed to have a great time. Not only did the guide make sure they were enjoying themselves but other tour members did as well.

If there are specific things you want to see in your free time, just post on the forum and people will point to the proper websites.

My family, two kids now College age & young adult have been going on RS tours since my youngest was 10. They have not been on this particular tour but my husband & I have. They have been on the 14 day tour across Europe which included these cities and the Rome week tour. What I like best about his tours about half the day is touring and yes it is all taken care of with amazing guides & then half is on your own to do what you want on most days.
You will save money & time. I understand what you mean about planning & being the tour guide. I am currently planning our trip to Italy since my daughter is studying in Rome this semester. RS’s tour gave her the confidence to travel & each weekend she is somewhere new.

Planning this trip now I realized what a good value for your money his tours are. Feel free to PM me if you would like more insight. Watch his shows get a feel for what you want to see. My college son sometimes went off on his own to see something not on the tour he wanted to see for a few hours. Enjoy

beaudette22, your sons are essentially adults so should be able to enjoy the same things that other people book RS tours for. If you want the "one-stop shop" benefits of having attractions booked for you, then you want the standard RS tour. Yes, the RS Venice/Florence/Rome is heavy on cultural treasures (art museums, architecture, archeology, etc.) and history so if your family does not particularly enjoy this sort of thing, then that tour is probably not for you.

My hesitation is if the RS Venice, Florence, Rome tour is too heavy on
museums vs activities to do

Activities such as?

What you could do for some family time, independent of the tour itinerary, is spend some extra days on either (or both) ends of the tour on your own. I'd highly recommend that anyway as 2 days isn't nearly enough time for Rome! Going back to the young men in your family, they should be internet savvy and able to do sightseeing research on their own. Tell them to do just that: come up with additional things they wish to see and how to do that. Also, give 'em both a guidebook for Christmas. It'll take some of the "tour guide" pressure off YOU, plus provide them a valuable lesson in what it takes to plan a trip. :O)

I will disagree that choosing the tour over independent travel will save money - we go-it-ourselves for less - but, well, there's a cost to having the details taken care of for you, eh? If it saves your sanity.... HA!

...shorter cruise ending in Rome and plan a few days on our own for Rome
and Venice.

Do be aware that the cruise ports for Venice and Rome are not "in" either city. Many of bigger ships that used to port in Venice, especially, have been moved to ports in Ravenna, Chioggia or Trieste. Rome's port is Civitavecchia, abt. an hour away. You would also have to book your own sightseeing tickets/tours and train transfer between Rome and Venice so again, how much are you willing to take on by yourself?

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and suggestions! Glad to hear about the open time to explore as desired so the boys can go do what they like during the day as well. I think once we finally get to experience a trip to Europe I will be more inclined to plan on my own, but a little hand holding the first time to ensure for a great experience for all is what I need now.

beaudette22, welcome. I just want to point out to you that RS tours expect you to be able to get to the starting point on your own, so that you will have to plan air itineraries, and any extra days before and after if you want them. So its not totally handholding.

The VFR tour was our first, and we loved it. It was a great relief not having to plan all the logistics, ticketing, public transport, etc. We found it had just the right mix of art, history, food and culture for us. Plenty of free time, and they encourage you to explore your own interests. When you get the guidebook, spend some time looking at it versus the sights included in your tour, so you can plan what to do during free time. Any scheduled activity you don't feel like doing, you can skip as long as you let the tour leader know. Yes RS tour groups skew towards older adults, but younger ones are welcomed, and maybe there will be other family groups.

We did VFR several years ago. It is an active tour, but there are big chunks of free time. The tour gets you into the most popular, crowded places early in the morning, and then you usually have free afternoons. ( Hopefully your college sons are morning people). The trip is well organized, and altho mostly older folks, everyone makes an effort to include all in the conversations. The dinners do get long and late, which is the Italian way. The local guides are younger, and they probably could advise your sons regarding activities. We were pretty exhausted after this trip, so I'd suggest extra days before the trip.
If you want all outdoor activities and very few museums, I'd suggest a Switzerland trip.
Either way, have a wonderful family trip,

We've been on a numbur of RS tours, just not the Venice, Florence, Rome tour. Based on our other tours (which included young adults), you can rest assured that: (1) RS handles all the major logistics for you. (2) The guide(s) are more than willing to offer advice about the logistics for your free time. And (3) There will be enough free time for the sons to do their own thing (and for mom and dad) to be away from them also). You will have to handle the logistics of getting to the starting point and getting back home. There will also be the logistics of the hotel before and after if you go early or stay later. But this forum is loaded with folks who can steer you in the right direction for those things. All you have to do is ask.

I have been on several RS tours that happened to include college-age and young adults. They all seemed to enjoy the trips. The tour guides knew how to engage everyone, regardless of age.

Keep in mind that, even when on a tour, this is still YOUR trip. You can skip any organized activity (as long as it doesn’t involve a bus ride to the next city) by letting your tour guide know. Your sons are old enough to spend some time on their own, so they could “opt out” of a museum to do something else and you could stay with the tour, meeting up later. However, I have found the tour guides so entertaining and knowledgeable that I never wanted to skip anything LOL!

RS tours have a really good balance of group activities and free time. So you will be able to do a lot of things on your own. The tour guides have always been very helpful to group members as they plan for free time. While it’s a good idea to at least browse through guidebooks and websites ahead of the trip, you don’t really have to over-plan in advance. The guide will give suggestions, and there may be other people in the group who have good ideas too and may invite you along.

If you call the RS office, they can tell you the general makeup of who is already signed up for any particular tour group - solos, families, couples, older, younger, etc. I have done this in the past when I have traveled solo to find out if the group will include other solos or people traveling with non-spouses. However, I have found compatible people on all the trips and the “older” travelers (like me) really enjoy younger travelers in the group.

There's no reason to avoid RS tours because of a preponderance of older adults. In many cases we are just as lively as college age people. In fact, at a group dinner a 30-something tour participant joked that they would have what I and my partner were drinking because we can be very youthful in appearance! We don't look like the 60-something retirees that we are in reality and have energy and verve. I was blessed with skin that hardly has a wrinkle although I've always been called "whitey" due to my hair color. I know that I was more inclined to party in my university years so they may not necessarily find much company from the group for that. My partner and I enjoy talking and sharing experiences with people of all ages. The college age people also need to be receptive to those outside their age group.