I will be taking this tour in a few months and have a public bathroom question.
Based on a previous tour, when the bus stopped at a rest area, almost everyone used the WC, 1€ each time. On the Central Europe tour, countries have their own currency. For those of you who have taken this tour, is the bathroom situation the same? Any tips to avoid withdrawing cash for each country? Hold it and hope for the best?
TIA
I took this tour two years ago. I don’t remember too many pay toilets during the bus breaks, at least not as many as in Italy, Germany, etc. Usually the stops were at large convenience store type places.
For currency, we withdrew a small amount of local currency for each place from an ATM, maybe the equivalent of 50-75 dollars. Even though credit cards were accepted everywhere, we were still able to spend cash for small items and markets, etc.
Our guide was very good about recommending places to exchange unused local currency (paper only not coins) if anyone needed to.
I just came back from a Central Europe tour.
For our tour, WCs at rest areas were either free or to be paid for in Euro, except the one on Day 10 on the way from Budapest to Plitvice (costs 200 HUF).
Is that the one that does 5 countries in 15 days? Yup, a lot of currencies. You'll only be in Hungary a couple of days, but the toilet rate, when there is one, will be 200 to 500 forints. Most often, 300. Coins are 100 and 200 (and smaller), and the smallest paper is 500 ft. Sometimes you gotta have the coins, and sometimes there is an attendant that makes change.
Thank you all for the info. It is the 15-day tour. Sounds like I may be able to get by with Euro, except the 7-hour bus trip from Budapest to Plitvice. Tap to pay is so convenient... for everything but the WC. I was surprised at how little cash I actually needed last visit and didn't want to overpay on ATM withdrawals.
Really appreciate everyone's input about the output.
Day 1 and 2 Czech Koruna
Day 3 Czech Koruna and Polish Zloty
Day 4 Polish Zloty
Day 5 Polish Zloty
Day 6 Polish Zloty / Hungarian Forints
Day 7 thru 9 Hungarian Forints
Day 10 Hungarian Forints and Euro
Day 11 thru 15 Euro
I think people panic too much about the cost of getting money. Get 50zl, 200Kč, 5000ft and 10€. Might cost you $40. You might “lose” $4 in the fees (but you don’t have to) and you might go home with $5 equivalent in your pocket (but you don’t have to). So, the convenience cost you about $2 a day on the trip.
We took this tour two years ago and only drew a small amount of cash in each location. For the bathrooms, I believe we used the local currency we had on hand, or we bought a small item at the store and requested coins for the bathroom. Maybe in one place it took credit cards. At least a few times the tour guide had coins to give us, especially in the smaller, out of the way places.
I recently returned from a trip to Poland and every public toilet I used had a card reader so I used Apple Pay.
Our experience from last year was the same as Posted by Gumbo above on 06/25/25 01:40 PM.
Except I do not have the great recollection of that one particular stop being on of Day 10 - well done, Gumbo.
The excellent tour guide had also clearly mentioned this stop previously and that HUF would be required so we were prepared. Also he would mention when coming up to the last stop to spend this currency or that.
