Best of England tour reports

Me, too. I am also scheduled in September for this tour. My sister went in 2019 and just loved it. I'd like to hear from other folks. Did you get an email yesterday that the last hotel (in London) has changed?

I’m interested too! I’m signed up for the August 30 tour and am really looking forward to it. I did have trouble booking extra nights at the last hotel ( not RS fault) and finally managed it, but I’m hoping the tour is still scheduled to stay there.
I was on another RS tour in April and it was not my best experience after 14 tours. People were a little nervous about Covid and the guide was a tiny bit snappy with a lot of us. Not bad enough to turn me against the best tour company!

Laurie….we are on the BoEngland 6/19 and received an email over a month ago that our last hotel in London was changed…….have not received an email about hotel change since then.

Some observations from October 2019:

We took the last BoE tour in October 2019 with Mark Seymour guiding.

We were fortunate to make it to Pen-Y-Pass in Wales as the previous tour was unable due to weather/road conditions. We arrived 3 days in advance to visit Stonehenge, etc. and stayed 8 days afterwards in London to see the William Blake retrospective and the DaVinci drawings in the Queen's Gallery, among other things. The most unusual activity was meeting up with some of our friends at the Extinction Rebellion in Trafalgar Square which was the definition of peaceful protest and coalition.

We were surprised by the amount of green and the number of flowers to still be found over much of England and Wales. There's much less green and color in Michigan at that time of the year. It was surprisingly misty and drizzly much of time in nearly every location with the sun surprising us at opportune times. We enjoyed seeing "Hamilton" in London at the Victoria Palace Theatre and spent the last beautiful sunny day taking photos of ourselves at the top of the Eye.

I still remember a friendly conversation with a man in Keswick who was walking his unique Bedlington Terriers. I loved the dog friendly town.

We were very happy and rather surprised with almost all of the food we found during our time there. The Daquise Polish restaurant in London near the V&A Museum was really appreciated by my Czech husband.

Be prepared for cold super strong winds at Castlerigg Stone Circle and Stonehenge

Things we didn't like:

Problems with the Sheep on Sheep Street Hotel in Stow-on-the-Wold - First, our toilet seat was barely attached and fell off early in the evening. Then the first morning we could not obtain hot water in the shower and could not locate anyone to help. It turned out that they had an electronic booster that had been inadvertently turned off. I found a strange switch along a floorboard that was in an odd location. Voila! Still.....it was a weird morning and we missed breakfast and held the group up a few minutes...... Mark Seymour was sufficiently disappointed to hear about the problems that he discussed them immediately with their staff. Somehow we obtained the best room at the next hotel (Castle Hotel Wales in Convy) where we had the extension bay window room over the main entrance. That was rather nice and I'm sure that was Mark's intervention.

By the time we reached Keswick one lady caught a cold that swiftly infected more than 6 people. Some were still coughing during the farewell dinner.

"...and then the world ended..." as my doctor says

Chris,
I received an email about the change in hotel in London as well because of a contract with the government to house Afghan and Ukrainian refugees (yeah!!). I have contacted the hotel, but have not heard back. My brother and SIL who are joining me on the tour contacted them as well and have already heard back that there reservation has been attached to the new hotel. Good news, because we both booked through Expedia, at a much lower rate than the new hotel.

Silas Marner,
Thank you for your review. I had read your review on the site and reviews as far back as RS had on record. I know pre pandemic reviews were good and gave me lots of valuable information.
What I want to hear about now are post pandemic reviews. Thank you for your input, though😁

Thank you susie! There was such a dearth of post-pandemic reports. I was hoping a report from the very last pre-pandemic BoE could be somewhat helpful.

Thank you! Information is always helpful. Sounds like you had a great time.

We are also scheduled for this tour in September and have read the 3 May 1 reviews which are all negative. Hoping that someone who was on that tour or the next ones will chime in with their reports..

I read the reviews for that May 1st tour, and they definitely aren't good, but it seems the issues were guide connected.
I'm confident the RS office takes this seriously and will do what needs to be done to make other Best of England tours better.

Liz, you make a good point. It may have been a less than stellar tour guide or perhaps the tour members that reviewed had unrealistic expectations. I’d like to think it’s a one off.

Now that we’re closing in on the point of no return, I’ve decided to look forward to this trip with unbridled enthusiasm and anticipation. A great time will be had by all!

Where are the trip reports referenced by Susie, the OP?

thanks.

Emily,
Look up the Best of England tour and scroll down to “read more” and click on to “reviews”.

Thanks Susie

We were on the June 12th tour. It was absolutely fantastic! No one got Covid. The weather was great, mostly warm days, but never too hot, no rain, even in the Lake District. I know we were just plain lucky in many respects, but it was also well planned and executed with our terrific guide Lorraine.

aknight303
Thanks for your report. Glad to hear the trip was great.

I’d heard that Tom was the guide extraordinaire for the Best of England, and was hoping he was leading my tour. Now I hear about Lorraine. It’s just possible that ALL the guides on that tour are fab😜