First time traveler! RS Tour Best of Venice, Florence and Rome

kaitlynca14, VFR was our first RSE tour. It was a great experience. A couple of things. Are you pricing airfare for a multi-city route, roundtrip via Denmark, or two one-way trips? We flew into Milan, spent a couple of days relaxing on Lake Como, then took the train to Venice from there. Our return was from Rome where the tour ends. This was on a multi-city fare, about what a roundtrip would have been to either Venice or Rome.

Take your RSE guidebook with you to figure out what you want to do in your free time. Standard advice is to arrive at least a day early before the tour started, to help deal with adjusting to the time zone (jet lag).

Hard to give advice on flights not knowing where you are flying from.

Is the bargain flight you found with the airline or from something like expedia?

Oh shoot sorry Joe! I’m flying from LAX! And it is multi city I went through air scanner since it was a resource shared on here! It would be a day layover from and to. But I’m okay with that since first day is jet lag, and last day I can tour Denmark. Also found really cheap ($40) hotels right next to Copenhagen so I figured all in all it’s probably worth it compared to the $1,000 airfare?

Also just got confirmed!! I am so so excited and ready to start getting prepped for next year!

RS is pretty quick in confirming reservations but if you don’t hear in a couple of days call the office. About your amazingly cheap flight, is this fare from an airline website or through a third party company like Expedia? It is recommended by just about everyone on this forum that you book direct with an airline from origin to destination on one ticket. Thus if anything goes wrong, say flight delay causing you to miss onward flight, for example, the airline has to get you on the next available flight at no charge to you and even pay for a hotel or meals if necessary. If it’s through a third party flight you are on your own for onward flights and other costs. Are you sure that is a round trip? It just seems too cheap but I am on the west coast of Canada and there is no such thing as a cheap flight to Europe!

The tour starts in Venice, so I would recommend flying into Venice and then spending a couple of days recovering from your flight and easing into the Italian vibe. Venice is a safe city for a single woman, just be careful of pickpockets. In crowds. Same applies to Florence and Rome.

Book your flight home from Rome, if you could squeeze a couple of extra nights there, so much the better!

Get hold of good guide books, not just Rick Steves but the Rough Guides are good for general knowledge of a country or city.

Have fun planning your trip.

Just read your latest post. Skyscanner is recommended as a place to find flights but then book with the airline for the reasons given above. What airlines did Skyscanner come up with? And what is your destination? Did you find the hotels on Denmark through Skyscanner or something like Booking.com? Again I will use booking.con to find a hotel and then book direct with hotel.

I love your enthusiasm 🙂 Congrats on deciding to see the world.

That was my first RS tour also, a great one. I suggest that you give yourself some days before it starts in Venice, and after it ends in Rome, if you can. There's much more to see in those cities than what the tour covers, and if you're going to go through the cost and discomfort of those long flights you might as well make the most of it in Europe.

You're way early to be booking flights or other arrangements for a trip next April. That certainly looks like a great airfare, especially if it's coming directly from the airline and not from a consolidator or third-party website. If it gives you some extra time in Denmark, so much the better. But I wouldn't book anything else until maybe October, six months out from the actual trip. Air fares will go up and down, your plans and choices may change. Once you're confirmed on the tour the RS people will tell you which hotels it will start and finish in. If you want to book additional nights at those hotels, pay a rate that allows you to cancel or change up to a short period before the actual dates.

For me and many others on this forum, planning trips is almost as much fun as taking them. You have plenty of time to figure things out, and you can get lots of help here with specific, focused questions. Enjoy the planning and then the trip!

Hi @ianlubber!

Right?? It felt too good to be true! But it’s the same price through air scanner, Expedia, and I was going to book it through chase since I have the travel card and everything was the same price. It’s through SAS, and it does have some hardcore layovers (24 hours) but I’m okay with that since I take it as an opportunity to check out somewhere else I’ve never been!

However it is non-refundable, which does have me a little weary.

If you're worried about the non refundable status, buy some travel insurance. Lots of posts here on evaluating the risks one is willing to absorb.
Have a great trip!

If you are confirmed on the tour there is absolutely no reason to wait purchasing your airfare if it is a good price and a routing you like. There is no magic "Time" for this, only that you find what you consider to be a fair deal. In your case, you feel like you have a great deal, so even better.

Do purchase through the airline or at least a reputable company such as expedia. I just reread your post and Chase works as well.