Thanks for the new forum. An interesting topic may be, what new itineraries or suggested changes people would be interested in. I know when I look at the tours, some of the itineraries are not appealing or missing something.
My suggestion would be a Poland itinerary, maybe combined with Czech Republic or on its own. Another would be alpine Switzerland-North Italy-Austria- Bavaria.
Or maybe RS is willing to propose some for discussion.
Good topic, Stan!
I would like a Christmas Market trip, please.
I'd love to see a Village Germany tour.
Great topic. I would love additional village tours, my all time favorite tour is Village Italy. I think I much prefer smaller towns. Begin and end near large cities or in them.
Berlin City Tour? A second request for more "village" tours. Also more winter getaways? And yes to Alpine S-N I-A-B! Great ideas.
I too love the Village tours. I hope to see more of those as well!!!
By the way, there is a "My Way" tour that focuses on Alpine Europe (Switzerland/Austria/Germany, etc) if you are interested.
I would love for RS to add a NorthernGermany/Poland, etc tour.
How 'bout adding the smaller countries and/or cities to other tours (like Luxembourg).
A while back, someone suggested adding "second tier" tours for his major repeat customers who have done all the main cities and countries and want to explore farther afield. I think this is a great idea. I realize his company tends to cater to first-timers but I think there are enough repeat customers who can travel on their own, but prefer going on tour. I am a perfect example. Can I tour on my own and do I have enough skills and confidence to do it? Yes! However, I enjoy the learning part with the local guides and meeting new people on tour. I don't want to have to repeat a tour (or a particular city on a tour). There's only so many times I want to see the Mona Lisa, for example. And yes, I know I can leave the tour group and go off on my own for a while, but if I'm paying all that money, I don't want to have to skip stuff. If there were "second tier" tours I could have more choices. Oh well, just a thought. And yes, I do know how unlikely this is. :)
I'd like to see the Best of Turkey with more days in Istanbul; alternatively it could just merge better with the Istanbul City Tour.
Good topic. When I first found the RS ETBD I looked for a Poland tour.
So another vote for Poland. I suggest Berlin and Poland, or Stan's suggestion
Poland with Czech Republic or a Berlin-Poland-Czech Republic tour.
Great topic! I'd love to do a tour of alpine Switzerland-North Italy-Austria-Bavaria. I'd also like to see a tour of northern France with some 3 night stays so you can really get a feel for the area. Maybe 3 nights in Rouen with a full day trip to Giverny, 3 nights in Bayeux to see the D-Day sites, and a couple of 2-3 night stays in "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France" (The Most Beautiful Villages of France). I like the 13-14 day tour formats.
Totally agree with alpine tour, also more "My Way" tours and second tier tours. As a "vet" I would appreciate new cities and/or village tours. I'd love to see more of northern France plus western France. Not terribly interested in eastern Europe (have been to most of the "hot spots" already on the existing tours, and just returned from the Adriatic tour).
For those of you chiming in for an Alpine tour through the Swiss Alps, Bavaria, Northern Italy, Austria, etc, we've got one of those!
I would also like a Christmas Market tour!
I would also like to add my vote for more Village tours. Also, how about some tours that focus more on activities rather than sightseeing. What I enjoyed most during the RS tour I took were the days that were filled with interactive activities - the wine tasting, the cooking classes, shopping at the market for a picnic lunch, etc. Much more fun than an ABC tour. I know that the RS tours try to provide a mix of the two, but I'd prefer to have a majority of the interactive activities. Also, how about a "slow interactive tour." Again, I know RS likes to have "a vacation from vacation" day, but I would have preferred having had a few more of those days. I still liked the activities, but sometimes I wanted more time to enjoy the ambiance of the location we were visiting and to have more free time. Also eliminate if possible all one night hotel stays!
I wanted to comment on the interactive activities. I just returned from the Loire to the South of France tour and really enjoyed the 2 wine tastings. We also had the option of making (painting) a piece of leaded glass in Chartres. The guide let us know that the activity was available and about half of the tour members participated. It was a lot of fun, kind of rushed, but it was a good idea. Our guide also set up a bocce ball game on our free day and everyone showed up! It was a nice team building activity. It was these "extra" things that really made the tour guide and the tour special for me.
"Also, how about some tours that focus more on activities rather than sightseeing."
What a great idea! We, too, have done much of the major sightseeing, but would love to go on tours that focused on local activities.
