Hello. I wanted to see if there were any other fellow travelers on this tour who use the forums. I see our tour is sold out so I wanted to start a thread to see if any of my fellow travelers wanted to say hello?
Always interested in learning about any pre and post trip plans you would like to share. This will be my third RS tour and have enjoyed both my Villages of Italy and Scandinavia trips.
Mark:
Sorry not going this year but have been on it in the past.
If you are looking for something different to do consider the Crazy Commie Tour out of Krakow. While everyone else went on a tour of the salt mines we drove around Krakow in a Soviet Era Trabant with a young guide. Our tour mates were all jealous as we have a blast.
Hi Mark,
We are going in mid-September. If possible, would love to hear about your experience. Are you doing the beer spa thing in the hotel in Prague? I also like the crazy commie tour idea.
Na zdravi!
Hi Mark -- we took this tour last summer and enjoyed it a lot! Definitely plan on several days in Prague prior to the start of the tour. There is so much to see and do there, and your days on tour won't be enough. We stayed in the Lesser Quarter prior to the start of the tour, and it gave us a whole different feel than that of Old Town. I'd recommend that.
If you have a lot of time prior to the tour, you might want to consider what we did -- flew into Vienna and spent 5 days there, then took a shuttle to Cesky Krumlov and spent 24 hours there, then took a bus to Prague. Vienna is a very easy city to navigate on your own, and our travel route minimized time in transit.
After the tour I would suggest you either plan on a couple of days in Ljubljana (it's a lovely small city and your time there on the tour will be quite limited) or do what we did and take a shared car service to Venice. Venice is only about 4 hours away if you go by car.
Free time on the tour: the interior of the Parliament Building in Budapest is amazing, but you can only see it on a guided tour. English tours sell out way in advance, so if you are interested in visiting on your free afternoon, book before you leave home. Or if you want to be more flexible, you can simply show up at Parliament and sign up for a tour in another language....since the main point of the tour is just seeing the amazing interior. We signed up for a French language tour. There was an English language tour offered at the same time. IN HINDSIGHT once we got through security and went to collect our headsets, we should have requested the English language headsets and just joined in on the English tour, since they were basically overlapping. I had not realized this was the case (and as someone who is reluctant to break the rules, didn't want to tag along on a tour that was sold out....but as both tours were pretty much in the same places most of the time, I could have easily done so.) We took a mid afternoon tour and then went to the Baths quite late in the afternoon. That ended up working out well, because our tour mates who went to the Baths earlier in the afternoon had to wait in line because they were at maximum capacity. By the time we arrived the crowd had thinned out quite a bit.
In Krakow, the Schindler Factory is well worth seeing. Very well done and very moving.
Hi Mark!
I've been monitoring this post to see if anyone else comments about being on our tour. Less than two months now! If I remember correctly, you're part of a group of 11 or 12? Excitement is building as we get closer. Until then, I'll be enjoying the influx of trip reports in the forums. It looks like the first of our BOEE tours starts tomorrow. Hoping to read a couple reports from 2019 BOEE travelers before it's our turn.
Hey Mark,
I'm headed out on the tour 1 week after yours. I can't wait to hear about it. Have fun!
;) Gretchen
Getting close to our departure next month with our tour info coming out on May 24th. Still looking for anyone else who may be going on this trip.
Hi Mark,
My husband (also a Mark) and I will be on your tour. We are getting excited and look forward to meeting you!
Nancy, thanks for the post. Looking forward to meeting both you and your husband in a few weeks. My wife Leslie a long with some fellow travelers will arrive on the Thursday before the tour. My wife and I are staying one extra day in Bled before we train to Munich. Is this your first RS tour?
It’s our third. We did a My Way Germany, Austria, Switzerland tour two years ago and Village Italy last year, which I can’t imagine anything being more amazing than that one. We met some great friends last year on our Italy tour who are going on the tour this year too. What about you?
This year will be our 3rd. We did Villages of Italy in 2017 and we had a fantastic time. Last summer we did Best of Scandinavia which was a great tour and helped my wife find some family roots. This year our we are are a group of 11. But 2of the couple I have not meet as they are friends of fellow travelers.
The tour schedule and roster should be out this Friday. I am looking forward to seeing who else is on the tour and where we are staying. I did review this years scrapbook submissions for our tour. If we get the same hotels it should be great.
Hi Mark,
I'm on your tour! Haha!!
Can't wait.....getting really excited about our upcoming adventure!
-Robin
That’s fantastic! See you soon at SFO for our pre-tour beer.
