Go Today Tours

I've found that you usually get what you pay for in life and it is true with travel. I noticed another travel company had some really good prices on trips to Europe but once I really researched what you received the "good deal" wasn't so great. One company offered trips to Venice at over a $1000 lower than most, sounds good?, well you find out that you end up staying in a hotel on the mainland and have to take the train over to Venice each day of your trip. Recently we went to London in December with Friendly planet ( a nice company) but you had to fly out of Newark, NJ on United (big hassle from our state), we stayed in a nice hotel but the "group activity" was that they loaded everyone on a bus and drove around London pointing out sights and once got out at Westminister Abby so they could take pictures of the outside! Needless while everyone else was on the bus we actually hopped on the tube and toured Westminster Abby and several other places. The reason we chose the trip is we wanted to attend a Christmas Ball at Downton Abby (Highclere Castle), which was a wonderful evening. I think that once you go on a RS trip you either love it or don't, if you are like me and loved it then other types of tours just don't cut it.

They have decidedly mixed reviews on Trip Advisor. There was a thread here a while back about people's positive experiences with travel purchased through Costco, that may be a compromise.

What they sell is a package, not a guided tour like a Rick Steves tour. They will book a package for your group---maybe that is the Groupon offer? Here is the list of offerings for Italy:

https://www.go-today.com/group-travel-italy.aspx

Might work if you want all the planning and booking done for you, and you like the itinerary they offer. But wouldn't you rather choose your hotels and activities yourself?

You would have to work out a sample independent itinerary and check hotel and flight prices to know if the package they offer actually saves you any money.

I used Go Today when I went to Spain and Portugal in November. They had a package deal that included hotels, round trip airfare from Salt Lake City to Madrid and Lisbon to Salt Lake City and airfare between Madrid and Lisbon. Purchasing the package deal was considerably cheaper in this case then purchasing separate on my own. I was able to research a list of flight options and hotels for both cities before hand and then when I called to make the reservation I was able to tell them which flight options and hotels I wanted. I did not book anything extra through them. My experience was very positive and I did not have any issues or complaints at all.

Hotel location and quality are probably the biggest risks. Read reviews on websites like booking.com and TripAdvisor, and use Google Maps to verify that the location is reasonably close to the local sights. The larger the city, the bigger your location risk.