Hotel Add-ons

I think your hotel rep can tell you about adding nights, it's probably based on availability.

For one night in Napoli, I stayed at Hotel Terminus (Starhotel chain). Across the street from the train station, very close to the airport bus stop, about €90 with breakfast. A taxi to the airport is pretty inexpensive, too.

You would need to make reservations for the days you want to stay directly with the hotels. Do it as soon as you can. In Naples, I am always recommending Hotel Piazza Bellini. It is close to everything, has a great staff, nice comfy rooms, great showers, great views and beautiful courtyard. www.hotelpiazzabellini.com/en

smith,

Yes, you can stay in the same hotel as the tour, but as mentioned previously it would be a good idea to book as soon as possible. Also, you may or may not have to change rooms when the tour starts.

As you plan on visiting Pompeii after the tour and fly home from Naples, you might consider staying the last few days in Sorrento. You'll be issued a RS Italy guidebook as part of your tour package, and that will list reliable hotels in Sorrento. One hotel that you could have a look at is Hotel Il Nido. It's not right in town but has fantastic views and they provide a frequent, free Shuttle to town.

Getting from Rome to Sorrento may be a bit of an "adventure", depending on which transportation you use. The usual method is to take the high speed Freccia train from Rome to Naples and then transfer to the Circumvesuviana train for the final segment to Sorrento. The Circumvesuviana is a bit of a "graffiti laden clunker" but will get you to your destination. Watch your valuables though, as it has a bit of a reputation.

Depending on what time your flight departs Naples, you should be able to use the Curreri Viaggi Bus from Sorrento direct to Naples airport. Last time I checked the fare was €10 PP.

I'm sure you'll have a great time on the tour!

If you haven't yet, you will soon know your first and last tour hotels. As others have said, check directly with those hotels for rates and availability. It probably wouldn't hurt to mention that you're adding on to the RS tour days. If you email or telephone the hotel directly, you will often get a better rate than using the internet - even if it's the hotel's website, they usually use a booking service that charges them, and they pass the fees on to you.

It's also not a big deal to change hotels, if there's no availability or if you want something cheaper. You can drop your luggage at the tour hotel in the morning and be free for sightseeing until the tour starts. At the end, you can also leave your luggage with the hotel and move it when you're ready to check in at the other Rome hotel. In Venice you'll probably have a bit of walking from the vaporetto stop to the hotel. In Rome you can take a taxi, not expensive and the distances are usually short - just avoid going in rush hour.

I used Sorrento as a base for Pompeii and Naples and loved it. I was there in off-season. In high season, it may be too filled with tourists to be as pleasant. Since you're flying home from Naples, that sounds like the best place to be. You can day-trip to Sorrento and/or Salerno, as well as Pompeii and Herculaneum. Just depends on how long you want to stay.

That's the trouble with planning a trip to Italy, you just keep wanting to add more :-)

What time is your flight from Naples? That will determine if you can stay in Sorrento the night before, or will need to be in Naples. The other determinant is your budget. There is a bus that runs direct from Sorrento to the Naples airport (about €10), but if your plane is too early for that, you'll have to take a taxi (about €80-100).

I agree with the others. As soon as you get your first and last hotel names from RS, call or e-mail them directly, being SURE to mention that you're coming on a Rick Steves tour, and ask about availability and prices for staying a few days before or after. In addition to Chani's point about higher prices when using the website to book, many of us have had the experience of a hotel website not showing availability, but getting availability as well as better prices by booking direct with e-mail and mentioning that we got their hotel name from Rick Steves. There are also many reports of people who did this early and got to stay in the same hotel as the one where their tour started or ended, while others who waited to book were shut out and had to change hotels (not a tragedy, but less convenient).

Yes. You can stay at a hotel that's part of your tour. My wife and I are starting an RS tour in Rome, staying in Hotel Sonya. I emailed the hotel to tell them we'd like to start our stay a couple days early and that we were part of the RS tour. They were happy to accommodate us and assured us we'd be in the same room the whole time. RS recommends in his guidebook that you contact them directly. The EARLIER the better. : )

We are on the same tour on Oct.5. We emailed the hotel that our RS Tour is staying at in Venice 2 weeks ago requesting a 2night pre-stay & they were booked already. So we have booked a B&B until we meet up with our Tour Group.

We also emailed the Hotel in Rome asking for a 1night post-stay & we did get that at a RS discount in the same room.

We are going to take a train day trip to Orvieto the day the tour ends & staying the one more night in Rome.

We are then going to Sorrento for 6nights to see Pomeii, Herculaneum, Capri, etc - we've booked Villa Monica B&B which has amazing TripAdvisor Reviews (#2 in Sorrento). They have been so kind & helpful via email.

We are then returning to Florence for our final 4 nights (because we want more time there) to see Siena & take a WALKABOUT FLORENCE TOUR.

Thanks, everyone, for all of the input. Haven't contacted hotels yet, but feel confident now that there won't be a problem. Now we're just trying to figure out what it is we really want to do and can get done! So much to do, so little time...