Hi there.
During our EU trek in April, our time in Krakow happens to fall on Easter weekend. Not a lot open. We DO really want to get to Auschwitz though, and some tour companies appear to be open that Saturday. Just curious if anyone has a particularly excellent experience with any particular company? On Viator.com so many tours are listed, at various prices and I'm just wondering if the most expensive is the best way to go?
Thanks for any advice.
Did you already check if the camp is offering their tours?
We used Krakow Travel Time. https://www.krakowtraveltime.com/ They were very easy to correspond with and also provided our transportation from Budapest to Krakow and to the Krakow airport.
We hired Andrew Durman to drive us and then we took the official Auschwitz tour. Andrew is worth every cent, as he is a wealth of information and an incredible human being.
We'll be there last day or two of March, and we're driving in from Dresden and returning to Berlin. Then, we're flying EasyJet down to Budapest for almost nothing.
I would check Viator.com. They are a third party website with a lot of different tours for Auschwitz. I book through them and had a great tour for about $55.00, nice transportation and a very good guide.
I believe all tours of the camp are conducted by camp personnel, so the difference in tours will involve transportation and information imparted before you actually enter the camp. (I trust someone will correct me if I'm wrong about that.)
It's not particularly difficult to take a public bus from Krakow to Auschwitz, but I don't know whether bus frequency is reduced on holiday weekends.
When I was in Krakow during the summer of 2018, the advance tickets for Auschwitz were sold out for the next eight days. I would imagine April isn't the busiest month of the year in Krakow, but the Auschwitz ticket is something you'll want to nail down before you arrive in the city. Some tickets are held back for sale at the site, but the waiting area is uncovered, and I wouldn't count on dry, moderate-termperature weather in April.
Tickets for the Schindler Factory also sell out at least some of the time. As far as I know, they do not hold back tickets for sale at the factory; if there's a lot of demand, you'll just arrive to find a sign on the door, saying there are no tickets available for that day.
lulu, if you look into this, you will learn that all tours on the site MUST be conducted only by employees of the Auschwitz management. The product "Auschwitz tour" consists of how you get between Krakow and the two camps, and what your experience is on the journey.
Some people with rock bottom budgets use public transportation. Others hire a car and driver for a private trip (let's say, 1.5 hours) between their hotel and Auschwitz. In fact, the trip between Auschwitz and Birkenau is usually done on the proprietary shuttle bus, because the camp guide takes you there and says he/she will meet you at Birkenau, after the first, longer part of your (say) 3-hour tour. Even if you have a car and driver, the driver usually picks you up at Birkenau, after the second segment of the official tour.
My report is no better than anybody else's, but here it it:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/four-cities-in-poland-2019
Edit: "Auschwitz tour" product also includes the issue of whether they get you the official, timed entry tickets, or whether you get them yourself, online. It may or may not be that some executive-tour providers may have tickets for sold-out days. I have no actual data on that.
Just like other high-demand places (like the Anne Frank House or The Last Supper or The Statue of Liberty), the actual tickets are impossible to get on short notice for many months of the year.
Thank you everyone!
Your hotel may have a suggestion. We saw many companies advertising tours as we walked around but ended up having our hotel make arrangements. I don’t know the actual tour company but it was door to door and worked seamlessly. The guides lectured en route to Auschwitz where we were turned over to their own guides and then handed back at the end for the journey back to Krakow. We happened to stay at the Hotel Wielopole which we liked a lot. Safe travels.