We're going on the My Way Alpine tour in the Fall. I think that might be a good fit for us, but I'd still rather take an experience-focused tour if that were offered.
Another thought-a My Way Ireland? I think the My Ways are great for follow up tours (for lack of a better term) for those of us who have been on many of your more structured tours.
I'd like to see the opposite of the My Way tours. Finding places to stay, traveling from location to location, is the easy part. Finding or setting up the unique activities that the guided tours provide is the hard part!
Also, support the idea of village tours without the stops in the big cities. I'd like to do a France countryside tour, for example, without the stop in Paris…I love Paris, but can do that on my own and have several times.
( I second the suggestion for a Provence tour, village France, Village Germany and city tour Berlin)
Would like: more winter and late fall tour dates.
I forgot the one suggestion that first occurred to me: a combined London-Paris tour. I understand you can do the separate ones back to back, but I would love to have a combined one for 10 days or less.
We'd like a My Way Ireland tour because public transportation is not easy to use and the roads are narrow and difficult to drive.
A great additional subject area! I would like to see some tours specifically targeting some of us who have already done a number of RS tours and are comfortable on our own. However, a lot of smaller villages are not easy without a car. We also like the idea of a bit more time in each place to explore than most of the RS tours afford. The unique activities, as already suggested, such as winery visits for lunch, etc. cannot be done on your own. I am envisioning possibly primarily a "my way" type tour but pick up a few of the fun activities that need the group arrangement. Avoid the big cities, other to start and stop. Those are easy to handle on your own.
Stan: They did have a London/Paris 8 day tour, but only for a short while. Apparently it did not do well as they did away with the tour. But I can see why as there is so much to do in each city. I have been on both the London and Paris week long tours and you could easily design a Part II tour for each city and not repeat the same things on each tour.
They also used to have a week long Venice tour, but did away with that tour too! I had just started going on RS tours and would have loved to have taken that tour, but by the time I was able to go on the tour was it was no longer available. I wish they would bring that tour back as I would like to spend a full week in Venice. I really enjoy the week long tours. I hope they come out with some new week long tours in the future.
I love the idea of the Ireland "My Way" tour as well. Have been on my own, and public transportation not easy! But only thing that makes sense to me is to not necessarily include Dublin (except to meet up) since it's absolutely easy to see Dublin on your own and the public transporation is excellent there....
I'd also like to see more week-long trips maybe to piggy-back onto a two week tour. And new destinations! Lots of places in France aren't covered very well.....just one example! Iceland????
We would like to see the 7 day Best of Florence tour like you used to do.
I would like to have the opportunity to add a tour of the Azores, either before of after a Heart of Portugal tour.
I can only imagine the planning that has to go into a new tour-availability of hotel space, food, logistics, local guides, etc. So, recognizing this may be why we don't see many of these great ideas come to fruition, I would love a tour to the north of Greece. Also, there are enough delightful small towns in Italy that a Village Italy 2 should be doable.
I was traveling when this was originally posted, so only gave a short response. Since then, I've been thinking of all of the activities we've enjoyed while on RS tours. To me, these activities, rather than the big sights, are what make the tours so special. For those of us who have traveled quite a bit, a tour emphasizing experiences rather than sights would be a great addition. Some examples of our tour experiences: wine tasting, olive oil tasting, learning to play boules in Provence, watching sheep-herding dogs, cooking classes and demonstrations, truffle hunting, riding a canoe on the Dordogne, anything involving a funicular or gondola, luge ride, tour of facility where prsut is made, visit water buffalo farm, visits to schools, meeting with local politicians for a question and answer session, home visits with or without a meal, enjoying local musicians (adults/kids). I also so enjoy when our guide talks about his/her childhood and sometimes even their parents' childhoods in their country. We had a tour with an assistant guide along in which the two guides spent time discussing current thoughts on the EU in each of their countries. These are the things that so enrich a foreign experience to me and they are things that RS does very well. I know the cathedrals and museums are important to see, but, at this point, I'd jump at the chance to have an experience-rich tour.
I'm on the same page with Nancy. We love the personalized experiences of the RS tours and seem to get a lot of those on the Village tours. Love the olive oil tasting, wine tasting, truffle hunt and all of the out of the way times that we get to interact with very small villages, example the villagers that came to entertain us with their local dances. Great fun!
So, my conclusion from this discussion is that there are people interested in RS-style tours for more experienced travelers in addition to the first time visiting-a-country tours.
